Showing results by narrator "Penelope Rawlins" in All Categories

Five months pregnant and facing difficult decisions, 30-year-old Sandra leaves her job and her boyfriend to take stock of her life in her sister’s beach house on the Costa Brava. She befriends an elderly Norwegian couple, Karin and Fredrik, who provide her with stimulating company and take the place of the grandparents she never had. However, when she meets Julian, a former concentration-camp inmate who has just returned to Europe from Argentina, she discovers that all is not what it seems and finds herself involved in a perilous quest for the truth.

To the Allies she was a fearless freedom fighter, special operations super spy, a woman ahead of her time. To the Gestapo she was a ghost, a shadow, the most wanted person in the world with a five-million Franc bounty on her head. Her name was Nancy Wake. Now, for the first time, the roots of her legend are told told in a thriller about one woman's incredible quest to save the man she loves, turn the tide of the war, and take brutal revenge on those who have wronged her.

When an American woman, Stella Bain, is found suffering from severe shell shock in a London garden, surgeon August Bridge and his wife selflessly agree to take her in. However, Bridge quickly develops a clinical interest in his houseguest. Stella had been working as a nurse's aide near the front, but she can't remember anything prior to four months earlier when she was found wounded on a French battlefield.

Imagine being married for 28 years with three children, a lovely house and a husband who travels a lot - but you still love each other. Or: imagine being happily married for 17 years. You have one daughter and your husband travels a lot. One day you get a call that turns your world upside down: your husband is dead. You go to the funeral…and meet his other widow…

How do you know where you belong? In June 1988, Elizabeth Kelly's parents think she belongs at home in Ireland. Her boyfriend is certain of it. Unwilling to settle down just yet, she decides to spend the summer in Boston with her college friends. But the next four months change all of them, especially Elizabeth. Quiet and dutiful at home, she surprises herself and everyone else by falling for Danny Esposito, a restless charmer with a troublesome family.

Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty.

Everyone's a Critic is a powerful, potentially life-changing exploration of self-criticism, which psychotherapist Julia Bueno has found to be at the centre of almost all the problems that clients bring to her consulting room. Built around beautifully written case studies drawn from her own practice, Bueno's book argues that self-criticism is a universal issue that most of us need to tackle in order to have a happier life—and gives listeners a variety of stories and tools to begin helping themselves.

Amelia has a dream: toasting chestnuts by the fire with her husband Jack in their own cosy cottage. Their real life is another world - a cramped one-bedroom flat in Hackney. But when life takes a surprising turn, removal vans are soon heading to the Kent countryside. They soon realise the cottage makeover is a far bigger project than they'd anticipated. On top of that, there's Amelia's newly loved-up mum and her tearaway half-sister, Mirabel, to contend with - pushing Amelia and Jack's marriage to breaking point.

From number-one New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult and her daughter and cowriter, Samantha Van Leer, comes Off the Page, a tender, wonderfully imaginative and romantic crossover novel. Meant for each other... Meet Oliver, a prince literally taken from the pages of a fairy tale and transported into the real world. Meet Delilah, the girl who wished Oliver into being. It's a miracle that seems perfect at first - but there are complications.

The Muse is the story of a life-changing friendship. It starts with Nell's account of a chance meeting with Josie at the age of 22. Josie teaches her how to live for moment, how to have adventures and find the sweetness of life even in hardship. This was the '60s, a time of literary and sexual experimentation, of the breakdown of old barriers and inhibitions.

Princess Ellie is pony-mad! She’d much rather ride one of her ponies or muck out the stables than entertain dull royal visitors. One day, when Ellie is riding through the woods, her brave Welsh pony suddenly whirls around and refuses to go any further. Has Rainbow seen a ghost? It’s a real puzzle and Princess Ellie is determined to solve it.

Kate and Pete have been the perfect couple ever since they were teenagers. Fifteen years later, they have two young daughters, live in a beautiful London townhouse, and seem like they have it all. But one day, Pete leaves for work and never comes home. In a note Kate discovers, he confesses that he’s been unhappy for a long time and that he’s met someone else. Distraught, she later learns that he has left everything behind, including his mobile phone, and she sets out to learn the truth about his disappearance.

Bernadette is expert at hiding the truth. She has built her career as a journalist on her talent for lulling powerful men into a false sense of security, then exposing them in her ruthless profile pieces. But in Radley Blake, she may have met her match. Immune to her charms, he seems to see through every layer of her carefully constructed act, right to the truth of who she is inside. We think we're looking for love - but what if it's ourselves we need to find?

Sophia Beaumont-Brown was an 'it' girl. But now she's in the papers for all the wrong reasons. She's single, sofa surfing and not speaking to her family; only her grandmother has any faith left in her. From her hospital bed, Tilly Beaumont sends Sophia letters about her life: dispatches about wartime England, about family secrets and, finally, about the most beautiful thing she ever owned - a necklace of the most incredible pearls. If Sophia's prepared to listen, she'll unlock the secret story of generations of incredible women.

I saw her file it away: a good Catholic girl come to supervise her in her detention. Every girl in England now, under the circumstances, made sure to be a good Catholic girl. Except her, of course. And, if only she knew it, me. Escorting 'nine days queen' Lady Jane Grey across the Tower of London from throne room into imprisonment is Elizabeth Tilney, who surprised even herself by volunteering for the job. All Elizabeth knows is she's keen to be away from home; she could do with some breathing space.

When Hannah Allen was fourteen years old, she was abducted by an elusive serial killer, Peter Harris. Intended to be his eleventh victim, she was his only survivor. Ten years later, therapy and friendship have helped Hannah overcome the trauma of her past. But then a body is found, a body bearing eerily similar injuries to Peter’s victims, complete with the numerical brand he forced upon his captives. Soon it becomes clear that somewhere someone is continuing Peter’s work. Somewhere someone wants Hannah dead.

Life never stays still for long on Big Sky Mountain. Rosa and Grandma Nan are off on an adventure to Toe-Dipper Bay, to see who's in trouble—a distress flare has gone up! When they arrive they find the beach covered in plastic rubbish, and a family of beach otters farming seaweed, while doing their best to tidy up. Rosa and Grandma Nan join in, but they have to find out who sent the distress flare—because who is that out wrecked out at sea? Rosa and Grandma Nan will need the otters' help to build a raft to get out there....

For Lucy Riddick, Venice has always been the dream destination, the ideal place to lose herself. And now she needs to do just that. The secret she's been keeping has finally caught up with her and Lucy needs to disappear - fast. But what if, when she sets foot in Venice, Lucy finds the one thing she has been running from?

Sir Tode has finally died at the age of 93. Lady Tode wants to leave the country to spend her remaining years in Capri. Unfortunately, her three tiresome children are either unwilling, or unable (too mad, too lefty or too happy in Australia), to take on management of their large and important home, so the mantle passes to a distant relative and his glamorous wife. Not long after the new owners take over, Lady Tode is found dead in the mausoleum. Accident? Or is there more going on behind the scenes of Tode Hall than an outsider would ever guess?

You, Me and Other People is the life-affirming, heartbreaking and ultimately stunning debut novel from Fionnuala Kearney. They say every family has skeletons in their closet...but what happens when you open the door and they won't stop tumbling out? For Adam and Beth, the first secret wasn't the last; it was just the beginning. You think you can imagine the worst thing that could happen to your family, but there are some secrets that change everything.