Showing results by narrator "Jane Collingwood" in All Categories

Kirsty Jenkins adores the allotment her grandfather lovingly tends and, just before he dies, he asks Kirsty to look after it for him. But when horrible Mr Thomas from the council insists it must go to the next person on the waiting list, Kirsty is determined to find a way to keep her promise.

Through the discovery of a precious friendship album which belonged to 12-year-old Alie, a Jewish schoolgirl in Amsterdam, Claudia Carli has traced and preserved the lives of an entire class of girls, most of whom did not survive the war. Alie and her friends are brought touchingly and vividly to life, along with their writings, in this extraordinary book. Their everyday hopes, pleasures and longings are offset by the constant fear of a knock on the door, a missing friend from class, a family member taken away.

As a passionate affair between a shop owner's wife and a local young builder reaches its peak, an unfortunate chain of events leads to a dark and deadly outcome.

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter, with the language targeted at learners of English.

Lilly Melkun is out fishing with her sea-cat when the bloodthirsty Reavers come raiding and steal the Prime Minister's daughter. Her village blamed, Lilly decides to find the girl. Off she sails in secret with a ransom - an extraordinary talking jewel. But nothing can prepare her for what happens next.

Marion Bishop's life has fallen apart. Her daughter Hope was killed in a hit-and-run accident six months ago, and now Sam, her beloved husband, has walked out. Left alone with her grief, Marion has begun to contemplate the unthinkable.

Mr & Mrs Max Irving request the company of: Mrs Fran Friedman, mourning her empty nest, the galloping years, and a disastrous haircut. Mr Saul Friedman, avoider of conflicts and increasingly distant husband. The two Misses Friedmans, Pip and Katy, one pining over the man she can't have, the other trying to shake off the man she no longer wants. At the marriage of their son, James Irving, object of inappropriate and troubling desire. A dark, witty tale of a wife and her grown-up family whose secrets come shimmering to the surface at a wedding.

Bea treads carefully on the thick carpet, quite deliberately like a servant. Her elder sister, Clemmie, tells her that it is "not done" to worry about being heard but Bea enjoys this oh-so-silent rebellion against convention. She teases back, "This is the twentieth century, Clem, things are about to change." London, 1914.

Based on a true story, Meira Chand's The Painted Cage explores the tragedy of a Victorian woman who becomes the victim of her own sensuality. In Yokohama, Japan, on the morning of 5 January 1897, the trial begins of Amy Redmore, charged with the murder of her husband Reggie, ex-secretary of the Yokohama United Club.

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter, with the language targeted at learners of English.

Evelyn Varley has always been ambitious and clever. As a girl, she earned a scholarship to a prestigious academy well above her parents’ means, gaining her a best friend from one of England’s wealthiest families. In 1939, with an Oxford degree in hand and war looming, Evelyn finds herself recruited into an elite MI5 counterintelligence unit. A secret society seeks an alliance with Germany and, posing as a Nazi sympathizer, Evelyn must build a case to expose their treachery. But as she is drawn deeper into duplicity, some of those close to her become embroiled in her investigation.

A mesmerising novel about obsessive love. Persephone Triebold has grown up in the strange desolation of the Scottish Highlands, raised by her anxious father and memories of her dead mother. Inexperienced in the rules of friendship, sex and love, Persephone takes the opportunity to replace uninhabited mountain ranges with city life and leaves to study for a degree in London.Parties, new friends and the polluted splendour of the capital intoxicate Persephone at first, but fail to supply her with the grand passion she wants.

There are many awesome events marking International Women's Day on Wednesday March 8.

Less is more, as the saying goes....

The Full Nelson is all about serving up veggie and vegan junk food.

No, not a new seafood restaurant, but a '90s British band....

This month we're looking at how urbanites are having imaginative and ecologically thoughtful water-born fun.

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter, with the language targeted at learners of English.