Showing results by narrator "Laurel Lefkow" in All Categories

Eleanor Merritt, a do-gooding American family-planning worker, was drawn to Kenya to improve the lot of the poor. Unnervingly, she finds herself falling in love with the beguiling Calvin Piper despite, or perhaps because of, his misanthropic theories about population control and the future of the human race. Surely, Calvin whispers seductively in Eleanor's ear, if the poor are a responsibility, they are also an imposition.

People don't need to know you're a murderer. They just have to think you could be.... June 1980. Seventeen-year-old Kelly Lund is jailed for killing Hollywood film director John McFadden. Thirty years later Kelly is a free woman. Yet speculation still swirls over what really happened that night. And when her father-in-law and close friend of McFadden is found dead - shot through the head at point-blank range - there can be only one suspect.

Karin Slaughter has called Julia Keller 'a rare talent', and Dennis Lehane has praised her 'remarkable writing'. Now Bell Elkins returns - a high-profile development has been green-lit in Acker's Gap, but with one resident refusing to sell his land, tensions are running high, and when a body is found it's up to Bell to find out the truth.

Joanna Smith Rakoff's richly drawn and immensely satisfying first novel details the lives of a group of Oberlin graduates whose ambitions and friendships threaten to unravel as they chase their dreams, shed their youth, and build their lives in Brooklyn during the late 1990s and the turn of the 21st century.

In 1955 New York City is full of post-war euphoria and glamour, and the Barbizon Hotel - the place where Grace Kelly lived when she first came to the big city - is where young women from good families stay while they launch their careers and wait for Mr Right to come calling with a dozen roses and a date night at El Morocco.

Elizabeth Hampton has not spoken to her mother in weeks when she gets the phone call. Her mother has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. But who would want to kill a woman who stayed at home to care for her son Ronnie’s special needs? And why did her mother recently change her will? The police tell Elizabeth this is not only a murder investigation.

After two decades of covering riots, assassinations, and urban decay, Kate Osborn comes to Venice, Illinois, to profile Steve Higgins, an old-school Chicago-style politician. Although Higgins hews to tradition, the problems in Venice are thoroughly modern. Student unrest roils beneath the quiet surface of the university, kept in check only by the well-armed campus police, and in town, the white merchants and black coal miners are preparing to go to war.

Evie, a rebellious young American, leaves New York in search of art and adventure in jazz-age Paris, where her grandmother lives. But on arrival, her grandmother’s sudden death leaves Evie compelled to carry out her dying wish: to find a man from her past called Zhenya. The quest leads Evie deep into the heart of the Russian émigré community of Paris. With Jean, a liberal Russian writer by her side, Evie finally seems to have found the passion and excitement she’s yearned for.

Sarah McAdams needs a fresh start. So she's come home to the shores of Oregon's wild Columbia river, to renovate the old Victorian mansion where she grew up. Her daughters, Jade and Gracie, aren't impressed by the run-down property, and as soon as they pull up the isolated drive, Sarah too is beset by uneasy memories - of her cold, distant mother, of the half-sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago night when Sarah was found outside, feverish and delirious.

We had a tangled history, Adair and I. He had been my lover and my teacher, master to my slave. We had literally been prisoners to one another. Somewhere along the way he fell in love with me, but I was too afraid to love him in return. Afraid of his unexplainable powers, and his furious temper. Afraid of what I knew he was capable of and what even he himself didn’t know he could do. I ran away to follow a safer path with a man I could understand.

Babe, Grace, and Millie have been best friends since kindergarten. Despite their differences, they’ve played together, grown up together, and shared each other’s secrets. And when World War Two becomes a reality for America, each quickly marries her first true love. With the men away, life is difficult for these women. But when no fewer than 16 telegrams arrive on a single morning in 1944 - all bearing news of the worst kind from the War Department - the girls know that nothing will ever be the same again.

On the eve of her wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch is waiting for her husband to come home, listening for his car along the dark, icy roads. As the night draws on, and he fails to appear, Mary reflects on the true nature of their marriage: the secrets, the silences, and the unmentionable yet inescapable fact that for each loss and disappointment, there has been a corresponding physical gain: the woman she once is now imprisoned in mountainous flesh.

GET UP. KISS YOUR FAMILY GOODBYE. GOT TO WORK. DIE... They say bad luck comes in threes. But for Karen Friedman's family, bad luck is just the beginning. It starts with her husband Charlie's investments going wrong and the sudden death of a family pet. Then one morning Charlie takes the train to work - straight into a lethal terrorist blast. For his widow Karen and their children, all that remains of Charlie is a shared past.

Meet Katy Carr. She's Impulsive, gangly, adventurous, awkward, and brave; she loves clambering over fences, sitting on roofs, making up games, or going for picnics with her five brothers and sisters (much to the horror of her Aunt Izzie). But when she falls from a swing, she suddenly has to cope with being stuck indoors - maybe forever.

Lola has clawed her way to the top of her South Central Los Angeles neighbourhood, growing her gang into a full-fledged empire. The influx of cash has opened up a new world - one where her daughter can attend a good school, her mother can live in safety, and Lola can dream of a better life. But as Lola ascends the hierarchy of the city's underworld she attracts the attention of a dangerous new cartel who sees her as their greatest obstacle. Soon Lola finds herself sucked into a deadly all-out drug war that threatens to destroy everything she's built....

Classic characters are brought to life in these fun retellings. Even the very youngest children want to return to this audio collection again and again. Fairy tales are a vital introduction to the basics of story-telling like setting, characters and plot. They boost a child's imagination and also teach valuable life lessons about good overcoming evil, the difference between right and wrong and the importance of rising to a challenge.

From the moment she first holds him, Gladys Presley loves her son Elvis ferociously. She will be his greatest influence, the love of his life. And he will love her back. But while he makes it big in Hollywood and achieves unimagined wealth and fame, there is another story - of drinking and diet pills, loneliness and loss. While the heat and music of the American South play in the background, a heartbreaking portrait of a mother’s love and a son’s devotion takes centre stage.

The island has a way of calling you home.... Ten years ago, Emily Watson was on top of the world: a best-selling novel, a husband plucked from the pages of a magazine, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after. Now her perfect life has crumbled, and Emily is left to pick up the pieces. So when her great-Aunt Bee invites her to spend the month of March on her beloved Bainbridge Island, Emily accepts, longing to be healed by the sea.

A fact filled collection taking a close-up look at some of the fantastic creatures we live among. Hours of audio fun to keep children entertained while on the move! Introduce your children to four information books about animals around the world, touching on topics such as migration and animal welfare, plus a bonus animal-themes poetry collection.

Five historical figures and groups who changed the world for the better. Hours of audio fun to keep children entertained while on the move! Introduce your children to six true stories about inspirational women in history, from Boudica to the Suffragettes and the world’s first female pilots.