Showing results by narrator "Fenella Woolgar" in All Categories

From the globally best-selling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring. It is 1932, and the losses of the First World War are still keenly felt. Violet Speedwell, mourning for both her fiancé and her brother and regarded by society as a ‘surplus woman’ unlikely to marry, resolves to escape her suffocating mother and strike out alone. A new life awaits her in Winchester. Yes, it is one of draughty boarding-houses and sidelong glances at her naked ring finger from younger colleagues; but it is also a life gleaming with independence and opportunity.

Pat Simms is reeling from her own role in her abusive husband's death, and the new freedom before her is daunting. Sarah Collingborne is struggling with the absence of her husband, who is stranded in a POW camp abroad, and trying her best to fill his treasured place in the village. Meanwhile, Teresa Lucas is anxious about her future as a parent, and her friend Alison Scotlock is on the verge of starting a new relationship. And Miriam Brindsley's good luck might be about to change.

On the day Juliet Lansdown reports to work for the first time at Bethnal Green Library, it isn't the bustling hub she's been expecting. But in the face of German attacks, she's determined to make it a place where all of their neighbours feel safe and welcome. Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library too, though she's only there until she heads off to university in the fall. Sofie Baumann, a Jewish refugee without any family to lean on, finds comfort and friendship in Bethnal Green's quickly growing literary community and escapes to the library every chance she gets.

The Complete Brontë Sisters and Jane Austen Collection brings together four of the most influential female authors of the 19th century. The collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters; alongside all 7 of the Brontë sisters' completed novels, as-well as a selection of the poetry which all three sisters published.

London, 1841. Two hundred Englishwomen file aboard the Rajah, the ship that will take them on a three-month voyage to the other side of the world. They're daughters, sisters, mothers - and convicts. Transported for petty crimes. Except one of their number is a secret killer, fleeing justice.

Written as a "report into the circumstances surrounding the decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen", this is a novel that is made up of e-mails, letters, diary extracts, records of the prime minister's Question Time, interviews, and chapters from the memoirs of a fantastically weaselly Peter Mandelson-type figure.

The Complete Jane Austen Collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters. Read by an incredible cast including Joanne Froggatt and Fenella Woolgar, this collection is the perfect opportunity to listen beyond your favourite novel and discover Jane Austen's complete writings.

Across the sea in England, Thomas Peach lives in quiet retirement. Some call him a magician, others a madman. But when his friend the poetess Arabella Farthingay falls prey to a sinister seducer, Mr Peach's fading powers are called on once more. He follows her to France - and into a world where reason contends with terror, brotherhood with bloodshed, and the last remnants of faith with the oldest enemy of them all...

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.

I’m a Coroner. I spend my life laying things to rest . . . When lawyer, Jenny Cooper, is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she’s hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce, but the office she inherits from the recently deceased Harry Marshall contains neglected files hiding dark secrets and a trail of buried evidence. Could the tragic death in custody of a young boy be linked to the apparent suicide of a teenage prostitute and the fate of Marshall himself? Jenny’s curiosity is aroused.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. Sitting in front of a fire, Hastings listens as Poirot recounts his greatest failure. When a wealthy French deputy dies, everyone believes it is from natural causes. Poirot is on vacation from the Belgian police when a young lady comes to him convinced the man was poisoned. She creates a guise for him to enter the house as a journalist to investigate....

Chrissie knew that Richie had loved her for all the twenty-three years they’d been together, loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, chaotic existence. Richie gave her everything, except the one thing that would have made her life perfect. She even had a sparkling ring - but it was not a wedding ring, and did not bring with it the security of marriage. That belonged to Margaret, back in Newcastle where Richie had started off as a musician, before he became famous.

The year is 1785, and Thomas Peach, a gentleman of modest means, moves to a small village in the West Country, bringing with him a steamer chest of clothes, some books - and, apparently, his wife, Mrs Peach, who quickly becomes a source of fascination and suspicion to the villagers. Why is she never seen abroad? Why does Mr Peach refuse entry to her bedroom to their maidservant, who is unable to detect even a whisper of breath at Mrs Peach's door, try as she might? Does Mrs Peach even exist? And if so, is she the victim of her husband's cruelty?

Rachel has always loved being at the centre of her large family. She has fiercely devoted herself to her three sons all their lives,and continues to do so even now they are all grown up. They are, of course, devoted to her – she and Anthony, their father, hold the family together at their big, beautiful, ramshackle house near the wide, bird-haunted coast of Suffolk. But when Luke, her youngest, gets married, Rachel finds that control is slipping away.

The second gripping novel from the author of The CoronerTwo young British students, Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan vanish without a trace. The police tell their parents that the boys had been under surveillance, that it was likely they left the country to pursue their dangerous new ideals. Seven years later, Nazim’s grief-stricken mother is still unconvinced. Jenny Cooper is her last hope.Jenny is finally beginning to settle into her role as Coroner for the Severn Valley;

At just ten years old, Fanny Price is sent from her poor Portsmouth home to live with the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the vast grandeur of Mansfield Park. Timid and fragile, Fanny is neglected by the indolent Lady Bertram, belittled by her conceited cousins Maria and Julia, and constantly reminded of her lowly status by her ever-critical Aunt Norris. Her only comfort is the kindness and attention shown by her cousin Edmund, and her sole strength the sense of her own moral integrity. But this strength is tested when the alluring Henry and Mary Crawford arrive.

I know what my husband would say: that I have too much time on my hands; that I need to keep myself busy. That I need to take my medication. Empty nest syndrome, he tells his friends at the pub, his mother. He's always said I have a vivid imagination. Marta and Hector have been married for a long time – so long that she finds it difficult to remember her life before him. He has always taken care of her, and she has always done everything she can to be a good wife.

A Richard and Judy Summer Read Selection.
Written as a "report into the circumstances surrounding the decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen", this is a novel that is made up of e-mails, letters, diary extracts, records of the prime minister's Question Time, interviews, and chapters from the memoirs of a fantastically weaselly Peter Mandelson-type figure.

The Kennedys were the most famous family in England when Joseph became American Ambassador in London. But daughter Rosemary's behaviour began to cause the family increasing concern. Award winning writer Charlotte Jones' play is inspired by the lives of two of JFK's sisters, 'Rosemary' Kennedy, who died in 2005, but underwent a prefrontal lobotomy aged 23 and Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy who married the heir to the Duke of Devonshire.