Showing results by narrator "Sarah Durham" in All Categories

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground.

Moments before she dies, Nicola's grandmother Betty whispers to her that there are babies at the bottom of the garden. Nicola's mother claims she was talking nonsense. However, when Nicola's daughter finds a bone while playing in Betty's garden, it's clear that something sinister has taken place.

Her daughter died. Did she take mine? A year ago, my best friend Rachel’s daughter died. Ever since then I have held my own beautiful little girl tighter. I watch Luna shriek with laughter as she tips her toys all over the floor and I look anxiously at Rachel, sipping her tea. But Rachel reassures me that being near Luna helps fill the gaping hole of her grief, just a little. So when Luna is snatched from her bed in the middle of the night, it is Rachel who holds me tightly. She looks at the blue and white police tape crisscrossing my little girl’s bedroom and promises me they will find Luna.

Friends for over 30 years, Kerry and Pat’s worlds came crashing down when their teenage sons were both diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses within weeks of each other.

Alison is a marriage mender. Her job is to help couples who fear they have reached the end of the road. So when her husband's ex, Lydia, arrives on the doorstep demanding to see her son, Alison thinks she can handle it. But what Alison doesn't realise is that Lydia is the one person who has the ability to destroy their happy family. And sometimes the cracks run too deep to ever be repaired.

Your son has gone missing. And then the police arrest the prime suspect. You. You know you're innocent. That someone else took your son. But the truth is never simple. Especially if you're forced to say nothing...

My husband, James, and I love living on Smith Street, with its neat houses and friendly family barbecues. Our daughter, Scarlett, can play outside with the other local kids–it’s somewhere nothing bad could ever happen. Or so I thought....

Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family - and is the most unhappy creature in the world. Anne Turner has wit and talent - but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution. When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a powerful friendship is sparked.

I’m Lucy. Out-of-work actress, part-time princess impersonator, Dorito enthusiast. Oh, and I’ve lost my memory. I got knocked off a bicycle on my way to a children’s party, dressed as Elsa, and accidentally flashed my thong. Now, in my head, it’s 2009 and I’m 17 years old. Not nearly 30 and starting to wrinkle. By this stage of my life, I thought I’d be married, with kids and a mortgage. Instead, I’ve got a phone full of dick pics. As I make my way through my contacts list - and try to jog my memory - I can’t help asking: Am I allergic to love? Commitment? Men?

Violet Young is a hugely popular journalist-turned-mummy-vlogger, with three young children, a successful husband and a million subscribers on YouTube who tune in daily to watch her everyday life unfold. But one day she disappears from the online world - her entire social media presence deleted overnight, with no explanation. Has she simply decided that baring her life to all online is no longer a good idea, or has something more sinister happened to her?

The students of Royal Hastings University's new Multimedia Art course have been trouble from day one. The year-long course is blighted by accusations of theft, students setting fire to one another's artwork, a rumoured extra-marital affair and a disastrous road trip. ut finally they are given their last assignment: to build an interactive art installation for a local manufacturer. With six students who have nothing in common except their clashing personal agendas, what could possibly go wrong? The answer is: murder.

The invitation is anonymous. It doesn’t say whose funeral I must attend, only that I can’t afford to miss it. I’m sure it’s a mistake, but when I arrive, I know immediately it isn’t. The name on the gravestone stops me in my tracks: Alice Anderson. That’s my name. Or at least it was. I want to run from this crowd of slick designer clothes and sunglasses hiding prying eyes. But I can’t show my fear. I have no choice other than to stay and find out who sent the invitation. Someone here knows the secret I’d kill to keep.

Becca Palmer has just lost her job as assistant to Simon Jones MP - the highly-regarded Policing Minister, tipped as a future Prime Minister. But Becca claims that Simon was more than her boss, that she is in love with him.When a heartbroken Becca leaves the Home Office, she heads to Westminster Bridge, intending to take her own life. Which is where hostage negotiator Alex Lewis meets her for the first time. It is his job to try to talk her back from the edge.

Fifty-two-year-old Michelle Banks is struggling to keep all the plates spinning. She’s a perimenopausal district nurse, caring for elderly parents. Her husband is wasting their money on children’s TV memorabilia, her teenage daughter is riddled with anxiety and her 16-year-old son is behaving secretively. Alexa is the only one who knows how much Michelle is juggling. Listening in via four smart speakers, she also knows that it’s about to get even worse. So, when Michelle pleads for help, Alexa decides to go rogue.

Yorkshire, 1890. Having lost her father and brothers in tragic circumstances, Olwen Malkon is forced to leave her childhood home to live with her uncle's family. In his chill vicarage, however, she fears that she is also losing her mind, as strange dreams take her into the life of Ælfwyn, a woman from a distant past whose fate is overshadowed by menace and betrayal. In the grip of these afflictions, Olwen finds sympathy with the local doctor, John Osbourne, who is intrigued by her case.

When the broken body of a seventy-one-year-old woman is found beneath the Humber Bridge, a sign around her neck with the words ‘Pure Evil’ spray-painted in red, Detective Hollie Turner can’t help but wonder–who would want this frail elderly woman dead? As she starts to delve into the victim’s personal life, Hollie discovers that the woman, Sister Brennan, ran a local mother and baby home at the Church of St Mary and the Angels. The unit may have shut down years ago, but the pain and anguish of those who were forced to give up their babies remains.

1864: Suddenly left as the head of the family, Kitty McKenzie must find her inner strength to keep her family together against the odds. Evicted from their resplendent home in the fashionable part of York after her parents' deaths, Kitty must fight the legacy of bankruptcy and homelessness to secure a home for her and her siblings. Through sheer willpower and determination, she grabs opportunities with both hands, from working on a clothes and rag stall in the market to creating a tea shop for the wealthy.

Sylvie and Donna travel on the same train to work each day but have never spoken. Their families are on different sides of the bitter Brexit divide, although the tensions and arguments at home give them much in common. What they don't know is that their eldest children, Rachid and Jodie, are about to meet for the first time and fall in love. Aware that neither family will approve, the teenagers vow to keep their romance a secret. But as Sylvie's family feel increasingly unwelcome in England, a desire for a better life threatens Rachid and Jodie's relationship.

This is not a taste, nor an anti-taste, manual. This is an interrogation of the importance we place on seemingly objective ideas of taste in a culture that is saturated by imagery, and the dangerous impact this has on our identities, communities and politics. This book is dedicated to understanding the industries of taste. From the food we eat to the way we spend our free time, Olah exposes the shallow waters of 'good' and 'bad' taste and the rigid hierarchies that uphold this age-old dichotomy.

"There’s someone I want you to meet," Belle says, as a man draws up to her side. He’s tall with dark hair and stubble on his square jaw. He’s not exactly smiling, but the corner of his mouth curls upwards as he slides his hand around my daughter’s waist.