Showing results by narrator "Penelope Freeman" in All Categories

Dover, 1864: Violet Rayfield leads a happy life with her family in a beautiful terrace on Camden Crescent. But Violet’s seemingly perfect world is shattered when her father makes a decision that costs her family everything. Now Violet must sacrifice all she holds dear, including the man she loves. As Violet strives to pick up the threads of her existence, a series of shocking revelations leaves her feeling even more alone. But where one door closes, another opens, and the embroidery skills Violet perfected while a young woman of leisure win her vital work.

Esme Colborne is about to marry Richard Trevannion. When she finds out she is adopted - from a working-class family - she cannot allow Richard to marry so far beneath his station. Fleeing the life she knew, she starts working as a ‘decoy woman’, testing British undercover operatives who may otherwise reveal secrets in a moment of weakness. However, she still has feelings for Richard. Will she be brave enough to risk having her heart broken all over again?

After a bomb destroys Esme's London home and kills her son, she moves to Woodicombe, her old house in Devon, to begin the impossible task of recuperating. Soon she is drawn back into the world of espionage and as her marriage to Richard starts to crumble, a local airman pulls her closer. Meanwhile, Lou awaits confirmation that she can relocate to Canada to be with her husband. Biding her time back home, she notices her father behaving strangely and disappearing at odd hours to wander the nearby cliffs. With rumours of spies afoot, she needs to learn the truth before anyone else does.

At 17, Renee Rushmore lives at home with her father Ivan—a cruel man who rules the house with an iron fist and keeps Renee isolated and alone. She is desperate to escape him, but with no friends to help her, what hope does she have? Then war breaks out. With factories and farms looking to take on female workers, Renee dares to hope that her freedom might be within grasp. And when she hears through a kindly local farmhand named Jimmy that Oak Valley Farm is in need of help, she might just have found her chance.

Canterbury, 1853. Agnes Berry-Clay might have been born into rags, but she is growing up with riches. Given away as a baby by her real mother, she was rescued and raised by her darling Papa and distant Mama. Agnes wants for nothing, except perhaps a little freedom. But as times goes on, her life at Windmarsh Court changes. New arrivals and old resentments push Agnes to the peripheries, and finally the consequences of one fateful day shatter her dreams for the future. Heartbroken and surrounded by the threat of scandal, Agnes is faced with a terrible choice: stay and surrender or flee and fight to keep her freedom.

1666. Newly married to a wealthy spice merchant, Kate Finche believes all her dreams of a happy family life are just around the corner until the Great Fire rages through London. She watches in horror as their livelihood goes up in flames, filling the air with the heady scents of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. As the city is devastated, Kate's husband, Robert is forced to seek employment to ensure their survival, but when he is found drowned, Kate refuses to believe that he has taken his own life.

There were four of the Thorpe family in the Anderson shelter the night of the raid on Coventry. Mum and Dad, Florrie and little May. Jack was missing... he was one of those who did not return from Dunkirk. When Daisy and Marcus, sixth formers in Coventry, are given a project on the bombing of the city in 1940, they go to talk to May, now living in sheltered accommodation but full of memories of the war. The two youngsters both have their problems and as their lives unfold they strike up an unlikely friendship....

When Naomi's brother, Ned, is sent home seriously injured, it's up to Kate to manage the household as well as Ned's rehabilitation. But with the growing workload, she struggles to keep everything running smoothly and yearns to return to Woodicombe House. And with no word from her husband, Luke, fighting in France, it's becoming increasingly difficult to stay positive. Hard times are ahead for Kate and her family - when the realities of war land on their doorstep, can Kate find the strength to keep going?

In this addictive collection, master crime writer Peter Lovesey prescribes 15 fiendishly clever stories featuring the man in the street along with the ever-popular detectives Peter Diamond and the self-important Bertie, Prince of Wales. Here, the genteel mix easily with the sordid in a nasty but effective concoction of mayhem and suspense. It’s a mixture that will make your heart beat faster - and there are twists that will take your breath away....

1969. A job in the Prison Service is not for everyone. The training is hard, the cells are bleak and a thick skin is needed. But for Nell Lewis, helping prisoners is something she cares about deeply, and when she's promoted into a new post as governor of HMP Brackerley in Yorkshire, she's tasked with transforming the renowned run-down facility into a modern, open prison for women. Just as Nell is settling into her new role, events take a dark turn when a man's body is discovered in the prison grounds.

When Edward Price-Carpenter arrives in Wyford, Essex, he immediately catches Cassie Jordan's eye. Handsome and persuasive, the young man has come to oversee work on his father's racing yacht and takes lodgings in the Falcon Inn, where Cassie lives with her family. As romance blossoms between them, Cassie finds herself torn between the man she loves and Luke Turnbull, a childhood friend whom she is destined to marry.

A debut novel by a best-selling nonfiction author, this is a witty, wholly entrancing story of the pleasures, pains and obsessions of contemporary life. Lisa Blaize - teacher and would-be fashion writer, mother and second wife - feels out of place when her high-flying husband becomes the headmaster of a school in a country town. Isolated and far from her metropolitan upbringing, she turns to the one place where she learns she can be uninhibited. But ‘Twitter may be my undoing’, Lisa discovers as her onetime private life becomes all too public. Soon she is dealing with an online stalker and her husband’s reputation is put at risk - but will she be able to give up her addiction?

Soundings and Choc Lit present the audiobook edition of Christmas at Borteen Bay. Christmas is a bittersweet time for Pippa Freeman. There are good memories, of course - but some painful ones, too. Then her mother is implicated in a mysterious occurrence in their home town of Borteen, and Pippa wonders if she'll ever experience a happy Christmas again - especially when a family secret is revealed. But when police officer and old school friend Ethan Gibson offers his support, Pippa begins to realise that even though her life has been turned upside down, a happy and hopeful Christmas isn't impossible....

The stirring second instalment in Terri Nixon's Penhaligon Saga series. 1910. Anna Garvey and her daughter are still running the Tin Streamer's Arms in Caernoweth, Cornwall, and it finally seems like she has left her tumultuous history behind in Ireland. Meanwhile, Freya Penhaligon has blossomed and is now the object of increasing affection of Hugh, the elder son of the wealthy Batten family.

In Talyton St George, vet nurse Tessa Wilde is on the way to her wedding...It should be the happiest day of her life. But then her car hits a dog, and though the dog is saved, her wedding is not. Animal welfare officer and part-time firefighter Jack Miller spends his life saving animals and people. As one of Tessa’s oldest friends, he feels he has the right to rescue her from a marriage that can only end in tears.But does he? Tessa is sure she doesn’t need rescuing, least of all by Jack.

Primavera Blackstone has found contentment in a small Spanish village by the sea. A fiercely protective single mother, she doesn’t appreciate an offer of marriage. Nor does she welcome the arrival of a blast from her past, retired cop Ricky Ross, now a private detective and working for Jack Weighley, millionaire owner of a budget airline. Primavera teams up with Ricky to investigate a series of mystery assaults on Jack’s aircraft. Are they mere acts of vandalism, or the sinister work of Catalan extremists?

Cornwall, 1801. In the wake of her mother's death, Pandora Woodville is desperate to escape her domineering father and finally return to Cornwall. Posing as a widow, she safely makes it across the Atlantic, bright with the dream of working at her Aunt Harriet's school for young women. But as Pandora is soon to learn, the school is facing imminent closure after a series of sinister events threatened its reputation.

The colliery village of Bellingsworth is already divided over an impending strike, so the last thing it needs is a murder - but that's exactly what it gets, when a retired miner called Len Hopkins is found battered to death in his outside lavatory. Detective Chief Inspector Monika Paniatowski, called in to track down the killer with all possible speed, finds herself working in an atmosphere as thick with suspicion and distrust as the mine is with coal dust.

1929, Cornwall. Fiona Fox, youngest child of the celebrated Fox family, is a devoted volunteer at the local lifeboat station, giving all her free time and her energy to the selfless crew. But when she seizes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do more, she sets in motion a chain of events that sparks danger and intrigue at Fox Bay Hotel.

When Olivia Elliott decides to spend the summer on the remote Morwen Island where she grew up, she can't help but wonder if returning home is a good idea. After all, she still remembers the heartbreak she left behind on those shores many years ago. Before long, she runs into her first love, Jory Trethewey, who offers to help Olivia fix up her new cottage. And as they renovate, they realise the house has its own secrets. Soon they uncover a story dating back to the Second World War, of a wounded airman who came to this island to hide from the world, and of the woman who fell in love with him.