Showing results by narrator "Daphne Kouma" in All Categories

Henrietta Maria is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's Three Kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France', a 'notorious whore' and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic—so causing a civil war—and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle's White King was hailed as 'the definitive modern biography about Charles I' (Observer). Here she considers Henrietta Maria's point of view, unpicking the myths to reveal a very different queen. 

When Cressida Fawcett is invited to stay at Penbeagle House on the Cornish coast for a fancy-dress ball, she is looking forward to sipping rum cocktails clad as a pirate, watching the red-sailed boats go by, and relaxing in the sea air with her good friend Dotty. But before they can raise their glasses to toast Cressida’s former flame Lord Canterbury’s engagement, he drops dead in front of the horrified guests.

Elodie Fray wants to be more like her perfect sister, Ada, the one her parents are actually proud of. When she decided to quit her job and pursue her dream of becoming an author, she thought it would be her time to shine, but a year on nothing has happened. And she's getting desperate. When Elodie makes one small mistake on a drunken night with a friend, things quickly spiral and suddenly everyone believes she has a book deal. Unable to find a way back from her little lie, her perfect dream becomes a perfect nightmare - and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Cressida’s hopes for a relaxing journey are dashed when a gunshot resounds through the carriages. Industrial tycoon Lewis Warriner has been shot dead in his cabin. And as this train has been racing through the countryside, the culprit must be among Cressy’s fellow passengers. Teaming up with Detective Andrews of Scotland Yard, also on his way back to London, they work their way through the suspects. Did Warriner’s mistress, a famous dancer, see his death as her ticket on to the silver screen? Or was it the mysterious man who can’t take his eyes off Lewis’s close companion?

When struggling influencer couple Adele and Jack post a crowdfunding video online, they're amazed by a mysterious benefactor's offer: to buy them an idyllic 17th century French château. It’s the lifeline they need to leave all their troubles behind – and patch up their relationship after a rocky period. For Adele, it’s a dream come true. She will post videos from the fairytale setting, renovating the grand building as thousands of online subscribers follow their journey. But the château is not all it seems, and the local community is far from welcoming.

East Prussia, 1944. When the war comes to 12-year-old Agnes’ village, she finds herself stuck between two terrifying armies. Every man she’s ever known has been forced to fight for the Nazis, and as the Red Army approaches every innocent woman and child is made to leave their home. Then tragedy strikes and she and her brother, Dieter, find themselves alone in vast, isolated woodland, and Agnes must protect Dieter at all costs.... 

Italy, 1938: When Stella arrives in Florence, it’s love at first sight. She is wowed by the rolling hills dotted with olive trees, the buttermilk villas with shuttered windows and terracotta roofs that glow gloriously in the sunlight. Even the breeze holds the scent of freedom - freedom from England, where the shadow of her past haunted her. 

Melodie Pelletier is drawn back to the idyllic island of Corfu, a place bursting with wonderful family memories. She visits the popular fishing village of Agios Stefanos, a place with an outpouring of warm welcomes and even warmer seas and sand. While travelling, Melodie meets a handsome man with an intriguing young daughter. But Melodie doesn't want a holiday fling; it's not in her nature. After deciding to avoid the intriguing pair, their paths collide once more. But there's something else going on, a secret that Melodie could never have expected to uncover.

I lean forward and touch her face on the TV screen. The evening sunlight catches her long blonde hair, turning the strands to threads of true gold. Her laughter always makes me smile, as though we share a private joke. Which in a way is true, isn’t it, darling? I’m watching a documentary, made for the five-year anniversary of her disappearance. She would have loved this, being centre stage on a Saturday night.

When war breaks out in September 1939, Laura, Andy and Tim Clark are evacuated to the countryside. The Colonel's comfortable home in Dorset is a huge contrast to their cramped terraced house in London, where their loving parents struggle to put the next meal on the table. Though unused to having children around, the Colonel proves to be a kind and generous, if gruff, guardian until a terrible turn of events means the kids must move on.

When I was young, my friend Sarah and I did a terrible thing - but it was only me who paid the price. Now, just when I thought no one from my old life would ever find me, a note slides under my door: "I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgiven. FOUND YOU." 

I didn’t plan to fall pregnant, but when I found out, I was overjoyed. Even though I’d be going it alone, I swore I’d give my baby everything they needed. But I didn’t know who the man I met on that sweltering summer night, the father of my child, really was. I decided to keep his secret to protect the innocent…but then my beautiful baby was born with a rare illness, desperately needing a transplant.

When Megan discovers photographs of her estranged identical twin sister on her husband's phone, she wants answers. Leah already has everything Megan has ever wanted. Fame, fortune, freedom to do what she wants. And when Megan confronts Leah, an argument turns to murder. The only way Megan can get away with killing her twin is to become her. But then lockdown hits. How can she continue living two lives? And what happens if someone else knows her secret too?

When Chloe turns the key to Small Angels, the church nestled at the edge of Mockbeggar Woods where she is to be married, she is braced for cobwebs and dust. What she doesn't expect are the villagers' concerned faces, her fiancé's remoteness or the nagging voice in her head that whispers to her of fears she didn't even know she had. Something in the woods is beginning to stir, to creep closer to the sleeping houses. Something that should have been banished long ago.

France, 1942: When Kasia is told she will be smuggled out of Poland to work as a radio operator with a French Resistance group, she plans to make the dangerous journey across the border alone. But when she meets a mute girl who she names Elodie, in a ghetto in Warsaw on the eve of her departure, she reminds Kasia so strongly of someone she loved–with one brown eye, and one green–that she knows she can’t leave her behind, no matter the risk....

As we sit drinking wine by the river and I gaze into his dark brown eyes, I know I have finally met the man of my dreams. I have been hurt before, but this time will be different. He has a terrible past, and everyone tells me he can’t be trusted, but they don’t know what I know. I know deep down that together we can overcome anything. Because sure he has secrets, but who doesn’t? But now a man is dead. And the police are knocking on my door. Was trusting him the biggest mistake I could make? I don’t know where to go or who to turn to. What if I am next?

In the grip of existential malaise, 25-year-old Daphne moves to Berlin for a fresh start. Far from resolving her quarter-life crisis, things take a turn for the worse. Because Daphne doesn't just have to navigate all the archetypal experiences of an outsider in the big city—acquiring friends and lovers, grappling with the language and a whole new way of life. A series of mysterious and troubling events are in motion—starting with a brick hurled through her bedroom window in the dead of night—and a further unravelling ensues.

Ten celebrities have arrived to take part in the most gruelling - and lucrative - reality survival show ever devised: two weeks completely alone on a remote Scottish island, in the depths of winter. With a production team that seems incapable of keeping them safe, a gathering storm and the unrelenting gaze of hidden cameras, the contestants are stretched to the limit as they try and outshine their fellow competitors and hide their darkest secrets. But when a contestant winds up dead, it soon becomes clear that the players are not just fighting for the prize, but for their lives.

When Ava arrives in Greece, it’s with a heart that’s shattered into a thousand pieces. But as she pulls up in a tiny village nestled on a cliff above the glittering Ionian Sea and steps out in front of a tumbledown house that once belonged to her grandmother Sophia, everything changes. At first Ava almost wants to laugh at this bizarre inheritance - a home that has been uninhabited since the Second World War - that appears as close to collapse as she herself feels. But with nowhere left to run to, her only choice is to start putting the house together again.

It's 1953. Memories of the war are beginning to fade. Young Queen Elizabeth has just ascended to the throne. Isobel McIntyre is a doctor-in-training at a London teaching hospital. It's not easy being a woman working in medicine. And Isobel carries the additional burden of a shocking secret. One night three years ago, Isobel took the chance to walk into another woman's life. By the time she understood the implications, it was too late to turn back. Now the secret she's been hiding for so long threatens everything.