
Empire Day
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Deidre Rubenstein
-
By:
-
Diane Armstrong
About this listen
Bondi Junction in the late 1940s is a microcosm of changing Australia, and life is changing too fast for locals like salt-of-the-earth Pop Wilson, prickly Miss McNulty and feisty single mum Kath, all of whom resent the European ‘reffos’ who have moved in. The newcomers are struggling to rebuild their lives while the unhealed wounds of the past threaten to overwhelm them. As the lives of the neighbours interweave, unexpected new relationships cause tragedy for some, but forgiveness and salvation for others. Ultimately the residents of Wattle Street discover that behind closed doors, old as well as new Australians have secret heartaches which poison their lives. Can we ever forget the past, or does it continue to fester inside us? Can understanding be forged from prejudice and fear? Part love story, part mystery and part crime investigation, Empire Day confirms Diane Armstrong as one of our most gifted and compelling storytellers.
©2011 Diane Armstrong. (P)2011 Bolinda PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Secret Keeper
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.
-
-
Kate Morton (and Caroline Lee) does it again!
- By Maria on 10-20-12
By: Kate Morton
-
The Last Letter from Your Lover
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sophisticated, pause-resisting double love story spanning 40 years-an unforgettable Brief Encounter for our times. It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives.
-
-
What's so Great About Jennifer?
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
The Girl You Left Behind
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Penny Rawlins
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard’s portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer’s dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything - her family, her reputation, and her life - to see her husband again.
-
-
Exquisite Portrait of Sophie and Liz
- By FanB14 on 09-03-13
By: Jojo Moyes
-
The Letter
- By: Kathryn Hughes
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Number One Kindle best seller guaranteed to break your heart. Every so often a love story comes along to remind us that sometimes, in our darkest hour, hope shines a candle to light our way. Discover the Number One best seller that has captured thousands of hearts worldwide.... Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home.
-
-
If you have any degree of misophonia, skip it.
- By Jody on 02-25-16
By: Kathryn Hughes
-
The Home for Unwanted Girls
- By: Joanna Goodman
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility - much like Maggie Hughes' parents. Maggie's English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don't include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie's heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at 15, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life "back on track".
-
-
I couldn't finish this book
- By CindyL on 10-08-18
By: Joanna Goodman
-
Holding
- A Novel
- By: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, but when human remains are discovered on an old farm, suspected to be those of Tommy Burke - a former lover of two different inhabitants - the village's dark past begins to unravel. As the frustrated sergeant PJ Collins struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his life, he unearths a community's worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regret.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Myra on 04-01-18
By: Graham Norton
-
The Secret Keeper
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.
-
-
Kate Morton (and Caroline Lee) does it again!
- By Maria on 10-20-12
By: Kate Morton
-
The Last Letter from Your Lover
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sophisticated, pause-resisting double love story spanning 40 years-an unforgettable Brief Encounter for our times. It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives.
-
-
What's so Great About Jennifer?
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
The Girl You Left Behind
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Penny Rawlins
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard’s portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer’s dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything - her family, her reputation, and her life - to see her husband again.
-
-
Exquisite Portrait of Sophie and Liz
- By FanB14 on 09-03-13
By: Jojo Moyes
-
The Letter
- By: Kathryn Hughes
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Number One Kindle best seller guaranteed to break your heart. Every so often a love story comes along to remind us that sometimes, in our darkest hour, hope shines a candle to light our way. Discover the Number One best seller that has captured thousands of hearts worldwide.... Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home.
-
-
If you have any degree of misophonia, skip it.
- By Jody on 02-25-16
By: Kathryn Hughes
-
The Home for Unwanted Girls
- By: Joanna Goodman
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1950s Quebec, French and English tolerate each other with precarious civility - much like Maggie Hughes' parents. Maggie's English-speaking father has ambitions for his daughter that don't include marriage to the poor French boy on the next farm over. But Maggie's heart is captured by Gabriel Phénix. When she becomes pregnant at 15, her parents force her to give baby Elodie up for adoption and get her life "back on track".
-
-
I couldn't finish this book
- By CindyL on 10-08-18
By: Joanna Goodman
-
Holding
- A Novel
- By: Graham Norton
- Narrated by: Graham Norton
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remote Irish village of Duneen has known little drama, but when human remains are discovered on an old farm, suspected to be those of Tommy Burke - a former lover of two different inhabitants - the village's dark past begins to unravel. As the frustrated sergeant PJ Collins struggles to solve a genuine case for the first time in his life, he unearths a community's worth of anger and resentments, secrets and regret.
-
-
Loved it!
- By Myra on 04-01-18
By: Graham Norton
-
The Oceans Between Us
- By: Gill Thompson
- Narrated by: Jane Collingwood
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inspired by extraordinary true events, this remarkable debut novel reveals the enduring power of love and the strength of the human spirit in one woman's quest to find her son, and a little boy's dream to be found.
-
-
so much sadness and tragedy
- By LaLa on 08-25-20
By: Gill Thompson
-
Lights Out Liverpool
- By: Maureen Lee
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
-
Wildflower Hill
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1920s Glasgow, Beattie Blaxland falls pregnant to her married lover Henry just before her nineteenth birthday. Abandoned by her family, Beattie and Henry set sail for a new life in Australia. In 2009, London, prima ballerina Lydia Blaxland-Hunter is also discovering that life can also have its ups and downs. Unable to dance again after a fall, Lydia returns home to Australia to recuperate.
-
-
Story telling at its best!
- By Sara on 05-29-14
-
Winter Journey
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Halina Shore is a Polish born forensic dentist living in Australia. When she travels to Poland to take part in the investigation of a war crime, she finds herself at the center of a bitter struggle in a community that has been divided by a grim legacy. As the investigation proceeds, her professional assignment becomes a confronting personal odyssey as the truth about her own past begins to emerge.
-
-
Historical Story Marred by Unnecessary Fluff
- By Debbie on 11-30-15
By: Diane Armstrong
-
The Color of Secrets
- By: Lindsay Ashford
- Narrated by: Heather Wilds
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the midst of the Second World War, Eva receives the devastating news that her husband is missing and presumed dead. Neither wife nor widow, she lives in a numb state of limbo until, in the heat of an English summer, she meets Bill, a black American GI. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, neither can deny the love that overcomes them in the frantic weeks that follow, when every day could be their last.
-
-
Stilted Narration Spoiled the Experience
- By Regina L. Warren on 06-05-15
By: Lindsay Ashford
-
The Nightingale Girls
- By: Donna Douglas
- Narrated by: Penelope Freeman
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?
-
-
For young girls
- By deborah jernigan on 12-31-16
By: Donna Douglas
-
The Last Hours in Paris
- A Novel
- By: Ruth Druart
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma, Jess Nesling, Ben Jacobsen
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elise Chevalier knows what it is to love…and to hate. Her fiancé, a young French soldier, was killed by the German army at the Maginot Line. Living amongst the enemy, Elise must keep her rage buried deep within. Sebastian Kleinhaus no longer recognizes himself. Forced to join the Third Reich and wear a uniform he despises, he longs for a way out. For someone, anyone, to be his salvation.
-
-
I loved this book!
- By Bob L. on 10-19-22
By: Ruth Druart
-
The One I Was
- By: Eliza Graham
- Narrated by: Sue Pitkin, Michael Page
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Restless, troubled Rosamond Hunter has spent most of her life running away from the past, filled with guilt about her involuntary role in her mother's death. When her nursing job brings her back to Fairfleet, her childhood home, to care for an elderly refugee, she is forced to confront the ghosts that have haunted her for so long.
-
-
Unusually Beautiful Story
- By sharon on 12-18-15
By: Eliza Graham
-
An Orphan in the Snow
- By: Molly Green
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Liverpool, 1941. Troubled by a dark family history and the pain of seeing her country torn apart by war, young June Lavender finds new hope when she takes a job at the Dr Barnardo's children's home. There she meets Lizzie McRae, a little girl who is the spitting image of June's sister, who died tragically years before. Against the matron's wishes, the two girls form an unexpected bond as June tries to get the traumatised orphan to speak.
-
-
The title doesn't fit the story
- By mrsmlbj on 11-23-22
By: Molly Green
-
Honor
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marno, Piter Marik
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s London. Internationally best-selling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children. In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in.
-
-
Complex but Compelling
- By Cariola on 04-14-13
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Mitford Murders
- By: Jessica Fellowes
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Louisa's salvation is a position within the Mitford household at Asthall Manor, in the Oxfordshire countryside. There she will become nursemaid, chaperone, and confidante to the Mitford sisters, especially 16-year-old Nancy, an acerbic, bright young woman in love with stories. But then a nurse - Florence Nightingale Shore, goddaughter of her famous namesake - is killed on a train in broad daylight, and Louisa and Nancy find themselves entangled in the crimes of a murderer who will do anything to hide their secret....
-
-
Very Mundane Whodunit
- By Dylan on 11-21-19
By: Jessica Fellowes
-
Nocturne
- By: Diane Armstrong
- Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein
- Length: 16 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is Warsaw, 1939, and Elzunia is an indulged teenager who longs for a heroic life filled with romance. But the outbreak of war shatters all her dreams. As bombs fall, she meets Adam, a taciturn airman whose fate becomes entwined with hers. In despair over the occupation, Adam joins the Polish resistance, then flies bombers for the RAF.
-
-
Blech
- By Caroline H. on 02-20-11
By: Diane Armstrong
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Empire Day
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lynn
- 10-18-13
Post World War 2 Australia
If you could sum up Empire Day in three words, what would they be?
Fear of change
Which scene was your favorite?
My favorite scene was the neighbor performing his magic show. He had to overcome the hold his past had on him in order to help a sick child.
Any additional comments?
I was not aware of the influx of European immigrants into Australia after the war. The numbers of Nazis who managed to gain entry into the allied countries at that time was pretty amazing. Imagine walking down the street and coming face to face with the beast who had tortured you or your loved ones.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful