Showing results by narrator "Helen Duff" in All Categories

Beautiful Sophie, with lips as red as blood, skin as pale as snow and hair as dark as night, is about to come of age and inherit her father's throne. But Sophie's stepmother wants rid of her - beautiful she may be, but too weak and foolish to reign. And Sophie believes her, as she believes all the things that have been said about her - all the poisonous words people use to keep girls like her from becoming too powerful, too strong.

Two lost souls. One chance at love. From battlefields to bookshelves, Captain Jane Reed is on a mission to help a world-renowned author, Veronica Cooper, reclaim her passion. Seeking solace from the hustle and bustle of Venice, the two head to a tranquil countryside villa, where Jane discovers more than just the beauty of nature. As fate would have it, Jane crosses paths with David, Veronica's mysterious and brooding son. He too carries the weight of his past, but can Jane break through his walls and find the love they deserve? Or will their scars prove to be too deep to mend?

After a whirlwind romance, Megan and Nick move into the home of their dreams, a beautiful beach house. They think it's their happily ever after… until their neighbours return from a cruise. Ron and Jackie are loud and obnoxious, playing their home cinema at high volume, and shattering the tranquillity with their endless building work. To cap it all, they have a kennel with four dangerous dogs that bark and howl day and night. They are the living definition of the neighbours from hell.

Journalist Zoe Kincade arrives in the rundown seaside town of Sunshine Sands to report on this year's talent show. The motionless Ferris wheel blurs into the dark sea beyond and polystyrene chip trays bounce along the pavement. She checks into the Forget-Me-Not hotel, a faded Edwardian terrace that has seen better days, the place her beautiful older sister Jane stayed the night she disappeared. Zoe has spent forty years trying to block out the pain. The aftermath of that night destroyed her chance of a happy marriage and living in any kind of peace.

'Tis the season for finding love... and the perfect book! With just two weeks until Christmas, everything in Clove Lore should be perfect. But the latest holidaymaker to the Borrow a Bookshop is feeling far from festive... Icelandic ex-bookseller Magnús Sturluson might be surrounded by love stories in the Bookshop, but he’s nursing a sadness that not even fiction can fix. When Alexandra Robinson winds up stranded in Clove Lore, she finds a safe place to hide from heartbreak. After all, all that’s waiting for her at home is a cheater boyfriend and the memories of her parents.

On entering Sarah Hall's world, we become travellers, suddenly. Our surroundings of farms and offices, seasides and cities, Turkish forests and English moors, shade into otherness: hazed by delirium, tinged with dream, fertile with the animal codes of the wild. Our lovers, friends, and parents go about their days warped by ruptures of brain and body, alternatively predator and prey, reborn in unexpected evolutions, and haunted by drownings and dictators, agitated hearts and sprouting wings, coffins and floods.

It’s a beautiful day for a wedding. White roses scent the air and the summer sunlight streams in. A spoon chimes against a champagne flute and the room falls silent. And there he is - my husband - getting to his feet to propose a toast. He’s still handsome. His new wife is next to him, gazing upwards, oblivious. I’m not supposed to be here. All these years in the same town and I had no idea until I saw his name on the seating plan. He lived with me, once. Loved me. Small-town memories are long, but the people in this room don’t want to remember.

Margot and Will cross paths at the local dog rescue centre where - after a series of misunderstandings and a lot of consternation - they agree to foster Blossom (a gentle Staffy with a giant head, soft, floppy ears and kohl-rimmed brown eyes) together: one week on, one week off. Margot and Will don't get off to the best of starts: he thinks Margot is demanding and needy and Just So Much. And she thinks Will is emotionally unavailable, slightly brittle and very mistrustful. But the more they bicker, the worse Blossom behaves....

Sir Roslind of Aksson, fierce and unyielding, is not the only female knight—but she is few among men who cling to older ways. And while whispers of disdain are so easily heard in a land pushing beyond tradition, whispers of rebellion are more subtle, more insidious, and much more costly to ignore.

1832. The morning after her father's funeral, Prudence Merryfield wakes to the liberating thought that this is the first day of her new life. At thirty-five and unmarried, she is now mistress of her own fate. But a cruel revelation at the reading of her father's will forces Prudence to realise that taking only the most drastic action will set her free. Present day. Eliza is gifted a family heirloom by her aunt—a Georgian pocket book, belonging to her ancestor, Prudence Merryfield, whose existence reverberates through the lives of generations of Eliza's family, the Ambroses.

From the number one best-selling author of The Secret Wife, The Lost Daughter is a sweeping, moving story of the tenacity of love and the power of forgiveness. Spectacular, enthralling and romantic, Gill Paul's latest novel will stay with you forever.

It's 1830. Convict girls Friday Woolfe, Harriet Clarke and Sarah Morgan have been transported to Sydney from London. Each of them is struggling to forget the brutal crime she committed, but their fates are no longer theirs to control. Vicious underworld queen Bella Jackson holds the girls' futures in the palm of her hand, biding her time. Once again the girls must join forces to save one of their own.

It's 1831. Assigned to a good family in Sydney town and now learning the art of tattoo, convict girl Harrie Clarke is still haunted by the horror of the brutal murder she, Friday Woolfe and Sarah Morgan committed the previous year. Powerful and vindictive criminal Bella Jackson continues to demand money in exchange for her silence regarding their crime. And when things go from bad to much, much worse for Harrie, she is left teetering on the brink.

On the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote, Helen Pankhurst - great-granddaughter of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst and a leading women's rights campaigner - charts how women's lives have changed over the last century and offers a powerful and positive argument for a new way forward.

Stella follows her handsome husband Rob to the beautifully laid-out table in the restaurant he’s chosen specially for her 40th birthday lunch. Stella knows how they must look to anyone watching. Two people very much in love, with the perfect marriage and the perfect life. But Rob is about to drop a bombshell on Stella. He wants a divorce. If she doesn’t agree to his plan - to sell the house, divide the money, and award him full custody of 14-year-old Georgie - he will tell their innocent daughter the one secret he promised to keep.

In a freezing, isolated farmhouse with ice on its windows, Flora is looking after her sick mother. Since she was a little girl, Flora has been frightened of her mother. And when she discovers a photo of a smiling baby girl she doesn’t recognize, hidden at the bottom of a drawer, her mother grows even more remote, and refuses to talk about it. So, when a visitor arrives from a paradise island of sapphire coves and white sand beaches, and confirms that the baby in the picture is her sister, she should feel joy. But, he also brings the news that Flora’s sister is dying.

Your life isn’t perfect, but you’re still happy. Your husband has stuck by you, and he’s a good dad. Your daughter, Becca, makes your heart explode with love. And then, in the time it takes to say ‘bad mother’, there’s no longer a place for you in your own family. Your right to see your child has disappeared. Life goes on in your house - family dinners, missing socks and evening baths - but you aren’t there anymore. Becca may be tucked up in bed in Rose Cottage, but she is as lost to you as if she had been snatched from under your nose.

Jenny has too much on her plate, literally - she’s pregnant with only one child, but she’s already eating for three. Not to mention trying to juggle her future life with a baby, a nightmare boss, a know-it-all sister, and a bizarrely laid back husband.

I’ve always longed to be a mother. So when my sister Sophia suddenly offers to be a surrogate for my husband Mark and I, it feels like our dream could finally come true. Sophia and I may have drifted apart, but tears of joy prick my eyes when I think about the precious, perfect gift she is giving us. And even though Mark is acting distant, I’m sure this will make us stronger than ever. When Sophia starts talking to us less and less I can’t help but worry… is it just like twenty years ago, when she disappeared from my life? Or will it be different now she’s carrying our miracle baby?

Vogue magazine started, like so many great things do, in the spare room of someone's house. But unlike other such makeshift projects that flare up then fizzle away, Vogue burnt itself into our cultural consciousness. Today, 125 years later, Vogue spans 22 countries, has an international print readership upwards of 12 million and nets over 67 million monthly online users. Uncontested market leader for a century, it is one of the most recognisable brands in the world and a multi-million dollar money-making machine. It is not just a fashion magazine, it is the establishment.