Reading Age: Adults / General

For the first time, the incomparable R&B superstar Stan Walker tells his story of hurt, hope and courage. After definitively winning the 2009 season of Australian Idol at the age of 19, R&B sensation Stan Walker's career went from strength to strength. His first album, Introducin...g Stan Walker, went platinum in Australia and triple platinum in New Zealand; his second; From the Inside Out, debuted at number one on the New Zealand Albums Charts and number two on the ARIA charts. He's won multiple New Zealand Music Awards, been a judge on The X Factor NZ, and played starring roles in films Mt Zion and Born to Dance. Yet few knew what he had had to overcome reach these dizzying heights. Before Australian Idol, Walker had survived a childhood marred with poverty, domestic violence and sexual abuse; dabbled in crime and drug use; and suffered his own personal tragedy. For the first time, he speaks candidly about his rags-to-riches story - and the trials and tribulations he's had to deal with since. The trans-Tasman R&B superstar's raw and open memoir is a lesson that no matter how many setbacks, no matter the odds, you will succeed if you have the courage and belief to do so.
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Jack Reacher gets off a bus in Nashville, Tennessee, in a quest for food, lodging and some good country music. But when he encounters a band of musicians who have been cheated by an unscrupulous bar owner, he steps in to help...

The compelling new novel from Jane Harper, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry.

Inside New Zealand's underworld of Organised Crime

'Make these little vines count. Love them as I love you.' In the summer of 1914, vigneron Jerome Mea heads off to war, certain he'll be home by Christmas. His new bride Sophie Delancre, a fifth generation champenoise, is determined to ensure the forthcoming vintages will be testa...ment to their love and the power of the people of pernay, especially its strong women who have elevated champagne to favourite beverage of the rich and royal worldwide. But as the years drag on, authorities advise that Jerome is missing, considered dead. When poison gas is first used in Belgium by the Germans, British chemist Charles Nash jumps to enlist, refusing to be part of the scientific team that retaliates. A brilliant marksman, Charlie is seen by his men as a hero, but soon comes to feel that he'd rather die himself than take another life. When he is injured, he is brought to the champagne cellars in Reims, where Sophie has set up an underground hospital, and later to her mansion house in pernay, now a retreat for the wounded. As Sophie struggles with strong feelings for her patient, she also battles to procure the sugar she needs for her 1918 vintage and attracts sinister advances from her brother-in-law. However, nothing can prepare her for the ultimate battle of the heart, when Jerome's bloodstained jacket and identification papers are found in Belgium, and her hopes of ever seeing her husband alive again are reignited. From the killing fields of Ypres to the sun-kissed vineyards of southern France, The Champagne War is a heart-stopping adventure about the true power of love and hope to light the way during war.
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