Joy Dettman has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 1 narrator, with an average listener rating of 4.7★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is Pearl in a Cage.
Pearl in a Cage
Summary
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.
When no relatives come forth to claim the infant, Gertrude's daughter, Amber - who has recently lost a son in childbirth - and her husband, Norman, take the child in. In the ensuing weeks, Norman becomes convinced that God has sent the baby to their door, and in an act of reckless compassion and lonely desperation, he names the baby Jennifer and registers her in place of his son.
Loved by some but scorned by more, including her stepmother and sister, Jenny survives her childhood and grows into an exquisite and talented young woman. But who were her parents? And why does she so strongly resemble an old photograph of Gertrude's philandering husband?
Spanning two momentous decades and capturing rural Australia's complex and mysterious heart, Pearl in a Cage is the new novel by one of our most talented storytellers.
©2009 Joy Dettman. (P)2009 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Ripples on a Pond
Summary
Woody Creek is gearing up for its centenary celebrations - but for many of its townspeople, it's just another reminder of the old days, when life was more simple, before so-called progress, technology and a growing population roared through the town, altering everything in its wake.
Not for Georgie, though. Long encumbered by responsibility for her half-sister, Margot, she's looking towards the future and more changes. Not having managed to move on from running Charlie's grocery store yet, as the clock ticks over to 1970, she's determined that the time has come.
She's not the only one of Jenny's children who's grown up and is moving on. As a six-year-old, little Jimmy Morrison was stolen from Woody Creek by his grandfather, and is now farther away than ever from his estranged birth mother and sisters. Having inherited an estate in the United Kingdom, he's determined to make a new life for himself. If only he could shake off his one terrible attachment to Australia....
For Cara, Woody Creek has been the source of the most devastating news of her life, and a terrible mistake that cannot be undone. She's vowed never to step foot into the place again. But the old timber town has a way of getting under people's skins. And as it draws the much-loved cast of Woody Creek characters back into its grip, confessions, discoveries and truths seem set to explode in the most dramatic of showdowns....
©2013 Joy Dettman (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Moth to the Flame
Summary
Jenny Morrison is bravely trying to move on with her life. Her husband missing amidst the turmoil of WWII, she takes refuge with Ray King, a slightly sinister, stuttering boy who disappeared from Woody Creek as a teenager but has now reappeared. In return for regular 'wifely duties', Ray offers Jenny and her three children sanctuary at his house in Melbourne. For a time, she is happy. But then Jenny's father - the philandering impresario Archie Foote - storms back into her world and chaos reigns again. Archie recognises Jenny's brilliance and offers her a second chance - a way to escape the domestic drudgery and finally fulfil her dream. But when you have three children, one missing husband and another with a dark secret, dreams have a habit of turning into nightmares...
©2011 Joy Dettman (P)2011 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Trails in the Dust
Summary
The seventh book in the addictive Woody Creek series from best-selling Australian author Joy Dettman. After many tumultuous years spent grappling with the past, Jenny Hooper might have expected her latter years to be the best of her life, and they are - until tragedy strikes. Left floundering in a house full of memories, not all of them good, Jenny knows a reckoning is in order. But it won't be easy. History is beginning to repeat itself for Jenny's adopted daughter, Trudy, who finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship. Jenny and her older daughter, Georgie, can only stand by and watch as Trudy's life implodes. Meanwhile, half a world away in the UK, Cara and her husband, Morrie, nurture a devastating secret that keeps them at arm's length from Jenny. But most of all, Jenny wants to renew contact with the beloved son she lost decades before when she was at her lowest ebb. Only that, and having the chance to tell him the truth about what happened, will give her peace. But is it too late?
©2019 Joy Dettman (P)2019 Macmillan Australia Audio
Thorn on the Rose
Summary
This sweeping tale confirms Joy Dettman's place as one of our most gifted storytellers. When Jenny Morrison fled Woody Creek for a new life in Melbourne she left behind a dysfunctional family, a town of small-minded gossips, and, most tragically, a newborn baby. Mustering all her strength, she resolved to put her past behind her, reclaim her identity, and pursue her dream of becoming a famous singer.... Yet just months later she is back - wiser and with an expensive new wardrobe - but with a second child growing in her belly. Cruelly labeled the ‘town slut’, she finds refuge in Gertrude, her kind-hearted, dependable granny and Woody Creek's indomitable midwife. Jenny thrives and, daring once again to dream, leaves Woody Creek for a second time and moves to Sydney, where at last it seems that the beautiful young songstress may find happiness... But can the past ever truly be buried? And will Jenny Morrison ever fulfill her destiny?
©2010 Joy Dettman (P)2011 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
The Tying of Threads
Summary
In the final installment of Joy Dettman’s beloved Woody Creek series, we return to the small timber town where it all began. Independent and spirited, Georgie is her mother’s daughter through and through. But after a house fire takes the life of her sister, Margot, and burns her home to the ground, Georgie is lost. She flees town with nothing but a cardboard box and the determination to be somebody, anybody, else. After almost losing her adopted daughter, Cara’s view of the world has radically shifted. She’s decided that life is to be lived and love is to be cherished, even when that means crossing boundaries she’d never dreamed of. But is any love great enough to overcome an unimaginable burden of guilt and shame? With her nest empty, Jenny is more lonely than ever. Rattling around her big old house with too much time to think, she’s left to wonder: should her secrets stay buried forever or will revealing the truth set her free? As the new millennium draws ever closer and Woody Creek struggles to survive, one thing becomes clear: in order to face their futures, Jenny and her daughters must first make peace with their pasts. If it’s not too late.
©2014 Joy Dettman. The moral right of the author has been asserted. (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Wind in the Wires
Summary
The wind is whispering in Woody Creek. Change is in the air. It's 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged kicking and screaming into the swinging '60s. Jenny's daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother's hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met. A mistake from Cara's teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white-wedding and happily-ever-after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man. But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other's lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted....
©2012 Joy Dettman (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd