Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Strevens" in All Categories

Oxfordshire, 1947. Exhausted by the war and nursing a tragic secret, Kit Smallwood flees to Wickam Farm to recuperate. There she throws herself into helping set up a charity sending midwives to India. Then Kit meets Anto, a handsome, complicated but charming trainee doctor nearing the end of his English education, and she falls utterly in love. But when Anto informs his family that he is to return home with an English bride, his parents are appalled.

On May 3rd, 1942, fifteen-year-old Alma Braithwaite and her fellow boarders at Goldwyn's school huddle in an air-raid shelter as bombs rain down on Exeter. When the girls emerge, the school is in ruins. Twenty-one years on, Alma lives alone and teaches music at her old school. The arrival of a new student takes Alma back to that summer and the long shadow it cast on her life.

Ginnie Holmes has found something she never intended to find - an overwhelming passion for a man she should not be with. At an abandoned boathouse hidden on the riverbank of the Thames, Ginnie steps into a world that’s just a little bit brighter than her ordinary life. Then, in a single terrifying event, the lovers' secret becomes a deadly catastrophe, and Ginnie finds herself in the path of extraordinary danger.

As an illegitimate child, Frederica Bracewell was treated by her uncle like a servant. But when she encounters the new gamekeeper, shy Frederica starts to feel like a true lady... After a debauched existence, Lord Robert Mountford revels in the simplicity of a gamekeeper's lifestyle. Until temptation strikes! Frederica is a far cry from the ladies of the ton, but she may just be his undoing... and unmasking!

The first book about ten-year-old FRANKIE FOSTER – the girl who wants to help, but ends up causing chaos!Frankie Foster loves fixing people's problems. Her help might not always be welcome – and she might cause the odd total disaster – but Frankie always fixes things. Eventually!It all started with the “My Beginnings” essays that Frankie and her classmates had to write for English. Her best friend, Jem, wrote all about how she felt being adopted and it was so good it got chosen to be read out at the end of term Speech Day!

For two people who run competing arts centres in Cornwall, Sybill Helyer and Coren Penhaligon get on rather well. So well, in fact, that Sybill often wishes the owner of Pencradoc Arts Centre would look up from his spreadsheets for a minute and notice her. Unfortunately, even that is too much to ask from workaholic Coren. However, when the pair join forces to run an exhibition on the wild and wonderful life of Elsie Pencradoc, a talented artist who lived at Coren’s estate in the early 20th century, they’re in for a surprise.

When Joel Leicester walks into the hotel where Rosa Tempest works, she can’t believe her bad luck. Out of all the hotels in all of North Yorkshire, the man who broke her heart would have to walk into Carrick Park! The last time Rosa saw Joel it was after a whirlwind holiday when they’d been greeted by a woman claiming to be his fiancée. Rosa never stuck around to hear Joel’s side of the story, but now, six years later on, Fate has another trick up its sleeve as a potentially disastrous summer wedding at Carrick Park can only be saved by Joel and Rosa working together....

Aspiring actress Cordelia Beaumont is fed up of spending summer in the city. So, when the opportunity presents itself, she jumps straight on a train to pay a visit to Pencradoc - the beautiful Cornish estate where her friend Merryn works. But far from the relaxing break Cordy imagined, she soon finds herself immersed in the glamorous yet mysterious world of Victorian theatre sensation Lily Valentine.

The second of a new series of young fiction by Jenny Valentine, winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for her debut novel, Finding Violet Park. More funny and endearing family stories featuring the irrepressible 5-year-old IGGY as seen through the eyes of her big sister Flo, the ME of the title. Whether learning to swim, or playing at home, going on a day trip or baking birthday cakes, Iggy and Flo add sparkle to everyday activities.

The rural idyll of life in a remote Welsh valley has turned sour for the Cordiners. For David, life in the local police force is deathly dull after the exhilaration of working for the Met. For Tessa, the hostility of the local community is a daily torment. Then a young nurse is found dead at a nearby beauty spot, her corpse strewn with wild flowers in some sick ceremony.

Cassie Bell is used to mess. Her cleaning business, Bluebell Cleaning, is well known in the Cumbrian village of Red Moss. However, now it’s almost Christmas and Cassie has a slightly messier situation to deal with than she’s used to. She’s been hired to help Stefan Lambert, an injured army helicopter pilot who’s staying at the local Belthorn Manor whilst he recovers. Stefan resents Cassie’s interference and is definitely not looking for Christmas cheer. But Cassie prides herself on sparkling surfaces - so, can she bring some festive sparkle to Stefan’s life too?

Lucy had it all: an exciting career, a rock-star husband, great friends, a size-10 waist and pelvic floor muscles that could crack a walnut. And then, she had kids. Since giving birth to her second child, Lucy's life is totally unrecognisable. A 'flab-alanche' hangs over the top of her jeans, the romance in her marriage is officially dead and so is the career it took her years to build. Instead of playing the cello behind superstars at packed-out arenas, Lucy now spends most days mopping up broccoli vomit whilst listening to her four-year-old recite facts about the gall bladder.

When Edith Wight's parents fail to collect her from boarding school for the summer holidays, she's packed off to live with eccentric Uncle Francis - a vet who runs a practice in a remote part of the New Forest. Francis is the last in a long line of vets who treat mythical creatures: among his patients are pegasi, unicorns, dragons and much more. And when he receives a summons from the Himalayas - where one of a remote family of yetis is suffering from a mysterious illness - Edith finds herself on the voyage of a lifetime.

When Kate's younger daughter Ella goes off to university, she realises her life has become consumed by the minutiae of family life. In her 'empty nest', Kate starts to wonder: what now? Decades after abandoning her university hobby of rowing, Kate gingerly joins a local ladies' rowing team and rediscovers her passion for the pleasing rhythmic sensation of paddle slicing through water. More than anything, though, Kate finds that the team of strong women bring new adventures and unlikely friendships she hadn't even realised she missed having.

Gafferty Sprout is a Smidgen. A Smidgen looks like a human, sounds like a human, and loves chips with curry sauce like a human, if humans were three inches tall. Generations ago there were lots of them, living in a maze of tunnels beneath the human village of Dundoodle. But then something happened and they just disappeared.

It's a time of coming together, yet sisters Prue and Cece have very different ideas about how to celebrate the holiday, and their clash of personalities also causes damage to their hearts. All Millie wants is a happy home, yet her warring sisters try her patience, and she's stuck in the middle! Not only that, but her husband, Jeremy, is dealing with his own problems regarding his parentage, her mother is acting strangely and her grandmother is as opinionated as always! Will Christmas at the Chateau bring the family together or tear them apart?

Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year Arrest Me, for I Have Run Away is a stunning short story collection on human nature and identity. Stevie Davies' latest work, it is bound to captivate and charm the listener.

Being different can be dangerous. Wilde is afraid strange things are happening around her. Are the birds following her? Is she flying in her sleep? Moving to live with her aunt seems to make it all worse. Wilde is desperate to fit in at her new school, but things keep getting stranger. In a fierce heatwave, during rehearsals for a school play telling the old local legend of a witch called Winter, 'The Witch' starts leaving pupils frightening letters cursing them. Can Wilde find out what's happening before everyone blames her? Or will she always be the outcast?

How to Succeed in 12 Months: Creating a Life You Love is your ultimate guide to turning your dreams into reality. Author Serena Star-Leonard is living the dream herself, having practiced what she preaches. In the audiobook, she shares the secrets behind figuring out the steps that will get you the life you've always wanted.

It’s almost Christmas at the Pencradoc estate in Cornwall, which means that, as usual, tea room owner Sorcha Davies is baking up a festive storm. And this year Sorcha is hoping her mince pies will be going down a treat at ‘The Spirit of Christmas Past’ exhibition being organised at the house by new local antiques dealer Locryn Dyer.