Showing results by narrator "Penelope Freeman" in All Categories

It's 1944. Three girls join a touring variety group and travel through Europe, entertaining the troops as World War II draws to a close. In the wake of D-Day, three very different women join a touring variety company, performing to factory girls, hospitals and serving troops. Catherine's husband has been reported missing in action, and she needs a job to support her mother and daughter. Della, a Liverpudlian showgirl, is ambitious for fame and hides her problems behind a devil-may-care attitude.

1917. Driving an ambulance through the mud in Flanders, aristocrat Evie Creswell is a long way from home. At Oaklands Manor she was expected to look pretty and make a good marriage. But with the arrival of World War One everything changed. Evie shunned an aristocratic husband and instead wed artist Will Davies, who works as a butcher's apprentice. As she struggles to transport the wounded to hospital, avoiding the shells and gas attacks - her privileged home life, and her family's disappointment at her marriage, are a lifetime away.

1917. Kitty Maitland has found a safe and welcoming home at Dark River Farm, Devon, and is finally beginning on a path to recovery after her terrible ordeal in Flanders...until the arrival of two very different visitors. One, a charming rogue, proves both a temptation and a mystery - but she soon discovers he's not a stranger to everyone. The other newcomer, a young woman with a past linked to the farm, sows seeds of mistrust. Between the two of them, and the choices Kitty has to make, Dark River becomes a place of fear, suspicion and danger. Can it ever return to the haven it once was?

Manchester industrialist William Rose was a poor lad who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, but in order to achieve his greatest ambitions he must become the epitome of Victorian respectability: a family man. But the only woman who's caught his eye is Octavia Marshall, one of the notorious ladies of Carson Street. Though once born to great wealth and privilege, she's hardly respectable, but she's determined to forge a new life as an entirely proper businesswoman.

Soundings and Choc Lit present the audiobook edition of Christmas at Black Cherry Retreat. When Fee Winter books a winter break at the remote Black Cherry Retreat in the small town of Pine Ridge, Tennessee, it’s with the idea that the peace and quiet will help her recuperate from her hectic life as a photographer. But what she didn’t bank on was meeting Tom Chambers and his huge, interfering yet lovable family. With them, could Fee finally experience the warmth and support that’s been missing from her own life - and maybe even find a place to call home in time for Christmas?

Ellie Tyler dreams of a life beyond that of her drunken, tyrannical father and the dangerous East London gangland. Her only refuge is in her artistic talents, which she hopes will one day help her escape. But when forced to give up her education and endure horrific abuse at the hands of her father, before finally being abandoned by the man she loved, Ellie runs away to a small Essex village. After landing a job at the silk mill, and with the encouragement of Alex, the mill owner, Ellie starts to rebuild her life.

Hugo Kendal and his wife, Margaret, finally receive a royal pardon and are permitted at last to return to their beloved homeland. Most of the family warmly welcome the couple and the news that they are soon to become three. However, despite the smiles, Hannah Kendal cannot help but dwell on the threat that Hugo might pose to her husband Simon's position as Master of Heron.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, two women leave England for new lives as GI brides. Gracie Brown starts her married life living with her husband Jeff's family: an overbearing mother-in-law and a brother-in-law whom her husband detests. Valerie Brampton and her lawyer husband, Ross, have their own property, but with a past girlfriend still holding on to hope of a relationship with him, all is far from settled.

1930, Liverpool. Reformed con-artist Leah Marshall has long yearned for the thrills of her former life. Now she has the chance to relive it all as an exciting new 'game' beckons, but she soon discovers the rules have changed. One slip-up and she could lose everything. Back in Cornwall, the Foxes are making their own difficult decisions. An old agreement has turned sour, putting the hotel at risk once more and the children have grown and are embarking on their own, sometimes perilous, paths.

Bath, 1852. As a girl, Nancy Bloom longed to be part of Bath's Theatre Royal. When a man promised her parents he could find a role for Nancy in the theatre, they believed him. His lie and betrayal led to her ruin. Francis Carlyle is a theatre manager, an ambitious man always looking for the next big thing to take the country by storm. A self-made man, Francis is now rich, successful and in need of a new female star. Never in a million years did he think he'd find her standing on a table in one of Bath's bawdiest pubs.

Spirited Paula O'Brien wants to escape her family home and start a new life, but is scared of defying her abusive father. He had her put away in an asylum as a child and he threatens her with the same treatment if she disobeys him now. When she sees a newspaper advert for a live-in nanny, her best friend persuades her to apply. When grieving widower Jeffrey Lawson invites Paula to an interview, she doesn't realise it will change her life forever. And Jeffrey doesn't expect to meet a woman like Paula.

August, 1939. When it becomes clear that war is about to break out, twin sisters Dilys and Una Singleby are forced to leave their studies in Munich and return home to England. Heartbroken at being parted, Dilys and her Norwegian student boyfriend, Kristoffer, vow to be reunited as soon as it's possible. However, as the months pass, a series of misunderstandings keep the lovers apart.

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?

It's 1964. England has shaken off its post-war gloom and the world is full of possibilities. Best friends Sandra and Linda live on a housing estate in Essex. They are aspiring mods: they have the music, the coffee bar and Ready Steady Go! on a Friday night. Having landed their first jobs, Linda and Sandra look set. But the world is changing rapidly, and both girls have difficult choices to make. As Sandra blindly pursues a proposal, Linda finds herself drawn to causes she knows are worth fighting for.

It’s 1946, and tensions are running high in the Morris household. It’s no secret that Frank is handy with his fists, but what will finally tip him over the edge as they all sit round the table for Christmas dinner?

Polly always knew that Seth was a good catch - the darling of the interior design world, so cutting-edge they have to invent awards for him. With a handsome husband, a fabulous home and an exciting job in a Bond Street art gallery, Polly has everything she could possibly want - except a baby.

Forced into retirement, history professor Ellen Kershaw finds herself at a loose end. So when she is contacted by a reclusive billionaire, with an unusual proposition, her interest is piqued. Theodore Shepherd is funding a museum for diaries, and he wants Ellen to curate it. A live-in position at a Gothic stately home in the middle of Dartmoor, it's just the escape she needs whilst she works out what to do with the rest of her life. Ellen soon finds herself immersed in the stories and diaries that await her.

It’s the early 1920s. Julia Howard’s father is a toy manufacturer who created a paper doll in her image. However, Julia longs to cast off her goody-goody reputation, but her plans to do so are thwarted by wealthy businessman Latham Miller. When Julia marries Latham to please her father, Latham proves to be a controlling man who has no intention of giving up his outside pleasures. But when Julia is reunited with an old acquaintance, the attraction that once existed between them grows into love.

Devastated after a miscarriage, Claire has distanced herself from her own life, and from her husband, Rob. Unable to deal with her own reality, Claire becomes obsessed with Daisy, a woman from the past, and as she traces her life, month-by-month, she starts to notice intriguing parallels between their lives....

Six months after the funeral of Danny Fox, his friend of more than 30 years, the narrator of this story takes a holiday in Florida, and is shocked to bump into Danny’s widow, who has seemingly remarried already. Uneasy with the cause of his friend’s death, he must follow the widow to get to the bottom of it.