Book picks similar to
Where the River Runs by Fleur McDonald
australian
fleur-mcdonald
australian-authors
romance
Rose River
Margareta Osborn - 2015
Take one city girl - and drop her into the back of beyond...Housesitting in rural Burdekin's Gap, high up in the East Gippsland Mountains, is not an obvious career move for a PR executive like Jaime Hanrahan. But, hey, retrenchment is a kicker. Plus she's determined not to spend Christmas in Melbourne with her friends, who still have company cars and six-figure salaries, or with her mother, Blanche, who has remarried too soon after her father's death.However, it turns out that Burdekin's Gap is a little more remote than Jaime had anticipated, the house is in the middle of a cattle station, and the handsome manager, Stirling McEvoy, doesn't appreciate a new farmhand in Jimmy Choos and Sass & Bide cut-offs. Soon Jaime is fending off stampeding cows, town ladies wielding clipboards, sheep that think they are goats, nude sportsmen and one very neurotic cat. So why does she feel like she's falling in love . . . with the life, with the breathtaking landscape, and with one infuriating cowboy?
Bruny
Heather Rose - 2019
Daesh has a thoroughfare to the sea and China is Australia's newest ally. When a bomb goes off in remote Tasmania, Astrid Coleman agrees to return home to help her brother before an upcoming election. But this is no simple task. Her brother and sister are on either side of politics, the community is full of conspiracy theories, and her father is quoting Shakespeare. Only on Bruny does the world seem sane. Until Astrid discovers how far the government is willing to go.Bruny is a searing, subversive, brilliant novel about family, love, loyalty and the new world order.
One More Song
Nicki Edwards - 2017
Now he's the star of Melbourne's hottest musical, and home is wherever the next standing ovation is - why bother going home to visit his parents when his dad couldn't care less about his success?Meanwhile, nothing much has changed for Edwina in the last decade, which is exactly how she likes it. Eddie adores her nursing job and Yallamba community - she can't imagine living anywhere else. And even if she wanted to, she could never leave her beloved grandparents, who raised her and love her like their very own daughter. She's not going to abandon them in their old age. Not for anything.So when Harry and Eddie bump into each other on one of Harry's flying visits home, their instant mutual attraction seems as pointless as it is intense. There's no way they could ever work it out... Is there?
The Fifth Letter
Nicola Moriarty - 2017
. .
Joni, Deb, Eden, and Trina have been best friends since high school, sharing a bond that has seen them through their teenage years and into adulthood. But now, time and circumstance is starting to pull them apart as careers, husbands, and babies get in the way. As their yearly vacation becomes less of a priority—at least for three of the women—how can Joni find a way to draw the four of them back together?
Four secrets . . .
During a laughter and wine-filled night, the women dare one another to write anonymous letters, spilling their deepest, darkest secrets. But the fun game turns devastating, exposing cracks in their lives and the friendships they share. Each letter is a dark confession revealing shocking information. A troubled marriage? A substance abuse problem? A secret pregnancy? A heartbreaking diagnosis?
Five letters . . .
Late on one of their last nights together, after the other three have gone to bed, Joni notices something in the fireplace—a burnt, crumpled, nearly destroyed, sheet of paper that holds the most shattering revelation of all. It is a fifth letter—a hate-filled rant that exposes a vicious, deeply hidden grudge that has festered for decades. But who wrote it? Which one of them has seethed with resentment all these years? What should Joni do?Best friends are supposed to keep your darkest secrets. But the revelations Joni, Deb, Eden and Trina have shared will ripple through their lives with unforeseen consequences . . . and things will never be the same.
Whitsunday Dawn
Annie Seaton - 2018
Perfect for fans of Di Morrissey. When Olivia Sheridan arrives in the Whitsundays as spokesperson for big mining company Sheridan Corp, it should be a straightforward presentation to the town about their proposed project. But when a handsome local fisherman shows her what ecological impact the proposal will have, Olivia is forced to question her father's motives for the project.Struggling with newly divided loyalties, Olivia is thrown further into turmoil when she is mistaken for a woman who disappeared more than sixty years before. When it becomes clear that Captain Jay is also keeping secrets, Olivia realises that there is more to these sunshine–soaked islands than she ever expected.Seeking to uncover the truth, Olivia is drawn into a dangerous game where powerful businessmen will stop at nothing to ensure their plan goes ahead, even if that means eliminating her…Against the epic Far North Queensland landscape, this is the story of two women, separated by history, drawn to Whitsunday Island where their futures will be changed forever.
Cold Fear
Suzanne Brandyn - 2013
When she regains consciousness, her daughter is missing.As the police widen their futile search, Macy struggles to pick up the pieces of an unimaginable life. Urged to take a break she heads to an isolated cabin with a girlfriend to recuperate so she can continue searching, only to face her worse nightmare - times ten.Trapped by a man she believed dead, he demands she play a game. She runs, he hunts. There is no place to hide...
No Job for a Girl
Meredith Appleyard - 2017
Everyone has told her that it's no job for a girl, but this isn't the first time she's had to prove her mettle. Project adviser Alex McKinley is happy to be as far away from the city as he can get. Recently divorced, he's reassessing where he went wrong. Alex has nothing against women specifically. He'd just rather they weren't working on his construction site, sharing his office, invading his space.In the close confines of the desert camp, anything can happen, and Leah soon finds herself the centre of attention - from bothersome bureaucrats to injured workers and hordes of isolated men. But it is one man in particular who pushes her to her limits . in more ways than one.
The Lost Man
Jane Harper - 2018
They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects…Dark, suspenseful, and deeply atmospheric, The Lost Man is the highly anticipated next book from the bestselling and award-winning Jane Harper, author of The Dry and Force of Nature.
The Banksia Bay Beach Shack
Sandie Docker - 2020
Stories get twisted, truths become warped, history is rewritten.MYSTERIESWhen Laura discovers an old photo of her grandmother, Lillian, with an intriguing inscription on the back, she heads to the sleepy seaside town of Banksia Bay to learn the truth of Lillian’s past. But when she arrives, Laura finds a community where everyone seems to be hiding something.SECRETSVirginia, owner of the iconic Beach Shack café, has kept her past buried for sixty years. As Laura slowly uncovers the tragic fragments of that summer so long ago, Virginia must decide whether to hold on to her secrets or set the truth free.LIESYoung Gigi and Lily come from different worlds but forge an unbreakable bond – the ‘Sisters of Summer’. But in 1961 a chain of events is set off that reaches far into the future. One lie told. One lie to set someone free. One lie that changes the course of so many lives. Welcome to the Banksia Bay Beach Shack, where first love is found and last chances are taken. A moving and heartfelt story by the bestselling author of The Kookaburra Creek Café and The Cottage At Rosella Cove.Praise for Sandie Docker:‘Docker soars from the absolute heart’ Australian Women’s Weekly ‘The best of the best of heart-wrenching yarns.’ Woman’s Day
The Nowhere Child
Christian White - 2018
Twenty-six years earlier, Sammy Went, a two-year old girl vanished from her home in Manson, Kentucky. An American accountant who contacts Kim is convinced she was that child, kidnapped just after her birthday. She cannot believe the woman who raised her, a loving social worker who died of cancer four years ago, crossed international lines to steal a toddler.On April 3rd, 1990, Jack and Molly Went’s daughter Sammy disappeared from the inside their Kentucky home. Already estranged since the girl’s birth, the couple drifted further apart as time passed. Jack did his best to raise and protect his other daughter and son while Molly found solace in her faith. The Church of the Light Within, a Pentecostal fundamentalist group who handle poisonous snakes as part of their worship, provided that faith. Without Sammy, the Wents eventually fell apart.Now, with proof that she and Sammy are in fact the same person, Kim travels to America to reunite with a family she never knew she had. And to solve the mystery of her abduction—a mystery that will take her deep into the dark heart of religious fanaticism where she must fight for her life against those determined to save her soul…
The Hunted
Gabriel Bergmoser - 2020
. .and the nightmare begin?Frank owns a service station on a little-used highway. His granddaughter, Allie, is sent to stay with him for the summer, but they don't talk a lot.Simon is a dreamer and an idealist, in thrall to the romance of the open road and desperately in search of something.Maggie is the woman who will bring them together, someone whose own personal journey will visit unimaginable terror on them all. . .'With echoes of Deliverance and Battle Royale, the Australian outback-set The Hunted is a truly terrifying, breathlessly exciting novel. It gut-punches you in the first few pages and doesn't let you recover until the final, thrilling climax. An extraordinary book.' M. W. CRAVEN
What readers are saying:
'A high octane roller-coaster of a novel, brilliantly written with strong characters to cheer for. Just don't read it before going to sleep like I did.''This type of horror/action thriller isn't my usual thing but boy, did I love this book.''This entire book was just pure, fast-paced tension and I loved every insane page of it.''I'd say it's a hard book to put down, but a couple of times I found the suspense heightened enough that I needed a break. That's how good it was.''Even the squeamish would find it difficult to put this book down for very long.'
Boy Swallows Universe
Trent Dalton - 2018
It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps throwing obstacles in the way - not least of which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane drug dealer.But if Eli's life is about to get a whole lot more serious. He's about to fall in love. And, oh yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol on Christmas Day, to save his mum.A story of brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows Universe will be the most heartbreaking, joyous and exhilarating novel you will read all year.
The Right Place
Carla Caruso - 2018
Perfect for readers who love The Missing Pieces of Us by Fleur McDonald and Josephine Moon. With her dreams of dominating Melbourne's fashion scene in tatters, Nella Martini has returned to the last place she wants to be – Torrente Blu, the market garden inherited from her late nonna. She just needs to clean up the property, sell it quickly, and avoid run-ins with her neighbour: surly Adrian Tomaso. But when Nella comes across her nonna's cookbook things start to change. The place, with its endless tomato plants and gallons of olive oil in storage, gets under her skin, as does Adrian with his passion for this life. But her dreams have always meant being anywhere but here – haven't they? Or has the right place been here all this time? For Esta Feliciano in the 1950s, the right place was her Italian village. But in search of a better life than war-torn Italy has to offer, her husband has moved Esta and their daughter to this alien country, settling on a small, flat piece of land that he calls Torrente Blu. Can Esta come to grips with the harsh Australian sun and strange culture? Woven with traditional Italian recipes, The Right Place is the heartfelt story of two women's journeys, as they discover how the right place to call home can be where you make it...
The Painted Sky
Alice Campion - 2015
The result is a captivating rural novel, brimming with romance, mystery and suspense.Nina never knew what happened to her father, the celebrated artist Jim Larkin. One minute he was her devoted dad, the next he'd disappeared without trace. Seventeen years later, she's still haunted by the mystery.Until a call from outback Wandalla changes everything.At first, Nina's inheritance of a waterless property and a farmhouse stuffed with junk seems more like a burden than a gift. But this was her father's childhood home – and possibly her last chance to discover the truth.So what is the local solicitor, Harrison Grey, not telling her as he hands over the keys? Why does the area's wealthiest resident, Hilary Flint, seem to hate her so much? What is the significance of the gold locket with cryptic engravings that Nina always wears?And why, on top of everything, is she inexplicably drawn to her soon-to-be-married neighbour, Heath Blackett?
Fetish
Tara Moss - 1999
When she travels to Sydney on assignment and finds her best friend murdered, she soon discovers a deadly puzzle of suspicious photographers, hired thugs, mysterious lovers and the handsome, jaded Detective Andy Flynn investigating the Stiletto Murders - the most violent serial killings Australia has ever known. In her quest to uncover the truth behind her best friend's murder, Mak falls headlong into a deadly game of cat and mouse, unaware she has become the obsession of a sadistic psychopath. When a photo from her portfolio disappears, her borrowed flat is ransacked and Andy Flynn suddenly goes underground, Mak knows she must run. But where can she go and to whom can she turn? Mak has scratched the seedy underbelly of a foreign city and is driven into a corner, an evil place where, for her own well-being and state of mind, she must suspect everyone and everything... The first book in the Mak Vanderwall series, FETISH is followed by SPLIT, COVET, HIT, SIREN and ASSASSIN.