Showing results by narrator "Rachel Atkins" in All Categories

It's 1956, and the Berkshire Constabulary has never had a woman detective before. That is, until bright and ambitious WPC Gwen Crockford passes out of Hendon Detective Training School with flying colours... After five years serving as one of Britain's first policewomen, Gwen Crockford becomes one of its first female detectives. Swapping crime prevention for detection, she must soon become comfortable with attending murder scenes and post-mortems, investigating sex crimes and going undercover.

Will Nancy and Jack be allowed to embrace the future, or will their histories forever bind them to the past? Drama teacher Nancy O'Brien puts her ambitions on hold to support her family and returns to her idyllic seaside hometown, St Nicholas Bay. Jack, a young widower desperate to come to terms with his loss, hopes that setting up home there with his baby son might enable him to survive the future. As Nancy and Jack become closer, not everyone is thrilled.

In the 17th century, a wall is built around the deer park of a great house. Wychwood is a world in itself, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, a master of the new art of landscaping. A world where, after decades of civil war, everyone has something to hide or something to fear, where dissidents hide in the forest and Londoners fleeing the plague are at the gate.

Marisa Merico, the daughter of one of Italy's most notorious Mafia Godfathers, was dazzled by her father, Emilio DiGiovine. To her he was all powerful, sophisticated and loving; to the rest of the world he was staggeringly ruthless. Marisa knew her father would do anything for her, but she hadn't expected just how much he would ask in return.

Comedian Stephen K Amos is one of eight children, whose parents came to London from Nigeria in the 60s. In these three series, co-written with multi-award-winning British playwright Jonathan Harvey, he takes us back in time to the 1980s, as he reminisces about his dysfunctional childhood and formative experiences, and shares the dramas and traumas of his teenage years.

London, 1946. Alice Diamond, the Queen of the Forty Thieves, rules over her gang of hoisters with a bejewelled fist. Nell is a slum girl from Waterloo, hiding a secret pregnancy and facing a desperately uncertain future. Sensing an opportunity to exploit Nell's vulnerabilities, Alice takes her under her wing, and before long, Nell is experiencing the secret world of hoisting, with all the dangers—and glamorous trappings—that comes with this underworld existence.

Original tales by remarkable writers. Hometown Tales is a series of books pairing exciting new voices with some of the most talented and important writers at work today. Some of the tales are fiction and some are narrative nonfiction - they are all powerful, fascinating and moving and aim to celebrate regional diversity and explore the meaning of home.

A new home, a new circle of friends, a new chance at happiness? Suzanna and Barney Blake are swapping city life for the countryside, determined to breathe new life into the Honeycote Arms and a marriage touched by tragedy. Recently separated Ginny Tait is also seeking solace in country living, desperate to rein in her rambunctious twin daughters. They all think that moving to a calm, quiet and beautiful village in the Cotswolds will solve their problems. But in Honeycote, things are never quite as they appear....

Heathcote, England, 1984. A mysterious figure is sneaking into homes through backdoors and open windows. Known locally as 'the Fox', he knows everything about everyone, leaving curious objects in their homes or taking things from them. When beloved Anna disappears, everyone believes the Fox is responsible. For the villagers, finding Anna will be difficult - but stopping the Fox from exposing their darkest secrets might just be impossible.

During the oppressive heat wave of 1976, a young journalist, Ed Peters, finds an Edwardian photograph in a junk shop in the Brighton Lanes. It shows an alluring dark-haired girl, an actress whose name was Leda Grey. Leda Grey is living still, in a decaying clifftop house once shared with a man called Charles Beauvois, a director of early silent film. As Beauvois' lover and his muse, Leda often starred in scenes where stage magic and trick photography were used to astonishing effect.

Charlotte Alton has put her old life behind her. The life where she bought and sold information, unearthing secrets buried too deep for anyone else to find, or fabricating new identities for people who need their histories erased. But now she has been offered one more job. To get a hit-man into an experimental new prison and take out someone who according to the records isn't there at all. It's impossible. A suicide mission. And quite possibly a set-up. So why can't she say no?

When two bodies wash up on a river bank in the Balkans, Simo Subotic is called in to investigate. It soon becomes clear that their deaths were the result of torture not seen since the Bosnian War. Meanwhile, after a drug bust prematurely ends the Tour de Balkans, former Olympic cyclist Heather Bishop is in freefall after her journalist boyfriend Ryan Mackinnon goes missing. Her desperate search for him uncovers not only Ryan's dark past, but that of a region still reeling from the trauma of war.

In a heartbeat everything can change. This is the gripping, true story of how a young woman was murdered and a family lost a daughter. Like most young girls her age Nadine lives a life filled with family, friends and thoughts about the future. At seventeen she meets Gerold and they fall in love. But a darkness gradually falls upon their relationship and after almost three years Nadine calls the relationship off. Gerold does not accept this decision and keeps contacting her, despite her rejecting his advances.

One fateful night. One unthinkable family tragedy. One survivor. This is Alison's story. Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train and Apple Tree Yard, this stunning psychological thriller follows one woman's search for the truth about her family history. Alison is as close to anonymous as she can get: With no ties and a backroom job, hers is a life lived under the radar. But once Alison was someone else: Once she was Esme, a teenager whose bedroom sat at the top of a remote house on a bleak estuary.

Cartoonist Steven Appleby asks where reality ends and fantasy begins, as he gives us his distinctly abnormal insights into everyday life. In these two series, he takes a look at a few of life’s fundamental topics, including Love, Death, Science, Truth and Oceanography.

London, 1922. Orphan girl Alice dreams there's more to life than toiling long hours in Pink's jam factory. Inspired by stories about the legendary Queen of Thieves, Mary Carr, who terrorised the streets of Victorian London, Alice decides to set up her own gang: The Forty Thieves. Sly seamstress Kate Felix from Whitechapel has the same plan and will stop at nothing to keep Alice and her pals off her turf in the West End shops. But Alice is determined to win at all costs, hitting the headlines as the Bob-Haired Bandit.

I've always known Jack was different. Ever since he was eight years old and he killed his father. He was protecting me, just like I've always protected him. But now he's eighteen and this time he's gone too far. Steve is dead. He was a good man, and god, we could have been really great together—but now he's bleeding out on our kitchen table. I must keep my boy safe. No one can ever know what he's done. What he's capable of. And I won't let him get caught. I'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, keep him with me. Even if it means becoming a monster myself.

The Queue tells the unforgettable story of three strangers, nineteen-year-old Abbie, 40-year-old Mike and 63-year-old Janet, who meet in Southwark Park on 17th September 2022 on a day that will change their lives forever. Over the next twenty-four hours, alongside 250,000 others, friendships are formed, celebrities are spotted and rom-com dreams are ignited. As the unlikely trio wind along the Thames, edging ever closer to Westminster and the Queen, it's clear that they have unknowingly become a part of history.

Two women. An open road. The trip of a lifetime. Thea is confident, sorted, determined to have fun, but there are sorrows beneath the surface of her life. Denise is struggling under the weight of her many commitments and in desperate need of some excitement. When these polar opposites meet, and unexpectedly become friends, they realise they're both looking to escape.

Gangland Queen Nell has the perfect life of crime as a top shoplifter by day and glamorous club owner by night. But a betrayal and botched robbery suddenly reverse her fortunes...and her old rival, Alice Diamond, is hell-bent on taking her down. After escaping a poverty-stricken childhood, nightclub dancer Zoe has more on her mind than settling scores for Alice. But the life of luxury Zoe craves comes at a terrible price. And when a vicious gang tightens its grip on Soho, all three women realise it pays to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.