Showing results by narrator "Penelope Rawlins" in All Categories

In the title story, we meet Maya, who is torn between her wryly funny boyfriend and the allure of her veterinarian. In "Andorra," a woman's lover calls her every Thursday as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counselling. "How to Give the Wrong Impression" shows us a woman pining for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tell her that her palm is sweaty.

With her signature blend of 'lose yourself' love stories and buried secrets, Sunday Times top ten best seller Tasmina Perry is back with this gorgeously romantic read, perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore and Rachel Hore. From Paris to St Petersburg, this spellbinding tale of love, loss and long-buried secrets is guaranteed to break your heart.... Everyone remembers their first kiss. You never forget the last.... It's 1961. Bright-eyed young journalist Rosamund Bailey is determined to change the world.

A reclusive ex-film star living in the wilds of Ireland, Claudette Wells is a woman whose first instinct, when a stranger approaches her home, is to reach for her shotgun. Why is she so fiercely protective of her family, and what made her walk out of her cinematic career when she had the whole world at her feet? Her husband, Daniel, reeling from a discovery about a woman he last saw 20 years ago, is about to make an exit of his own. It is a journey that will send him off-course, far away from the life he and Claudette have made together.

At 23 Alice Hare leaves England for New York. She becomes fixated on Mizuko Himura, a Japanese writer living in New York, whose life story has strange parallels to her own and whom she believes is her "Internet twin". What seems to Mizuko like a chance encounter with Alice is anything but - after all, in the age of connectivity, nothing is coincidence. Their subsequent relationship is doomed from the outset, exposing a tangle of lies and sexual encounters as three families across the globe collide.

Twenty-year-old Annie arrives on the Sicilian island of Galatea carrying nothing but grief for the father she just lost in her heart and the weight of the mystery she just inherited on her shoulders. All she knows about her grandmother is that she died in a concentration camp during World War Two. But when handsome local fisherman Salvo’s sea-blue eyes sparkle at the sight of the delicate gold band around her wrist, Annie knows she’s come to the right place.

Princess Ellie has four perfect ponies and the entire palace grounds in which to ride. So Ellie’s in trouble when the king finds hoofprints on his lawn. He thinks she’s been riding in the royal garden. To prove her innocence, Ellie must catch the real culprit. But the only way to do it is to set out on a scary starlight adventure....

Trapped on an alternate Earth, the combined crews of a crashed Russian spaceship, a British expeditionary force and a group of strays from the future must work together to survive, escape and discover what led them to this point. All are from parallel universes where small changes in history led to different realities, and the tensions between the groups are rising.

Everything about Joe seemed perfect, and Alice was the happiest she'd ever been. Then one day Joe saw a message on her phone and discovered something that changed everything. Although it was from an old love, he ignored Alice's explanations and desperate pleas. And soon the violence and abuse began. As she attempted to prove to Joe that he really was her world, Alice gave up everything that mattered to her, including her family, her friends and her job. But still it wasn't enough.

Dear Carys, Zoe and Andrea. Come and join me for my 40th birthday adventure weekend, full of mysteries and surprises the like of which you can't imagine. When Joanne's friends reluctantly accept an invitation to her birthday party, it quickly becomes clear that there is more to this weekend than they are expecting. One of them is hiding a secret. And Joanne is planning to reveal it.... A weekend away in a cottage in the woods sounds like fun - until no one can hear your cries for help.

Welcome to Big Sky Mountain: a home for everyone! Rosa has come from the city to live with Grandma Nan in the wilds of Big Sky Mountain. And what surprises are in store for her! Grandma Nan is not exactly an ordinary grandma, and Big Sky Mountain is like nowhere Rosa has dreamed about before. Grandma Nan lives in an old wooden cabin with Albert the moose and Little Pig the pygmy owl and spends every day out on adventures. From canoeing down rapids to making friends with the local animals, life never stays still for long on Big Sky Mountain!

Following a ferocious battle against Nurgle’s hordes, Lieutenant Quiller and the crew of Titans’ Bane are trapped inside the stricken Shadowsword. With her Cadian unit half-depleted, Quiller is forced to rely upon Paragonian and Mordian replacements. Vicious infighting within the tank soon becomes as dangerous as the enemy outside. In order to survive, Quiller knows she must remind her men that loyalty, camaraderie and self-sacrifice in the name of the Emperor transcends all planetary customs and patriotism.

After burst pipes destroy Esme's city-centre flat, she temporarily relocates to a delightful and small cottage in a village on the edge of town. The change is a big one, but Esme soon settles in and, as the art gallery she co-owns with her business partner, David, continues to thrive, life is sweet. Until Elliot—an ex whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for years—moves in next door, along with his perfect new girlfriend, Morgan. Suddenly, Esme's past is right on her doorstep, or at least just over the fence.

Schoolteacher Sophie Lawson has fled to the Cotswold countryside after a tragic break-up and is throwing herself into dating and organising Cranswell's annual Christmas concert. The festive fun is marred by the arrival of a handsome but surly musical director, tricky pupils and concert preparations falling into disarray. Disaster strikes, but the show must go on. Will the concert bring Christmas harmony to Cranswell and will Sophie end the year on a high note?

Penny and Victoria are about as different as two siblings can be, one with a smart London lifestyle, the other struggling to make ends meet. But they are joined by more than blood, and their shared tragic past is affecting the present more than they realise. When events begin to tug at the fabric beneath which dark secrets are hidden, the resulting chaos threatens to tear the two families apart. Could there be aspects of the past that youngest child Penny doesn't remember? Could the truth of Marge be more complex than the beloved mother the girls choose to perceive?

When Rosa wakes one morning to find Grandma Nan missing, she must use all of her survival skills to uncover her grandma's whereabouts. With the help of the mountain community, Rosa's investigation leads her to the very summit of Big Sky Mountain, where a family of eagles are facing huge problems of their own. Through helping the eagles, Rosa realises she really is at home on Big Sky Mountain.

When Hollywood wants to do a remake of the film that made Tode Hall famous, India and Egbert are delighted. They envisage a summer of free money and star-studded dinner parties ahead. But the Hall is soon overrun by wardrobe trucks and catering tents and lusty, insecure actors squabbling about nudity clauses. When the movie's producers threaten to sue over the exact colour of Tode Hall's rolling lawns, India and Egbert realise that having a film crew on their doorstep isn't such a breeze after all.

After PC Jemima's Cotton's first murder investigation, she knows now to trust no one. She leaves the gifted lasagnes uneaten in her freezer and won't go near a cake sale. But when Perry Noble, head of the Little Cote darts club, is found dead on his doorstep, even PC Cotton can't believe she's found herself involved in yet another murder investigation in this sleepy village. As Jemima starts to investigate, she discovers Perry had his fair share of enemies...especially among the darts players themselves. So it's no surprise when the murder weapon is revealed to be a poisoned dart.

Meet the adults. Claire and Matt are divorced but decide what's best for their daughter, Scarlett, is to have a 'normal' family Christmas. They can't agree on whose idea it was or who said they should bring their new partners. But someone did - and it's too late to pull the plug. Claire brings her new boyfriend, Patrick, a seemingly eligible Iron-Man-in-Waiting. Matt brings the new love of his life, Alex - funny, smart and extremely patient. Scarlett, their daughter, brings her imaginary friend Posey. He's a rabbit.

When Dani's mum gets the chance to study penguins in the Antarctic, she decides to send 11-year-old Dani to a strict girls' boarding school where students wear smart uniforms that include skirts! Having failed to change Mum's mind, Dani finds herself having to say good-bye to Granny Viv, her dog, Downboy, and her best friend, Arch. But when they arrive at St Grizelda's it seems that there have been some drastic changes: uniforms are out, and instead chaos, anarchy and goats are in!

Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At 20, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn. Now, aged 31, she runs a secondhand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing - until she's called to return to New York to see her dying father. Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.