Showing results by narrator "Antonia" in All Categories

In an audiobook that is as unflinching as it is passionate, Lamb tackles head on the growing number of stories of brutality against women from across the world, some of which have shocked her more profoundly than anything she has seen in her 30-year career as a war correspondent. Ethnic and sectarian groups across the world now use rape as a strategy – almost as a weapon of mass destruction – with women rounded up and incarcerated to produce offspring, a new generation of jihadis in a chilling real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale.

To control the past, they edited history. To control the future, they edited literature. London, 1953, Coronation year - but not the Coronation of Elizabeth II. Thirteen years have passed since a Grand Alliance between Great Britain and Germany was formalised. George VI and his family have been murdered and Edward VIII rules as king. Yet, in practice, all power is vested in Alfred Rosenberg, Britain's Protector. The role and status of women is Rosenberg's particular interest.

Meet Detective Maddie Ives in this new series that will have you gripped from the explosive start to one of the most shocking twists of the year. Early Sunday morning, a rainy city centre. A 10-year-old-boy steps out in front of traffic. He is dazed, confused and barefoot. He is covered in blood. It’s not his. Detective Maddie Ives is called out and finds the boy backed up against a shop front. He can’t or won’t speak. His face is a mask of shock and his whole body is tense. He’s ready to run again. He can’t tell her why. Who scared this boy out of his wits?

Every evening Rose Ransom looks in the mirror and marvels that she's even alive. A mere woman, her role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry, where her work now focuses on the outlawed subject of Poetry, a form of writing that transmits subversive meanings, emotions and signals that cannot be controlled. Therefore all Poetry is banned and Rose is appointed a Poet Hunter.

Three sisters and a brother meet up in their grandparents' old house for three long, hot summer weeks. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past, but now they may have to sell it. And under the idyllic surface, there are tensions. Secrets are uncovered, and passions erupt as a way of life - bourgeois, literate, ritualised - winds down to its inevitable end.

When the First World War broke out, the suffragettes suspended their campaigning and joined the war effort. For pioneering suffragette doctors (and life partners) Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson that meant moving to France, where they set up two small military hospitals amidst fierce opposition. Yet their medical and organisational skills were so impressive that in 1915 Flora and Louisa were asked by the War Ministry to return to London and establish a new military hospital in a vast and derelict old workhouse in Covent Garden's Endell Street.

Bruised from the breakdown of her marriage, Esther Lomax needs to get away, and Malaysia seems the perfect place. But a day's boat trip takes a desperate turn when Esther and six other holidaymakers are taken to a desert island and their guide doesn’t return. As the days pass, tensions erupt, secrets emerge, and time increasingly runs out, Esther must ask herself: Will she leave the island alive?

Abigail Jex never expected to see any of the Radleys again. They were extraordinary, captivating creatures transplanted from a bohemian corner of North London to outer suburbia, and the young Abigail found herself drawn into their magic circle: the eccentric Frances, her new best friend; Frances' mother, the liberated, headstrong Lexi; and of course the brilliant, beautiful Rad. Abigail thought she'd banished the ghost of her life with them and the catastrophe that ended it, but 13 years later a chance encounter forces her to acknowledge that the spell is far from broken.

A tiger escapes from the local zoo, padding through the ruined streets and onwards, to a ridge above the Balkan village of Galina. His nocturnal visits hold the villagers in a terrified thrall - but for one boy, the tiger is a thing of magic. Natalia is the granddaughter of that boy. Now a doctor, she is visiting orphanages in the war-torn Balkans when she receives word of her beloved grandfather's death, far from their home, in circumstances shrouded in mystery.

In all the writing and reporting KJ Dell'Antonia has done on families over the years, one topic keeps coming up again and again: parents crave a greater sense of happiness in their daily lives. In this optimistic, solution-packed book, KJ asks: How can we change our family life so that it is full of the joy we'd always hoped for? Drawing from the latest research and interviews with families, KJ discovers that it's possible to do more by doing less, and make our family life a refuge and pleasure, rather than another stress point in a hectic day.

The remarkable life of the vivacious, clever – and forgotten – Kennedy sister, who charmed the English aristocracy and was almost erased from her family history. The favourite child of Joe Kennedy and favourite sister of Jack, Kick Kennedy was spirited, vivacious and legendary for her charm. When the Kenndys sailed to Britain in 1938 she was presented as a debutante amid the pre-war social whirl of the British aristocracy.

Norway, 1942. War rages, and, under cover of darkness, Rumi Orlstad and her fellow resistance fighters smuggle British agents, fugitives and supplies across the North Sea into Nazi-occupied territory. One night, when he braves a storm to complete an ill-fated mission, Rumi’s fiancé is lost to the dangerous waters. Broken-hearted, she withdraws from the clandestine group, vowing never to let her loved ones put themselves in the line of fire again.

Charlie Wolfe jumps at the chance to help his uncle renovate a tumbledown cottage overlooking Nomansland Common. Number One Constable’s Cottages was once the home of the man charged with ridding the common of the highwaymen who terrorised travellers. But it’s the story of The Wicked Lady, the notorious female highway robber, that captures Charlie’s imagination, and some long winters’ nights he’s sure he can the hoofbeats of her horse echoing across time.

How far would you go to keep your family safe? Angie Watts had the perfect ordinary family. A new home. A beloved husband. Three adored children. But Angie’s happy life is shattered when her son Liam falls in with the wrong crowd. And when her son’s bad choices lead to the murder of her husband, it’s up to Angie to hold what’s left of her family together. Her son is missing. Her daughter is looking for help in dangerous places. And Angie is fighting just to keep a roof over their heads. But Angie is a mother.

When Anna Hunt takes a break from her job to live in Peru, none of her friends take her seriously. With a love of stilettos, chocolate, and Sauvignon Blanc, how will she manage in a developing country? Anna's quest takes her from the wilderness of the Amazon jungle, to a passionate affair with Maximo Morales, a seductive and charismatic shaman who offers her the opportunity to become his apprentice…

He Will Get You is the new breathtaking thriller from best-selling author Charlie Gallagher. Detective Maddie Ives faces the most twisted serial killer of her career. He’s one step ahead of them. He’s watching their every move. And his next target is one of their own. You might know who the killer is, but can you work out why? The body count is rising, and each murder is more unpredictable than the last. Detective Maddie Ives races against time to work out the killer’s real motive. Full of twists and turns until the fiendish climax.

A gripping, festive novel, Christmas Under the Stars by Karen Swan reveals the devastating power of secrets. Worlds apart. A love without limit. In the snow-topped mountains of the Canadian Rockies, Meg and Mitch are living their dream. Just weeks away from their wedding, they work and play with Tuck and Lucy, their closest and oldest friends. Meg and Lucy are as close as sisters - much to Meg's sister's dismay - and Tuck and Mitch have successfully turned their passion for snowboarding into a booming business.

Morgravia Sanctus is being hunted. Something terrible has happened to her, a profound trauma that has left behind ‘red dreams’ and a physical agony that can strike at any moment. Her life in danger and her memory fragmented, she arrives in the low-hive of Blackgheist to escape her pursuers and search for ‘the Broker’ – a trafficker in memories and psychic mind manipulation. Soon after, a plague sweeps the city, turning its citizens into blood-hungry monsters. Order collapses, death and slaughter are rampant.

Brunhild was a Visigothic princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law, Fredegund, started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe. The two queens commanded armies, developed taxation policies, established infrastructure and negotiated with emperors and popes.

Famous killers have fan clubs. Hamish Wolfe is no different. Locked up for the rest of his life for the abduction and murder of three young women, he gets countless adoring letters every day. He's handsome, charismatic and very persuasive. His admirers are convinced he's innocent and that he's the man of their dreams. Who would join such a club?