Historical Fiction audiobooks

Fly Away Peter

By: David Malouf

Narrated by: Paul English

Length: 4 hours

Abridged: No

For three very different people brought together by their love for birds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. In another hemisphere civilisation rushes headlong into a brutal conflict. Life there is lived from moment to moment. Inevitably, the two young men – sanctuary... Read more

The Rector's Daughter

By: Jean Fullerton

Narrated by: Charlie Sanderson

Length: 12 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

Charlotte, daughter of Reverend Percival Hatton, has been content to follow the path laid out for her. Charlotte has an understanding with Captain Nicolas Paget – every inch the gentleman – who she expects someday to marry. But then she meets Josiah Martyn, and everything changes ... A driven and ambitious Cornish mining engineer, and the... Read more

The Invitation

By: Belinda Alexandra

Narrated by: Caroline Lee

Length: 15 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

Sometimes the ties that bind are the most dangerous of all ... Paris, 1899. Emma Lacasse has been estranged from her older sister for nearly 20 years, since Caroline married a wealthy American and left France. So when Emma receives a request from Caroline to meet her, she is intrigued. Caroline invites Emma to visit her in New York, on one... Read more

A Royal Abduction

By: Arthur W. Upfield

Narrated by: John Derum

Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

During a state visit to Australia in 1928, Her Royal Highness Princess Natalie, heiress to the throne of Rolandia, is abducted from the transcontinental train at Cook on the Nullarbor Plain by a gang lead by two brilliant Americans, Earle Lawrence and Van Horton. They hide her in caves near Eucla on the Great Australian Bight, until the search... Read more

The Heart of the Ritz

By: Luke Devenish

Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic

Length: 16 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

France, April 1940. Orphan Polly Hartford has been sent across oceans to her Aunt Marjorie, known only from letters. When Marjorie dies in suspicious circumstances, Polly is left with her aunt’s loaded pistol in a beautiful Hermès handbag ... and to the care of Marjorie’s three closest friends: an elegant Comtesse, a gutter-born film star and a... Read more

The Young Lion

By: Blanche d'Alpuget

Narrated by: Colin Morgan

Length: 14 hours 51 minutes

Abridged: No

Queen Eleanor of France, said to be the most beautiful woman in Europe, has not been able to give birth to an heir. A strategic liaison with Geoffrey the Handsome, the virile and charming Duke of Normandy, could remedy that – or lead to her downfall and Geoffrey's death. What begins with cool calculation becomes a passionate affair. Despite... Read more

A Glimpse at Happiness

By: Jean Fullerton

Narrated by: Caitlin Thorburn

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

When Josie O'Casey returns to London after 12 years in America, she is overjoyed to discover that her childhood sweetheart Patrick Nolan, who she believed to be dead, is alive and well. But Josie's happiness is short-lived – Patrick now belongs to another. Heartbroken, Josie vows to forget about Patrick and settle back into life in the East... Read more

The Last Confession

By: Morris West

Narrated by: James Condon

Length: 7 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most famous victims of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was the brilliant Dominican monk Giordano Bruno, burnt at the stake for heresy in 1600. Morris West recreates a diary of Bruno’s intimate thoughts as he languishes in Rome’s worst prison for seven years. Bruno’s reflections and frank memories of his life reveal him to be both... Read more

The Serpent's Mark

By: S.W. Perry

Narrated by: Kris Dyer

Length: 13 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Treason sleeps for no man ... London, 1591. Nicholas Shelby, physician and reluctant spy, returns to his old haunts on London's lawless Bankside. But, when the queen's spymaster Robert Cecil asks him to investigate the dubious practices of a mysterious doctor from Switzerland, Nicholas is soon embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens not just... Read more

Walking

By: Kim Kelly

Narrated by: Laurence Boxhall & Lucy Ansell

Length: 11 hours 18 minutes

Abridged: No

Sydney, 1948. Brilliant German surgeon, Hugo Winter, is dead and his protégé, Lucy Brynne, is tasked with sorting his papers. Among them, Lucy finds glimpses of Hugo’s past that paint a disturbing picture of war and prejudice – a portrait of Australia she can barely recognise. That same week, an intriguing patient comes into her care on the... Read more

Nine Days

By: Toni Jordan

Narrated by: Caroline Lee & Tim Potter

Length: 7 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

It is 1939 and although Australia is about to go to war, it doesn’t quite realise yet that the situation is serious. Deep in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Richmond it is business – your own and everyone else’s – as usual. And young Kip Westaway, failed scholar and stablehand, is living the most important day of his life. Kip’s momentous... Read more

Heavy as a Mountain

By: Vincent Connolly

Narrated by: James Saunders

Length: 7 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

When a young Japanese fighter pilot is shot down and captured in the 1942 Darwin bombing, he knows in his heart he should be dead. Duty is heavy as a mountain, death as light as a feather. That’s the Military Code and it means fight to the death, never surrender or you’ll bring a bitter shame on yourself and family. He conceals his true name to... Read more

Gripped by Drought

By: Arthur W. Upfield

Narrated by: John Derum

Length: 12 hours 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Gripped By Drought is a powerful story of a man's battle not only with the elements of nature which threatened the ruin of his huge Australian sheep-farm, but also with a loveless and unhappy marriage. For Frank Mayne, master of well-nigh a million-acre sheep station, life assumed its most dreary aspect. No rain for his farm, a wife who... Read more

Rembrandt's Mirror

By: Kim Devereux

Narrated by: Pippa Nixon

Length: 10 hours 19 minutes

Abridged: No

Hendrickje, a girl from a strict Calvinist family, leaves her provincial home to find work as a housemaid. She enters Rembrandt's flourishing workshop five years after the death of the great artist's wife, an event that continues to haunt him. It is a house full of secrets and desires, and Hendrickje soon witnesses a sexual encounter between... Read more

The Collaborator

By: Diane Armstrong

Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein

Length: 16 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

An act of heroism, the taint of collaboration, a doomed love affair and an Australian woman who travels across the world to discover the truth ... It is 1944 in Budapest and the Germans have invaded. Miklos Nagy risks his life and confronts the dreaded Adolf Eichmann in an attempt save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. But no... Read more

Daughters of War

By: Lizzie Page

Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard

Length: 10 hours 49 minutes

Abridged: No

As a teenager in Chicago, May always dreamed of travelling the world. So when she falls in love with George Turner, she can’t wait to return to London as his wife. Two beautiful daughters follow, but George isn’t the husband he promised to be. Ten years on, May is wondering if she’s made a terrible mistake. The Great War has been declared in... Read more

A Ration Book Daughter

By: Jean Fullerton

Narrated by: Annie Aldington

Length: 11 hours 54 minutes

Abridged: No

Cathy was a happy, blushing bride when Britain went to war with Germany three years ago. But her youthful dreams were crushed by her violent husband, and even when he’s conscripted she knows it’s only a brief respite – divorce is not an option. Cathy, a true Brogan daughter, stays strong for her beloved little son Peter. When her husband is... Read more

The Guns of Easter

By: Gerard Whelan

Narrated by: Stephen Hogan

Length: 4 hours 9 minutes

Abridged: No

Dreams of glory and battle turn to dust when one young Dubliner is faced by the harsh reality of war. It is 1916 and Europe is at war: Jimmy Conway’s father is fighting for the British Army in France. Jimmy dreams of becoming a soldier and winning glory on the battlefield. Then rebellion breaks out in Dublin and Jimmy witnesses the taking of... Read more

The Homestead on the River

By: Rosie Mackenzie

Narrated by: Willow Nash

Length: 16 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

In stark contrast to her own childhood during the last days of the Raj in India, the spectacular beauty surrounding their home, Rathgarven in Ireland has proven to be a happy place for Kathleen O'Sullivan and her husband, James, to raise their four children. But Kathleen is no stranger to heartbreak, and when the family is faced with losing... Read more

Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle

By: Manda Scott

Narrated by: Jerome Flynn, Liza Goddard & Philip Stevens

Length: 23 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly twenty years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilization and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire. Gloriously... Read more

Lady Bird and the Fox

By: Kim Kelly

Narrated by: Tamala Shelton & Mark Leonard Winter

Length: 12 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

No conviction, no reward. It’s 1868 and the gold rush is spreading across the wild west of New South Wales, bringing with it a new breed of colonial rogue – bushrangers. A world far removed from hardworking farm girl, Annie Bird, and her sleepy village on the outskirts of Sydney. But when a cruel stroke of fortune sees Annie orphaned and... Read more

The Heretic's Mark

By: S.W. Perry

Narrated by: Kris Dyer

Length: 16 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

London, 1594. The Queen's physician has been executed for treason, and conspiracy theories flood the streets. When Nicholas Shelby, unorthodox physician and unwilling associate of spymaster Robert Cecil, is accused of being part of the plot, he and his new wife Bianca must flee for their lives. With agents of the Crown on their tail, they make... Read more

Sunshine

By: Kim Kelly

Narrated by: Paul English & Katherine Tonkin

Length: 5 hours 4 minutes

Abridged: No

It's 1921 and the Great War has left in its wake untold tragedy, not only in lives lost, but in the guilt of survivors, the deep-set scars of old wounds and the sting of redoubled bigotries. In the tiny hamlet of Sunshine, on the far-flung desert's edge, three very different ex-servicemen – Jack Bell, an Aboriginal horseman; Snow McGlynn, a... Read more

A Winter of Spies

By: Gerard Whelan

Narrated by: Stephen Hogan

Length: 4 hours 25 minutes

Abridged: No

In the winter of 1920 the War of Independence is raging and Dublin is a place of terror. But eleven-year-old Sarah is afraid of nothing – British soldiers, checkpoints, even the dreaded Black and Tans. She wants to be ‘a rebel for Ireland’. Then she discovers that there is a secret, deadly war going on behind closed doors. This is a war of spies... Read more