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Audiobooks by Laura Elizabeth Woollett
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"‘I chose the jagged rocks, the broken bones, the spattered brains. I chose beauty. I'd choose it again.’
Luna Lewis is white. But her friends aren’t, nor are her brothers, nor her one-time Princess of Indonesia–finalist stepmother. After transforming from pudgy preteen to ‘exotic’ beauty, Luna reinvents herself as ‘Luna Lu’ and takes her ticket out of the most isolated city on earth. However, as her international modelling career approaches its expiry date, Luna must grapple with what she’s sacrificed — and who she’s become — in her mission to conquer the world.
Featuring an intersecting cast of glamour-hungry public schoolgirls, WAGs, mining heiresses, backpacker-barmaids, and cosmetic nurses, West Girls examines beauty, race, class divisions, and social mobility in Australia’s richest state. It’s also a devastating catalogue of the myriad, inventive ways in which women love and hurt one another.
‘West Girls shows us a sordid, self-regarding, and shiny world of schoolgirls and supermodels, and in any other lesser writer's hands this would be straight parody, but Woollett's extraordinary talent is to make the “real” more grotesque than the satire, and to infuse every sentence with her poet's vision and every character with a true melancholy and flawed humanity.’
ALICE PUNG, AUTHOR OF ONE HUNDRED DAYS"
"One might compare Laura Woollett to Shelagh Delany, whose play, A Taste of Honey was produced when she was eighteen years old. How rare it was to see such strong, mature, and sophisticated writing by a teenager, for few of them think that way! Yet Woollett began The Wood of Suicides as a teenager herself. Gifted writers that young are aberrations, in the best sense, for only a rare one can write original and spellbinding work at such a young age.
Woollett's narrator, Laurel Marks is a stunning, repressed seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. She also has a weakness for older men most of all her father, whom she'll do anything to impress. After his sudden death, Laurel is sent off to a boarding school where she shortly latches onto a new love-object: her English teacher, Mr. Hugh Steadman.
Following an encounter in the woods, a flirtation develops between the two, marked by hopeful highs and suicidal lows, on Laurel's part. Their romance is eventually consummated one November afternoon, in the arbor where they first met. But Laurel's middle-aged teacher proves to be a more violent lover than she ever anticipated. Like the doomed chase between Daphne and Apollo, Steadman pursues and Laurel recedes.
Woollett charts the course of their obsession with an unswerving eye, describing their unbridled desire for one another and the reckless and tortured course on which they have embarked and of Laurel's unshed grief for her father, whose absence will be either her salvation or her undoing."
"There's no such thing as a perfect victim.
In a hotel room on a sleepy Pacific island, Judy Novak waits. And worries. It isn’t the first time 29-year-old problem child Paulina has kept her mother waiting. But Judy can’t ignore the island’s jagged cliffs and towering pines — or the dread that Paulina has finally acted on her threats to take her own life.
When Paulina’s body is discovered, Judy’s worst fears seem confirmed. Only, Paulina didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.
So begins a thorny investigation, wherein every man on the island is a suspect yet none are as maligned as Paulina: the captivating newcomer known for her hard drinking, disastrous relationships, and habit of walking alone.
But, above all, Paulina is her mother’s daughter. And death won’t stop Judy Novak from fighting for Paulina’s life.
‘Unlike many crime novels, the victim sits at the heart of The Newcomer. Woollett shows deep empathy for her characters, while delivering an immersive, utterly gripping story.’ MARK BRANDI, AUTHOR OF WIMMERA
‘Laura Elizabeth Woollett has done it again. The Newcomer pulls you in from its eerie opening and drags you along with intriguing characters and beautifully wrought prose. As the mystery deepens, you begin to realise things are never clear-cut, and everybody is guilty of something. A cautionary tale inspired by true events by one of my favourite authors.’ JP POMARE, AUTHOR OF CALL ME EVIE"
"The thrilling new novel, inspired by the events at Jonestown in the 1970s.
It’s the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself. Minister’s daughter. Atheist. Independent woman. Frustrated wife. Bitch with a bleeding heart. Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to the rural Eden of Evergreen Valley, California, Evelyn wants to be happy with their new life. Yet she finds herself disillusioned with Lenny’s passive ways — and anxious for a saviour. Enter the Reverend Jim Jones, the dynamic leader of a new revolutionary church . . . Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Beautiful Revolutionary explores the allure of the real-life charismatic leader who would destroy so many. It follows Evelyn as she is pulled into Jones’s orbit — an orbit it would prove impossible for her to leave.
‘Utterly intoxicating . . . Woollett is electric.’ Sarah Schmidt, author of See What I Have Done
‘Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an immense talent.’ Kayla Rae Whitaker, author of The Animators
PRAISE FOR LAURA ELIZABETH WOOLLETT’S THE LOVE OF A BAD MAN:
‘Beautifully written — poised and elegant.’ Daily Mail
‘Outstanding.’ Emerald Street
‘Absorbing.’ Elle"
"A schoolgirl catches the eye of the future leader of Nazi Germany. An aspiring playwright writes to a convicted serial killer, seeking inspiration. A pair of childhood sweethearts reunite to commit rape and murder. A devoted Mormon wife follows her husband into the wilderness after he declares himself a prophet. The twelve stories in The Love of a Bad Man imagine the lives of real women, all of whom were the lovers, wives, or mistresses of various ‘bad’ men in history. Beautifully observed, fascinating, and at times horrifying, the stories interrogate power, the nature of obsession, and the lengths some women will go to for the men they love.
‘A rare combination of immense writing talent and wondrous imagination.’ JEFF GUINN, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MANSON
‘With each finely tuned voice, Woollett draws empathy from abject horror. A confident and mesmerising performance.’ MELANIE JOOSTEN, AUTHOR OF BERLIN SYNDROME
‘A genuinely fresh reading experience . . . we’re sure to hear a lot more from this talented writer in coming years.’ BOOKS+PUBLISHING"
