The Proxy Bride
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Narrated by:
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Lucia Mastrantone
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By:
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Zoe Boccabella
About this listen
In 1939, Giacinta sets sail from Italy to Australia. Decades later, a granddaughter discovers the true story of her family.
Imagine marrying someone you've never met ...
When Sofie comes to stay with her grandmother in Stanthorpe, she knows little of Nonna Gia's past. In the heat of that 1984 summer, the two clash over Gia's strict Italian ways and superstitions, her chilli-laden spaghetti and the evasive silence surrounding Sofie's father, who died before she was born. Then Sofie learns Gia had an arranged marriage. From there, the past begins to reveal why no-one will talk of her father.
As Nonna Gia cooks, furtively adding a little more chilli each time, she also begins feeding Sofie her stories. How she came to Australia on a 'bride ship', among many proxy brides, knowing little about the husbands they had married from afar. Most arriving to find someone much different than described.
Then, as World War II takes over the nation, and in the face of the growing animosity towards Italians that sees their husbands interned, Gia and her friends are left alone. Impoverished. Desperate. To keep their farms going, their only hope is banding together, along with Edie, a reclusive artist on the neighbouring farm and two Women's Land Army workers. But the venture is made near-impossible by the hatred towards the women held by the local publican and an illicit love between Gia and an Australian, Keith.
The summer burns on and the truth that unfolds is nothing like what Sofie expected ...
The author of Mezza Italiana brings to life a unique point of migrant women's untold experience, in a resonant novel of family, food and love.
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Story
It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met - she's passionate, artistic, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has only read only one book in his life, the two soon discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife - and still missing her sweet son, Peter - Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy.
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Listener beware
- By Little old lady from Iowa on 06-11-23
By: Robert Hillman
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Vanishing Falls
- A Novel
- By: Poppy Gee
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Deep within the lush Tasmanian rainforest is the remote town of Vanishing Falls, a place with a storied past. The town’s showpiece, built in the 1800s, is its Calendar House - currently occupied by Jack Lily, a prominent art collector and landowner; his wife, Celia; and their four daughters. The elaborate, eccentrically designed mansion houses one masterpiece and 52 rooms - and Celia Lily isn’t in any of them. She has vanished without a trace.… Joelle Smithton knows that a few folks in Vanishing Falls believe that she’s simple-minded.
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OK Story
- By Cindy House on 12-21-21
By: Poppy Gee
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Pearl in a Cage
- By: Joy Dettman
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 20 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save her, but the baby lives.
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Pearl in a Cage
- By Verita on 06-16-17
By: Joy Dettman
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Recipes for Love and Murder
- A Tannie Maria Mystery
- By: Sally Andrew
- Narrated by: Sandra Prinsloo
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Tannie Maria (Tannie meaning Auntie, the respectful Afrikaans address for a woman older than you) is a middle-aged widow who likes to cook - and eat. She shares her culinary love as a recipe columnist for the local paper - until The Gazette decides its readers are hungrier for advice on matters of the heart rather than ideas for lunch and dinner. Tannie Maria doesn't like the change but soon discovers she has a knack - and a passion - for helping people.
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Love this series!
- By Heather on 01-02-23
By: Sally Andrew
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Garden Spells
- By: Sarah Addison Allen
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers.
Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
Together again in the house they grew up in, the Waverley sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy - if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom - or with each other.
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I so want to give it 5 stars...!!!!
- By Joihelene on 10-09-10