Showing results by narrator "Taryn Ryan" in All Categories

Caroline twitches aside her curtains to see the new family moving in. A mother – beautifully dressed in expensive clothes – and two young children. Where is her husband, she wonders? And why are they moving in to the smallest house on the street? They really don’t seem the type. But Caroline believes it’s important to be welcoming. It’s important to know everything that’s happening on West Street.

My hand trembles as I stare at the anonymous text. On this sunny Saturday morning, our twin ten-year-old boys were playing in the park just down our tree-lined street. But only one of them has come home… and it’s all my husband’s fault. I race to Leo’s study and demand answers. As his face turns white, I know: one of his affairs has turned deadly. I always smell the unfamiliar perfume on his shirt. I try to pretend we are a happy family, for the sake of the children… but now, my child is in terrible danger.

They find her just as the sun is beginning to rise in the early morning mist. They had begun at dawn, the group of searchers keen to get going. A missing child spurred everyone on. In the end, it was a flash of color, a bright neon pink that caught her eye. They had been looking for pink. Nothing tests your faith like being a mother. The first time your children walk to school alone, their first sleepover, when they finally fly the nest. As a parent, you have to believe that everything will be ok.

Every family has secrets, and on the hottest day of the year, the truth is about to come out. As a tragedy unfolds behind closed doors, the dawn chorus is split by the wail of sirens. And one by one the families who tried so hard to welcome the Wests begin to realise: Hogarth Street will never be the same again.

Twelve years ago, school friends Sofia, Ellie and Rose made a vow. They promised never to talk about that fateful night. Never to tell anyone what they did. Since then, they’ve all followed very different paths but as they come together to celebrate Ellie’s destination wedding it promises to be a weekend to remember. It is meant to be the event of the season, but as things start to go wrong, they suspect someone is trying to punish them.

If you passed Alice on the street, you couldn’t help but smile. At how she holds hands with her husband, Jack, who she has been with since she was at university. At the way she admires her three boys, the center of her universe. But if you looked very closely, you’d see how tightly she holds Jack’s hand, afraid to let go. You’d see how carefully she watches her boys, scared to look away. She has told Jack that she ran away from home when she was younger - but she didn’t tell him the whole story.

Tinsel Munroe has busted her guts to get where she is. Yet her dream of working in radio hasn’t turned out to be everything she hoped it would. Sure, she has her own show—aptly titled The Graveyard Shift—where she celebrates the sounds of cult-cinema, but the wage is barely enough to cover her rent and the midnight hours are putting a strain on her relationship with her boyfriend. Even after three years at Melbourne’s coolest station, she’s seemingly no closer to a prime-time slot.

I stare at the photo of my beautiful daughter. Her hair is shining and her face is lit up with a smile. The man with her looks so happy too. But my mother’s instinct is screaming. I know something is terribly, terribly wrong. And I know what I have to do… I wish I could hold her tight. See if she still wears the same perfume she always wore. But my daughter blames me for her father’s death. She won’t even talk to me… I just know she isn’t really safe with her boyfriend, Garth. I will keep my distance and I will just watch her. For now.

"Your son is missing," they say, and life as I know it is over. "Where would he go?" the police ask. "Where would he be?" my daughter begs. My heart races as images flash in my mind. The cabin we rent every autumn, surrounded by fiery-red maple trees. Voices raised. Tears falling. A marriage falling apart. And worst of all my husband telling our child, Theo, to run. The rest is a blank in my memory. If I close my eyes I can almost see it. A betrayal that has left me alone, in tatters, grieving for what we had.

Kate Burns grows up wanting attention from her Ma, but her Ma wants only money and Kate learns how to get both. She and her childhood friend, Lacey, run kissing lessons for cash in the janitor’s closet of Fenbrook High, and just like that, they find themselves in the sex work industry. From there, they go on to work at The Purple Panther, a strip club in Auckland. When Ma dies of cancer, Kate discovers that the men her Ma was always inviting over to their home were, in fact, clients. Ma was no stranger to sex work either.

Verity Fassbinder has her feet in two worlds. The daughter of one human and one Weyrd parent, she has very little power herself, but does claim unusual strength and the ability to walk between one world and the other as a couple of her talents. A rarity, she is charged with keeping the peace, and ensuring the Weyrd remain hidden. But now Sirens are dying, illegal wine made from the tears of human children is for sale—and in the hands of those who hold to old, dangerous ways—and someone has released an unknown and terrifyingly destructive force on the streets of Brisbane.

When I begin to receive threatening messages, one thing becomes clear: Cassandra wants me out of her son’s life, and she will do anything to get what she wants. Including destroying me. But that’s okay. No matter what she does, I’m confident that Miles and I will be forever. Because I know Cassandra’s darkest secret. The one she’ll do absolutely anything to keep. I have a plan, while she has no idea who she’s dealing with. And by the time my darling mother-in-law realizes, it will be far too late for her to run…

It’s the phone call every mother dreads. I’m climbing into the car after a trip to the grocery store. As the engine starts, my phone rings. It’s my stepdaughter, Shelby, who is babysitting my three-year-old Millie. "I only went upstairs for a second," she says through her sobs. "She’s gone." When the police turn up, Shelby’s story starts to unravel. What is she hiding? Then I get a message saying, "Your husband is not who you think he is." Suddenly, my family feel like strangers. Everyone has a secret - even me.

I gaze at my husband’s once handsome face, so still and pale in the hospital bed. The doctors say I should keep talking. He might be able to hear me even after the terrible accident that left him fighting for his life. But all I have to whisper to my husband is this: "I know what you did."

From the outside the parents of the kindergarten class at Darley Heights primary school seem to have it all. Living in the wealthy Sydney suburbs, it's a community where everyone knows each other - and secrets don't stay secret for long. The big date in the calendar is the school's annual fundraising trivia night, but when the evening gets raucously out of hand, talk turns to partner-swapping. Initially scandalised, it's not long before a group of parents make a reckless one-night-only pact. But in the harsh light of day, those involved must face the fallout of their behaviour.

Elizabeth is Joe’s foster mother, but she loves him like her own. The five-year-old, who adores superheroes and watching the birds outside, is the child she has dreamed of. As she looks into the garden, where he was playing just moments ago, her heart feels like it has been ripped from her chest. She was meant to save Joe from his birth mother who almost harmed his chances at life. The woman who has been trying to desperately get him back. She was meant to protect Joe from her husband. The man who, right now, lies to the police, saying he was making breakfast when Joe disappeared.

I am cooking spaghetti, his favourite, while he plays in the garden. But when I look up, he’s gone. I call the police, my hands shaking so much that I hit the wrong digits twice. "My son is missing." When the police turn up, I’m trapped in the web of my lies. I have hidden the truth from eight-year-old Riley, my little boy who loves climbing trees and always has scraped knees. I have hidden my secret from everyone.

I never thought I would end up here. Alone, in a cold one-bedroom apartment, only seeing my precious daughter once a week. Another woman is living the life that was once mine. I wish I was still married to my ex-husband, the love of my life. I dream of tucking my five-year-old child into her ballerina bed sheets every night. I miss living in a beautiful house, the perfect family home, with a winding staircase and a sprawling garden. I’d do anything to be with my family again. To start over and prove to them that I’ve changed, that I won’t lose control like before.

Her chest tightens, her heart speeding up. The kitchen is chaos. She steps on something hard, and looks down. Toy dinosaurs are scattered everywhere. But her son is nowhere–her baby boy is gone.

She knows everything about you… but can you trust her? I walk in to my interview with Ava Green and carefully hand over my application. It’s all made up, of course, but Ava doesn’t have to know that. There is so much worry in her blue eyes. Her phone pings with constant messages and a small stain marks her crisp shirt. Breakfast with her two little girls before heading out to this high-flying job every morning can’t be easy. Ava needs me, I think. More than anything.