Showing results by narrator "Aimee Horne" in All Categories

Psychologist Margot Scott has a picture-perfect life: a nice house in the suburbs, a husband, two children and a successful career. On a warm spring morning Margot approaches one of her clients on a busy train platform. He is looking down at his phone, with his duffel bag in hand as the train approaches. That’s when she slams into his back and he falls in front of the train. Margot’s clients all lie to her, but one lie cost her family and freedom.

On the eve of the global lockdown, Don Barlow opens the door of his old beachside cottage to find a pretty girl with pink-tipped hair, claiming to have nowhere to go. He allows her entry, and so begins a mystery set in unprecedented times: with the virus raging outside their home, the girl cannot be asked to leave, but what does he risk by having her stay?

A dark, compelling new thriller from best-selling authors Sarah A. Denzil and Anni Taylor. Young backpackers Gemma and Hayley arrive at a remote fruit farm in Australia’s Northern Territory, out of money and desperate for work. The weeks go on, a blur of fruit picking, parties, campfires and wading beneath waterfalls in the nearby hot springs. Until the night the girls find themselves on a dark highway, bruised and bloodied. Senior Detective Bronwen McKay and psychologist Megan Arlotti question the terrified girls.

As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew hits, they must live for four weeks and stay within a 5km radius. When Lou’s son Samuel doesn’t arrive home by nightfall she begins to panic. He doesn’t answer his phone. He doesn’t message. His social media channels are inactive. Lou is out of her mind with worry, but she can’t go to the police, because she has secrets of her own. Secrets that Samuel just can’t find out about. Lou must find her son herself and bring him home.

Abigail Sorensen has spent her life trying to unwrap the events of 1990. It was the year she started receiving random chapters from a self-help book called The Guidebook in the post. It was also the year Robert, her brother, disappeared on the eve of her 16th birthday. She believes the absurdity of The Guidebook and the mystery of her brother's disappearance must be connected. Now 35, owner of The Happiness Café and mother of four-year-old Oscar, Abigail has been invited to learn the truth behind The Guidebook at an all-expenses-paid retreat.

Former social worker Elle Castillo is the host of a popular true-crime podcast that tackles cold cases of missing children in her hometown. After four seasons of successful investigations, Elle decides to tackle her white whale: the Countdown Killer, or TCK. Twenty years ago, TCK established a pattern of taking and ritualistically murdering girls, each a year younger than the last. No one’s ever known why - why he stopped abruptly with his 11-year-old victim, or why he followed the ritual at all.

Lucy Crighton has moved back in with her gregarious parents - forced to deal with her mum's obsession with Cher, her father's unsolicited advice and her empty bank account. Luckily, she has her crazy best friend to cushion reality with wild nights at the local hotel and escapades in Japanese mud-baths.... Then there's the next-door neighbour's dashing son, who she has absolutely no interest in...well, maybe just a little.

The first murder is brazen, violent and ritualistic. Committed in the victim’s home, the killer leaves few clues as to their motive or their identity. All the police know is that the perpetrator entered the house and impaled the art collector on one of his own priceless sculptures before melting away into the night. Inspector Eric Ringer is desperate for Dr Jane Halifax to profile the killer, but Jane is cautious. She and Eric have a past … plus, she hates these kinds of cases; a psychopath is a psychopath, any way you slice it.

Within hours of arriving in New York City, Jane is dragged into a case and finds herself up against one of the toughest minds she’s ever had to crack: a Silicon Valley billionaire whose ex-business partner has just been murdered. Sarah Noble is the darling of the tech world–the genius behind an AI defence system that hijacks enemy missiles. But when Sarah’s estranged business partner is killed in a mysterious plane crash, suspicion immediately falls on one of the few people who could hack the plane’s guidance system and had a motive to do so: Sarah herself.

Initially comforted by unlikely spectres from past cases, Jane is unaware of everyone else’s concerns: the police who believe she was deliberately run off the road; a lawyer whose files were in her car at the time of the accident – files he should never have lent her; her neurosurgeon who fears a relapse; and her partner, Tim, who has to cope with the fact Jane remembers almost nothing of the last two years – including their relationship.

When Santa crashes his sleigh on Christmas Eve, some of his presents are scattered along a beach. It's up to Clancy and Cobba, a couple of local quokkas, to find the owners of the presents and deliver them before Christmas morning. A challenging task is made even more difficult when other inhabitants of Rottnest Island find out about the quest, and are keen to get their hands on the gifts.

Kylie and Clancy must find an old priceless artefact that contains secret information about quokkas. But they are not the only ones on the treasure hunt. If they don't find the treasure first, disaster will fall upon the quokkas of Rottnest Island.

Rottnest Island is home to one of the world's cutest and happiest animals - the quokka. Clancy the quokka is a youngster and is determined to discover all the wonders of Rottnest, or Rotto, as the locals like to call it. He gets more than he bargained for when he becomes trapped in a picnic basket on the back of a bicycle and taken far from home. An incredible island adventure ensues involving seagulls, peacocks, a few quokkas, and a speedy stingray. Clancy must summon his courage in order to save some very young quokkas from a few bullies, and find his way back home.

Fabulously narrated by Aimee Horne (the voice of Cottontail in Peter Rabbit 2), Kylie and Clancy's thrilling adventure is bound to entertain the whole family. A school trip to Rottnest Island becomes an action-packed adventure when Kylie meets Clancy the quokka. Clancy shares the amazing secrets of the quokka world with Kylie and enlists her help to save the quokka clan from disaster.

In this wise and illuminating essay, Laura Tingle looks at leadership, economics, history and more. Competitiveness has marked our relationship from its earliest days. In the past half-century, both countries have remade themselves amid shifting economic fortunes. New Zealand has been held up as a model for everything from tax reform to the conduct of politics to the response to COVID-19. Tingle considers everything from Morrison and Ardern as national leaders to the different ways each country has dealt with its colonial legacy.

2020 began with fire storms raging through the country, followed by floods and then a global pandemic that has changed how Australians think, feel and live. We all experienced this year differently, but one thing rings true for all us: this is a year we won't forget. This anthology brings together original work from a diverse collection of Australian voices, from writers to scientists, journalists to historians, all expressing what 2020 meant to them.