Showing results by narrator "Annie" in All Categories

My name is Skylar Quinn. I just moved to New York with my best friend Bridget, and I have a confession. Well, more than one. Okay, quite a few really. Fine, here goes! Confession number one: I'm a sex columnist. Hold on, that's not really the confession. You see, I'm sort of a virgin...sex columnist. Confession number two: I'm kind of in love with Bridget's older brother, Oliver. No, I was. No, I am. Wait, was? Am? Crap. Confession number three: I've been avoiding Oliver for four years. Or I was until today, because he just moved in. Yes, you read that correctly. He's my new roommate.

London, 1940. After her fiancé breaks off their engagement, Evelyn decides to do her part for the war effort by signing up for construction work on Waterloo Bridge. Grieving after her little boy dies in an air raid, Gwen is completely lost when her husband sends their younger children to the countryside for safety. Enlisting as a construction worker, she is partnered with cheerful Evelyn. The two women strike up a heartwarming friendship.

When Janey has to leave her home after her stepfather beats her up, she finds herself in a children's home. She soon settles in, and the friends she makes become her new family. But at 16, Janey has to leave the home and is found a job as a housemaid. She feels abandoned again and the job is awful. Her situation doesn't improve until she meets Christy, a blind woman, and is employed as her companion. When Janey meets Christy's son, Charles, she falls in love with him. But alas, Charles is married.

Life's been hard for Marcie Brooks, but when she marries Michael Jones things start to look up. Not only has he given her daughter, Joanna, his name but they now also have a son. The family's finances are on the up too, with Michael opening his first nightclub. However, when he refuses to do business with Paddy Rafferty, an Irish gangster, Michael soon finds him on the wrong side of the law.

When Nell Draper leaves the workhouse to care for the five-year-old son of Lord Eversham, a wealthy landowner, she has no idea of the heartache that lies ahead of her. Robert can't speak. He can't tell her what makes him happy or sad. Nell has to work that out for herself. And not everyone is happy about Robert's existence. Can Nell save him from a desolate future, secure his inheritance and ensure he takes his rightful place in society?

Interior designer Kat is broke and desperately needs this commission restoring the Edwardian mansion of Fownhope Priors, but her employer Scott's wife and mother-in-law are a nightmare. Yet when they are killed in suspicious circumstances, and she is the last person to see him, she can't help but be drawn in to the family's feuds. Where has Scott Hawkesmoor vanished to? Is it back to Yorkshire where his wife and mother-in-law died? Or is it somewhere far stranger? And how can she ever explain it to anyone–especially the police–let alone how she knows?

When the father she worships disappears, ten-year-old Ada Fletcher and her family, are forced to move to a poor yard in Birmingham. Ada and Elsie, the two eldest children have to go to work in a local pearl button factory to try and make ends meet. The work is hard and relentless and their mother’s death is the final calamity. One day Ada returns home to find her siblings being dragged away to the local workhouse orphanage.

In 1950, after her marriage went badly wrong, Dolly Taylor returned to Rotherhithe from America. She is now helping her best friend, Penny, to walk again after she contracted polio. Not able to have children of her own, Dolly envies Penny for having a beautiful baby daughter, Gail. Penny's husband, Reg, has set up his own business as a builder and offers Dolly a job in the office. Tony, who was engaged to Dolly before the war, also works for Reg and is still pursuing his childhood sweetheart.

It's 1940, and for newlywed Daisy Turner, Kew Gardens is a haven away from the bombs that are falling nightly on her East End home. She grew up around plants - her parents met when they were gardeners at Kew in the last war. And her work on the Dig for Victory campaign at Kew keeps her occupied while her husband, Rex, is away in the RAF. Beth Sanderson works with Daisy at the gardens, but she dreams of being a doctor while juggling her gardening job with nursing shifts. And there's the added complication of her forbidden romance with her colleague, Gus Campbell.

When Emily's boyfriend posts compromising photos of her on the Internet, her life goes into sharp decline. Emily is about to lose everything - including the man she thought she loved. Her best friend, Cara, is determined to mend Emily's broken heart, and she believes that a little magic is all that's required. But will Cara cast the right spell to get Emily out of her current position? Or will it go horribly wrong when they both fall in love with the same man?

Ella has lived in the East End of London all her life and when her husband determines to move to Epsom to be near the racecourse he frequents and loves, Ella's refusal to join him breaks up their tempestuous marriage. Ella soon loses the will to keep smart, trim, and fit: until her mother steps in to pick up the pieces. It works: Ella gets a job as barmaid in the British Legion club and begins to take pride in her appearance again. When Dennis turns up for a drink one night, he is taken by surprise.

It is 1941, and the world is at war. Young Theresa Compton is left devastated after giving up her illegitimate child and joins the Special Operations Executive, an organisation of undercover agents working behind enemy lines. Her mission is to assist a Resistance group run by the handsome Pierre Reuben, and it is not long before they fall in love. Soon Theresa becomes pregnant, but circumstances tear Pierre and the child from Theresa. In London, 1963, an older Theresa is haunted by her experiences....

As World War II breaks out, four friends from London’s East End consider the changes that war will mean for all of them. Tomboyish Becky Adams plans to join the ATS, her neighbours Bob and Jim the navy and army respectively. Only Becky’s brother, Will, is left out of the excitement; because of a slight physical disability, he is forced to stay behind, working as a cub reporter on a newspaper.

One summer day Clara Marshall vanished without trace. A few days later, her children, six-year-old Lorraine and five-year-old Janine, also disappeared and were never seen again. Richard Marshall, Clara's heartbroken husband, claimed he had discovered his wife was having an affair with an Australian backpacker and that she had run away with him, taking the children with her, destroying the family for ever.

Things have not been going too well for Daisy Lane. Her murdered lover, Eddie Lane, has left her comfortably off and his son little Eddie is an adorable and constant reminder of his father. The new man in her life, South London gangster Roy Kemp, looks out for her and is kind to little Eddie. But someone is watching Daisy's every move, like a predator choosing the perfect moment to pounce.

Can she follow her dreams when she has lost everything? Young Bridie O'Hara is torn away from her native Ireland by her father - a freedom fighter turned traitor - when he has to flee the wrath of the republicans. Violated by those who should protect her and betrayed by her dashing gypsy lover, Seamus Finney, she struggles to find her way in Victorian England.

The most talented voice since Dilly Court - an absorbing, thrilling and romantic historical saga with characters you'll fall in love with. Mattie Maguire is a 26-year-old widow with an infant son. Since her husband, Brian, died three years before, she has struggled to keep the family's East End coal business solvent, as well as taking care of her troubled mother-in-law. But unbeknown to Mattie, life is about to get even tougher.

It's 1916, and England is at war. Desperate to help in whatever way they can, Ivy and Louisa enlist as gardeners at Kew, taking on the jobs of the men who have gone to fight. Under their care, the gardens begin to flourish - but Ivy and Louisa aren't being treated fairly, and not everyone wants them there. Without women's rights, the pair begins to struggle - but can the support of the Suffragettes help their cause? And when a tragedy overseas affects the people closest to them, can the women of Kew pull together to support themselves and their country through the darkest of times?

As a particle physicist, William Jenkins is as unsuited to survival on an alien world as any normal 30-something post-doc could be. Thankfully, he’s not alone. With an AI, magic, scientific curiosity, and, most improbably, a deity on his side, Will must come to terms with his new reality before otherworldly terrors forever extinguish the light of hope on this new world.

All her short life, 11-year-old Rose Webster has encountered closed doors. Growing up in the slums of London with her siblings, trying to avoid their violent, drunken father, she develops an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and becomes convinced that she and her loved ones deserve better. All Rose has is a quick mind and the will to survive. Can she open that door and seize the chance to make something of herself?