Showing results by narrator "Patience Tomlinson" in All Categories

It is early spring in 1944, and Allied troops will soon invade northern France. Alice Todd is beginning her second year as warden of a Land Army hostel located in the wilds of Devonshire. Here she has won the affection and confidence of the girls in her charge and found herself caught up in lives which are complex, humorous, and sometimes tragic.

A gripping, captivating novel about love, loss and what home really means. Forty-three year old Ria is used to being alone - that is, until she discovers the swimmer. Ben is a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka who has arrived in Norfolk via Moscow. Awaiting a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application, he is discovered by Ria as he takes a daily swim in the river close to her house.

Norfolk, 1944. Phylly is a Land Girl on Catchetts Farm. She and her friend Gracie are doing their bit to support the war effort. But times are changing at Catchetts—there's an evacuee and two P.O.Ws on their way.... And then Phylly meets an American airman from the base up the road. As the war rages on the continent, Phylly and Gracie's world will be changed forever.

In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined 24-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London's Bond Street and set about the delicate business of matchmaking. Drawing on the bureau's extensive archives, Penrose Halson - who, many years later, found herself the proprietor of the bureau - tells their story and the stories of their clients. We meet a remarkable cross section of British society in the 1940s.

For nearly four years Blake Templeton had left his wife, Jaime, and their daughter, Fern, strictly alone. So why had he now decided to re-enter their lives? Was it just chance that his arrival coincided with the proposed sale of the Abbey - and the attacks on Jaime to stop her from joining the campaign against its sale? And just what was his involvement with the beautiful Caroline Travers - the owner of the Abbey? Jaime just could not believe that her husband had changed so much, but all the evidence was there, plain to see. Or was it?

My only regret is that I shan't be alive to savour my retrospective triumph. But that is of small account. I savour it every day of my life. I shall have done the one thing I resolved to do when I was 12 years old - and the world will know it. Follow the 'Queen of Crime' as she takes us into the mind of a man who has waited decades to enact his patient, ingenious revenge on a school bully.

February 1665. With winter passing, Mercia Blakewood is at last headed back to England from America, hoping to leave behind the shadow that death and heartache have cast. She expects a welcome from the King, considering her earlier, mostly successful mission on his behalf, but the reception is not exactly warm. Mercia faces more manipulation and must accept a clandestine and uncomfortable role at the heart of the royal court, posing as a mistress to find a spy and traitor.

Wiser after her humiliating experience with one particular rogue male, Beth is not about to fall for any man’s lies again. From now on, emotion is out and playing men at their own game is in. A business trip to the beautiful city of Prague puts her in the way of seductively charming Alex Andrews. His claim to be rapidly falling in love with her is disconcerting, especially as Beth has good reason to believe that his motives are far from pure. But he’s tempting - oh, so tempting.…

All was quiet in the Bodle home in Plumstead village on the morning of 2 November 1833. In the large ten bedroom farmhouse, the maid Sophia Taylor began preparing breakfast while, at the cottage down the track, Mary Higgins came down to set the fire. But all was not as it seemed that morning... When the local doctor was summoned several hours later he found four women suffering from severe vomiting and stomach pains whilst the master of the house was delirious with pain.

When they met at a motorcycle club in 1912, Elsie Knocker was a 30-year-old motorcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, and Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant 18-year old mechanic, living at home and borrowing tools from her brother. Little did they know that theirs was to become one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War.

Following adventures she would sooner forget in the newly renamed New York, Mercia Blakewood is hopeful that she has gained the leverage with the king she needs to reclaim her family's home back in England. The breathtaking new world piques her curiosity, and a burgeoning friendship with Clemency Carter, a local medicine woman, prompts Mercia to delay her return.

By the summer of 1916, there is still no end to the war in sight and in the Sussex village of Ashden, optimism has given way to stoicism. While George Lilley leaves the Rectory to join the Royal Flying Corps, each of his four sisters finds her own way of contributing to the war effort. Gradually coming to terms with her broken engagement, Caroline Lilley numbly continues with her agricultural work at home, until tragedy forces her into leaving Ashden.

Meet Siiri and Irma, best friends and the queen bees of Sunset Grove, a retirement community for those still young at heart. With a combined age of nearly 180, Siiri and Irma are still just as inquisitive and witty as when they first met decades ago. And when their comfortable world is upturned by a suspicious death at Sunset Grove, Siiri and Irma are shocked into doing something about it.

Life wasn’t easy as a single parent, but somehow Win had managed to raise a child that any parent could be proud of. And now Charlie’s father was back on the scene and demanding a share in his son. Was a share all he wanted, or did he intend to take Charlie away from her? All Win knew was that in the space of a few days James had managed to turn her from a calm, self-assured adult into an insecure bundle of nerves. But was her concern all for Charlie?

It’s 1993 and the small seaside town of Kingshaven is looking picture perfect when the peace is suddenly shattered by the blast of a bomb that has lain hidden since the war. It is not the town’s only long-buried secret. In London, graduate Cat Brown sees the story unfolding on the news. In Rome, Iris Quinn feels the tug of the place she ran away from 30 years before. In the now crumbling Palace Hotel, disturbing memories are triggered for grande-dame Liliana King.

When Gina Bianchi returns to the beautiful Italian resort of Portofino to attend her father’s funeral, she is beset by vivid memories of World War 2, when she joined the Resistance, alongside her identical twin sister, Adele. In her childhood bedroom, Gina reads Adele’s diary, left behind during the war. As Gina learns the shocking truth about her sister, she’s compelled to face the harsh realities of her own past.

1904, London. Lydia Daye adores her husband John, but his secret government job means he is often away. She consoles herself with her small son, Adam, and the knowledge that John's salary allows them to live comfortably. Dolly Ellerway lives just two miles away, but in a different world. Pregnant, she is delighted when the father of her child says he'll marry her, even though he can barely afford it.

When frumpy Jo Hill lands a position as a PA at Gloss magazine, it's the job of her dreams - but it soon becomes a nightmare. As a mousy secretary with a passion for giant bags of Maltesers and comfy shoes, Jo doesn't fit in at the uber-chic office. But she has a plan.

Miss Melinda Pink, intrepid rock climber, gothic writer and people observer, is awestruck by her first glimpse of the majestic Utah canyon country. But she’s soon aware of undercurrents of tension among the close-knit inhabitants of Salvation Canyon. When Birdie, a young half-Indian girl, disappears, her body found in a nearby river soon afterward, the tension explodes to the surface.

What would you do if you saw a girl in a crowd whose face had the same, identical birthmark as your only child? A child who, nearly 10 years ago, you were told died? It's 1935, and housewife Emma glimpses a face in a crowd - a little girl with a very unique birthmark. Transfixed by the sight of a stranger; Emma becomes convinced that the girl is her long-lost daughter taken from her at birth. There is only one problem: Emma's daughter is dead. So who is the stranger?