Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in 20th Century

Three young people from vastly different backgrounds – Armando from Mozambique, Lolita from India and East German national Theo – are drawn together in a small Baltic city in 1989, just as the DDR begins to collapse around them.

Marvellously atmospheric tale of strangers summoned to a grand but neglected villa on the Italian coast. Each of them has been named in a will, but nobody knows their benefactress.... Four very different people are named in a will. Delia, an opera singer robbed of her voice by illness; George, an idealistic scientist who cannot face what his skills have created; Marjorie, desperately poor and unable to dislodge her writer’s block; and Lucius, ostensibly in control but whose personal life is in chaos.

In the India of 1942, two rapes take place simultaneously - that of an English girl in Mayapore, and that of India by the British. In each, physical violence, racial animosity, the coercion of the weak by the strong all play their part, but playing a part too are love, affection, loyalty, and recognition that the last division of all to be overcome is the colour of the skin.

Fabulous family saga of secrets held through two generations, set against the atmospheric background of the Lake District at Christmas. The year 1936 is drawing to a close. Winter grips Wetmoreland and causes a rare phenonmenon: The lakes freeze. For two local families, the Richardsons and the Grindleys, this will bring unexpected upheaval, as the frozen lake entices long-estranged siblings and children to return home for the holiday season.

As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.

In this third and final novel in the Lancaster Burning series, author Linda Byler takes us inside the home of Davey Beiler, the leader of this Amish district. He clearly feels the heat in more ways than one. Some of the younger members of his church are ready to testify against the man who has allegedly started at least several of the fires. Davey counsels patience and forgiveness.

Paris, 1939. Torn apart by war, Saffron Courtney and Gerhard von Meerbach are thousands of miles apart, both struggling for their lives. Gerhard - despite his objections to the Nazi regime - is fighting for the Fatherland, hoping to one day have the opportunity to rid Germany of Hitler and his cronies. But as his unit is thrown into the hellish attrition of the Battle of Stalingrad, he knows his chances of survival are dwindling by the day....

For Josie Flynn, the war was just the start of a journey that began in heartbreak when she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle. But the dark shadow that her uncle cast over her life is lightened by the bubbly Lily, who lives along the street and becomes her life-long friend. But Josie has itchy feet, and it is in New York that she falls in love with Jack Coltrane.

1939: Nerys Watkins leaves rural Wales to accompany her husband on a missionary posting to India. Travelling from lonely Ladakh, high in the Himalayas, Nerys discovers a new world in the city of Srinagar. Here, in the exquisite heart of Kashmir, the British live on carved wooden houseboats and dance, flirt and gossip as if there is no war. But the battles draw ever closer.

The setting is the beginning of an Amish settlement in colonial America in the forests of eastern Pennsylvania. There, a young Amish couple, Hans and Kate Zug, are in their ninth year of marriage, still waiting to have a child. Then, one April morning, Kate finds a Native infant, wrapped in deerskin and placed next to the spring where she went to fill her water bucket.

A shooting party at the Earl of Witton’s remote country house is a high treat for champion shot Patricia Merton - until unexpected guests turn the social atmosphere dangerously sour. That’s not Pat’s biggest problem. She’s visiting her old friend, the Earl’s heir Jimmy Yoxall - but she wants to spend a lot more time with Jimmy’s fiancée. The irrepressible Miss Fenella Carruth, with her laughing eyes and lush curves, is the most glorious woman Pat’s ever met, and it quickly becomes impossible to remember why she needs to stay at arm’s length.

At the age of 19, Kitty McCarthy has decided she is going to live a life less ordinary. What she does know is that she doesn't want to get married and raise children in Liverpool like her sisters.

Born a Native American but brought up Amish, Hester Zug, at age 20, flees her Amish home. Her father's too-tender care of her has made her stepmother wildly jealous, and so Hester sets off, knowing only that she can't stay. Hester's natural instincts for navigating the forests in colonial Pennsylvania, along with the book of medicines and remedies given to her by an aged Native American woman, allow her to survive until she gets sick from drinking river water.

Poland, 1980. Anxious, disillusioned Ludwik Glowacki, soon to graduate university, has been sent along with the rest of his class to an agricultural camp. Here he meets Janusz - and together, they spend a dreamlike summer swimming in secluded lakes, reading forbidden books - and falling in love. But with summer over, the two are sent back to Warsaw, and to the harsh realities of life under the Party. Exiled from paradise, Ludwik and Janusz must decide how they will survive; and in their different choices, find themselves torn apart.

Millie Cameron is furious when she finds herself obliged to sort through the belongings of her aunt Flo, who has died recently. She hardly knew her aunt, and besides, she has her own career to think of.

Young, pretty, full of confidence - or so she likes to pretend - she wants nothing to do with a dull spinster aunt whom her family refuses to talk about. But when she arrives at Flo’s basement flat, Millie’s interest is awakened.

After the death of their mother, Mollie and Annemarie decide to escape from their tiny Irish village and head to Liverpool to board a ship to New York. But in a cruel twist of fate, the girls are separated when the boat leaves without Mollie.

Everyone liked Sergeant Joe. From the huge jolly Beavis family with whom he had lodgings in Newington Butts, to Mr George Singleton, Charing Cross Road bookseller, who employed Joe in a little lucrative and harmless forgery, Sergeant Joe was a univeral favourite. Quite a few people wondered why he didn't get married. But it wasn't until he bumped into Dolly Smith - quite literally in a London pea-souper - that he met a girl who made an impression on him.

Pretty Amy Curran was just 18 years old when she met Barney Patterson, the love of her life, on Southport pier in 1939. Their romantic, passionate marriage was made in heaven, or so they both believed. But when Britain declared war on Germany, Barney volunteered to fight and the couple were eventually separated for five long years. When he returned to Liverpool after VE Day he wasn't the same person - and neither was Amy.

Liverpool, 1937. Jessica is married to Bertie, a mean, patronising man who she has stayed with purely for the sake of her two young children. To make up for the love and passion that is missing from her life, she spends the occasional afternoon at the local cinema, lost in romantic films. But when an unexpected glass of champagne is offered to her in a Liverpool hotel, the consequences turn out to be shattering. When Bertie discovers his wife's deceit, he is ruthless in his revenge. He sells their house and disappears....

Australian writer Emma Callander has been recruited to complete the final historical mystery in a series by celebrated author Iris Blackburn. It’s 1964, and Iris’s memory is fading. She’s certain that only Emma can do justice to her novel about a murder on the Isle of Skye. When Emma ventures to Scotland for research, she discovers it isn’t fiction at all, but rather a true crime unsolved for more than fifty years.