Showing results by narrator "Antonia Beamish" in All Categories

Finding it hard to meet Mr. Right? Try looking for Mr. Wrong instead.... After 11 years of coupled-up domesticity, Rory Carmichael is single for the first time in her adult life. When she discovers that Martin, her supposedly reliable Mr. Right, is a distinctly unreliable cheater, she’s forced to consider the possibility that everything she knows about relationships is wrong. In an effort to reinvigorate her love life, she sets herself a mission to date as many unsuitable men as possible.

Lifelong friends Claudia, Ella, Laura and Sal celebrated 60 as the new 40, determined not to let age change things. But now they are looking at the future and wondering how to make growing old more fun. Why not live together and have sunny afternoons on the lawn, helping and supporting each other when any of them need it - and still keep enjoying life? Joined by Claudia’s reluctant husband and Sal’s energetic new fiancé, they ignore the protests of their children and pool their resources in a lovely manor house in the country.

When the breakdown of her marriage leaves Sadie Turner a single mum, she vows that she will make it on her own. After all, why would a smart businesswoman with a PhD and the prospect of a life-changing deal on the horizon need a man? But Sadie's man-ban is tested to the limit when she travels to Monaco to meet her potential investor. There she encounters Mac, a rough and ready playboy billionaire who lives life in the fast lane. But Sadie's heart isn't the only thing on the line....

Lullaby Beach takes the listener on a journey through three generations of a complicated, close-knit clan whose joys and misfortunes track many of the most pressing conflicts and concerns of post-war Britain, from the promise and hypocrisies of 1950s London to the political divides and risky freedoms of the present day.

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you these classic stories. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.

A comedy of ambition, dreams, blackmail and daytime TV… Bella’s career as a TV presenter is ‘on hold’. To fill her days, she sits in a coffee shop and obsesses about a wedding dress in the neighbouring shop. Her luck changes when she gets the call from her old boss to present a pilot for a new food and chat show. But her revived TV career is short-lived when one of the celebrity guests threatens to steal the show…

The Rule of St. Benedict (the rule) arose in an era when a great civilisation was threatened by violence, economic forces that favoured the wealthy, political leaders that lacked the trust of the public and rampant xenophobia. The events that occurred in sixth-century Rome were much those like on the nightly news. Benedict was not a priest or religious official. He was just a young man disillusioned by a corrupt society that lacked compassion. He had a vision of a society in which human values reigned supreme - a vision of compassion, harmony and hope.

Róisín O'Reilly is ecstatic. Nate, her boyfriend of the past ten years, has finally proposed. But he insists they need to save for five years before they can afford the swanky wedding she longs for. Their problems are solved when Róisín enters a competition for an all-expenses-paid dream wedding at stunning Sylverley House–and to her astonishment she wins! Then Nate drops a bombshell. He never wanted to get married.

Jacky ‘The Beetle' McKenzie is, if you ask her, the most sensible and rational person in the world. Unfortunately, her ordinary and the rest of the world's ordinary don't mix. To the rest of the world, she is belligerent, weird, obsessive, angry and volatile. Always, in the background, husband Mark and girlfriend Clarissa have one eye on each other, both asking the same question—which of them will she push too far first? Which of them will abandon her, and which will be left to pick up the pieces?

A large wolf escapes its captors. A cult leader breaks out of psychiatric care. A disillusioned woman is forced to end her self-imposed exile. Stefan Spjut's latest novel explores the ancient notion that our forests may be inhabited by beings we do not understand, creatures neither animal nor human, living in the shadows.... Thriller, horror fiction, suspense, Trolls is set 10 years on from hit novel Stallo, as Susso Myrén's world once again starts to shift around her.

Alexandra Ludd is an actress playing Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In the eyes of the world she has everything a woman could want: husband, home, child, income, good looks, good friends, the plaudits of the crowd and the affection of neighbours. But Alexandra inspires envy as well as love: she was unwise to forget it, she was complacent, perhaps a little vain - and all fate has to do to bring her down is to snip a single strand....

When Karen Finch's 17-year-old daughter, Sophie, arrives home after a night out drunk and accompanied by police officers, no one is smiling the morning after. But Sophie remembers nothing about how she got into such a state. Twelve hours later Sophie's friend Amy has still not returned home. Then the body of a young woman is found. Karen is sure that Sophie knows more than she is letting on. But Karen has her own demons to fight. She struggles to go beyond her own door without a panic attack.

Magda lives alone in her a huge house by the sea. Bad tempered and elderly, Magda does not need help from anyone, despite being wheelchair bound. With her sharp tongue, she gets through carers at a rate of knots, until Susheela arrives. And Susheela, it turns out, is in even more trouble than Magda. Still reeling from the recent death of her mum and trying to prop up her dad, who is at risk of losing the family business, she finds she is pregnant. The future suddenly looks uncertain and frightening.

Beth is desperate to return to normality. After a years-long ordeal, her daughter is finally home and safe. But Carmel has questions she can't ignore about the cult that kidnapped her, and about the preacher who gave her another girl's name. Digging into her past, Carmel uncovers secrets which suggest that she wasn't the only lost girl—and which puts her in danger all over again. While her mother struggles to salvage the safety they've only just found, Carmel tries to come to terms with who she has become. One question, a mystery at the heart of her disappearance as a child, haunts her:

Judith Lane, not-quite-beautiful but charmingly serious, is the young widow of the war hero Anthony Lane, and an editor at the successful if rather rakish publisher Hanescu Lane & Co. Ltd. But one evening she receives her first visit from Baldwin Reeves, who reveals that Anthony’s wartime adventures were not quite as glorious as the newspaper reports would have her believe. To protect Anthony’s family from the scandal, Judith reluctantly acquiesces to the repellent but attractive Reeves’s demands – but both blackmailer and blackmailee soon find themselves out of their depth.

When orphan Julie Miller is sent to Canada to keep her safe from Hitler’s bombs at the start of WWII, she hopes this will the start of a happier new life for her after years of sadness. Taken in by a schoolteacher, it seems that Julie’s dreams are coming true. But that’s before a shadow is cast over her safe refuge, and before long, she is forced to run away. This is just the start of a long journey, one with many hardships before she can find a place to call home.

Kate and Bella, Bella and Kate. From childhood they were inseparable yet polar opposites: Bella sensible and cautious, Kate gregarious and just a little dangerous. Then men came into their lives and things changed: a black seed was set in in the heart of their relationship. Over decades, acts of both cruelty and love feed that seed until one shocking event leads to further tragedy. Neither will escape unscathed.

In The Incidental Feminist: Friend, foe, femme fatale: The truth about Thatcher, Tina Gaudoin investigates the complexities of the woman behind the tropes. Drawing upon explosive new material from the archives and interviews with her contemporaries, Gaudoin reveals how Thatcher triumphed over rampant misogyny and class prejudice to normalize female power and manipulated her femininity, sexuality, and intellect to become the most powerful woman in the world.

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you this final instalment from their über-guide to exploring the fourth dimension. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.

Evie Grant is forty-five years old, a widow, and single mum of two children about to leave the nest. Suddenly alone in the family home, Evie realizes she hates her job, hardly goes out and hasn't had a date since who knows when... So it feels like fate when the opportunity arises for a girls trip to New York City. Staying with her sister on the Upper East Side, Evie is enchanted by a snow-covered city consumed by preparing for Christmas. Bobble hat firmly on, Evie is walking through the city one day when she bumps into Daniel Roberts, Hollywood heartthrob and one-time boyfriend of hers.