Showing results by narrator "Helen Lloyd" in All Categories

It's December 1810, and Lady Therese Osbaldestone is looking forward to her usual Christmas with her family at Winslow Abbey, her youngest daughter Celia's home. But then a carriage rolls up and disgorges Celia's three oldest children. Their father has contracted mumps, and their mother has sent the three - Jamie, George, and Lottie - to spend this Christmas with their grandmama in Little Moseley.

1946. Three years after a cataclysmic event that tore their lives apart, a mother and daughter flee Poland for Paris, shame and fear at their heels, not knowing how hard it is to escape your past. Nearly 80 years later, Gretel Fernsby lives a life that is a far cry from her traumatic childhood. When a couple moves into the flat below her in her London mansion block, it should be nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. However, the appearance of their nine-year-old son, Henry, brings back memories she would rather forget.

When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zigzagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men. Drawing on declassified files and eye-witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9’s wartime role.

The Wicked Wit of Queen Elizabeth II is a celebration of the Queen's reign through some of her wittiest, most sarcastic and most humorous observations, revealing a fascinating side of her personality that often remains hidden from the public. When thinking of the Queen, our perception is often one of dignity and authority. She is seen as a serious figure: the British monarch, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the head of the Commonwealth. But as anyone who has ever met her will tell you, in person she has wicked sense of humour.

Born to the street but raised within the aristocracy, Drake Darling can't escape his sordid beginnings. Not when Lady Ophelia Lyttleton snubs him at every turn, a constant reminder he's not truly one of them. But after rescuing her from a mysterious drowning, he realizes she doesn't remember who she is. With plans to bring her to heel, he insists she's his housekeeper - never expecting to fall for the charming beauty.

Twenty-nine-year-old teacher Emily needs her father to believe her life is a success. He may have walked out on the family when she was a child and let her down when she needed him most, but her life is perfect despite him.

Set in the town of Travnik, Bosnian Chronicle presents the struggle for supremacy in a region that stubbornly refuses to submit to any outsider. The era is Napoleonic and the novel, both in its historical scope and psychological subtlety, Tolstoyan. In its portrayal of conflict and fierce ethnic loyalties, the story is also eerily relevant. Ottoman viziers, French consuls, and Austrian plenipotentiaries are consumed by an endless game of diplomacy and double-dealing.

Herbert George Wells was one of the most prolific and visionary British writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. H. G. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels, although he wrote across many genres, including nonfiction. His fiction embraces history, science fiction, horror, satire, fantasy, and social commentary. Wells was also a futurist, foreseeing air travel, tanks (as in “The Land Ironclads” - part of this anthology) space travel, nuclear weapons, and even satellite television.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of Christmas in Five Staves when he was 31. Now with numerous adaptations for film, television, radio, stage - and indeed in audio - it has become an essential part of Christmas for many. Raconteurs Audio has created this collection to include Dickens’ two Christmas novellas, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, as well as some of his lesser known short stories with a Christmas theme.

The festive season is approaching, and the Bomb Girls are determined to make this a year to remember. With Myrtle's health in decline, Edna's love life beginning to take flight and a shy new arrival in their midst, life is never quiet in Pendle. But Gladys, back from performing for the troops, is sullen and sad, and her friends are sure she is hiding something.

Mary Vale, a grand and imposing Mother and Baby Home, sits on the remote Fylde coast in Lancashire. Its doors are open to unmarried women who come to hide their condition and find sanctuary. Women from all walks of life pass through Mary Vale, from beautiful waitress Emily, whose boyfriend has vanished without trace, to young Isla, cast out by her wealthy family after her first year at university goes horribly wrong. Awaiting them is Nurse Ada and Sister Anne who work tirelessly to aid the mothers and safely deliver the babies.

Few authors can claim to have marked a genre so thoroughly and personally that their words have leaked into every aspect of modern pop culture. Clive Barker is such an author, and the Books of Blood marked his debut - his coming out to the world - in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. Crossroad Press is proud to present Clive Barker's Books of Blood in audiobook format for the first time. The Books of Blood combine the ordinary with the extraordinary while radiating the eroticism that has become Barker's signature.

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late. When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

Women in the War beautifully weaves together the oral histories of 10 remarkable women who dedicated their young adulthood to the war effort. From aiding codebreaking at Bletchley Park to plotting the Battle of the Atlantic and working alongside Churchill in the War Rooms below Whitehall, these are the women who helped to defend the Home Front and kept Britain going. Now with the wisdom of age, they look back at how they coped with danger, trauma and stress, and tell how their spirits were fortified by friendship, fellowship and romance.

It is June 1940, and as the bombs fall the women at home must dig deep. Tucked on the edge of the Lake District lies Mary Vale, a Mother and Baby Home open to unmarried women and their children. But tensions arise when three very different women walk through the doors.

Funny, outrageous, sometimes touching, and perhaps a little bit naughty - in Queen Lucia, E. F. Benson has created not only a wonderful character study in Mrs. Lucas, but a whole village of memorable characters.

When Nicola's husband, Dominic, retires they decide not to spend their days finding hobbies to fill the time until Countdown is on. Instead, they fulfil their life-long fantasy of buying a country house and filling it with their dearest friends. Reliving their youth and spending their children's inheritance. Joined by seven of their friends they club together to invest in a château in Normandy. Group dinners, fine wine, beautiful scenery - they're living the dream!

The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure, but as King Charles' niece, Anne is also a political pawn who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. Forced to overcome grief for her lost children, the political manoeuvrings of her sister and her own betrayal of her father, she becomes one of the most fascinating figures of English history.

Autumn 1941, and as female conscription looms, three women arrive at the Bell Works Factory in Hucknall to work on the Spitfire production line. Lily soon realises her real dream is to pilot the planes; Edna longs to be reunited with her evacuee daughter, but soon discovers she has a much bigger problem; and Jeannie fears the worst after weeks of no news from her fiancé. Despite all the heartache, with a bit of festive cheer and 'can do' attitude, The Engine Girls will pull together and do all they can to ensure Britain's safe for the New Year.

Annie, Rose, Pearl and Millie carry on making matches for the British Army, with bombs raining down around them. Inspired by the Dig for Victory campaign, Annie persuades the owners to start Bryant & May allotment in the factory grounds. With plenty of sweat and toil, the girls eventually carve out a corner of the yard into a green plot full of life and colour. In the darkest of times, the girls find their allotment a tranquil, happy escape.