Showing results by narrator "Rachel Atkins" in All Categories

A full-cast environmental mystery set against the evocative backdrop of the Norfolk fens Mist rising over the fens. The haunting cry of the nesting bittern. But not everything is as pristine as it appears to be. The protection of nature and the pursuit of progress collide in this thrilling...

By the side of a lake in Brandenburg, a young architect builds the house of his dreams—a summerhouse with wrought-iron balconies, stained-glass windows the colour of jewels, and a bedroom with a hidden closet, all set within a beautiful garden. But the land on which he builds has a dark history of violence that began with the drowning of a young woman in the grip of madness and that grows darker still over the course of the century.

The Essential Classics: Volume 4 brings together 5 of the greatest classics ever written, perfectly read by an esteemed cast including Fenella Woolgar, Jonathan Keeble, Lucy Scott, David Rintoul, and Aidan Kelly. Spanning British, Russian, and Irish literature, this collection includes stories of modern Irish life in Dubliners, love and loss on an epic scale in War & Peace, as well as Dickens' tale of heroism in Nichols Nickleby, and many more.

One fateful night. One unthinkable family tragedy. One survivor. This is Alison's story. Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train and Apple Tree Yard, this stunning psychological thriller follows one woman's search for the truth about her family history. Alison is as close to anonymous as she can get: With no ties and a backroom job, hers is a life lived under the radar. But once Alison was someone else: Once she was Esme, a teenager whose bedroom sat at the top of a remote house on a bleak estuary.

'Chilling, tragic, and utterly immersive.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book. Wow, Just, wow! A beautifully written and unforgettable story. I can't stop thinking about it' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Occupied France, 1944 In the shadow of the ravaged battlefields of Verdun, where the scars of the First World War...

The Essential Classics: Volume 5 brings together 5 of the greatest classics ever written, perfectly read by an esteemed cast including Juliet Stevenson, David Rintoul, Rachel Atkins, Stephen Hogan, Aoife McMahon, and Lucy Scott. Spanning a broad range of British and Irish literature, this collection includes hilarious stories of the 'gentleman's gentleman' in My Man, Jeeves, the revolutionary and intense tale of Jane and Rochester in Jane Eyre, as well as Joyce's grand modern masterpiece, Ulysses, and many more.

The Virginia Woolf Complete Collection brings together all of her most iconic works, including all 9 of her published novels, a selection of her best short stories, as well as some of her most influential non-fiction writing. From the enduring importance of her ideas of female independence in A Room of One's Own to the modern masterpieces of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, alongside many more of her novels, criticism, and essays, this collection takes you across the broad breadth of Woolf's ever-inventive and timeless writings.

Pre-war debutantes were members of the most protected, not to say isolated, stratum of 20th-century society: the young (17-20) unmarried daughters of the British upper classes. For most of them, the war changed all that for ever. It meant independence and the shock of the new, and daily exposure to customs and attitudes that must have seemed completely alien to them. For many, the almost military regime of an upper class childhood meant they were well suited for the no-nonsense approach needed in wartime.

Davinsky Labour Camp, Siberia, 1933: Sofia Morozova knows she has to escape. Only two things have sustained her through the bitter cold, aching hunger and hard labour: the prospect of one day walking free; and the stories told by her friend Anna, beguiling tales of a charmed upbringing in Petrograd - and of Anna’s fervent love for a passionate revolutionary, Vasily. So, when Anna falls gravely ill, Sofia makes a promise to escape the camp and find Vasily....

The French Classics Collection brings together 18 of the greatest works of fiction ever written in French - here collected into one audiobook and all translated into English. Featuring grand epics of love, loss, and survival, as in Les Miserables, to tales of adventure in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, and romances such as Madame Bovary, alongside many more grand stories from 17th, 18th, and 19th century France, this collection will whisk you away into other worlds with some of the greatest characters in literature within some of the greatest novels ever written.

Brought to you by Penguin. Every July, the lucky owners of Cornish holiday homes set off for their annual break. They close up their desirable semis in smartish London suburbs - having turned off the Aga and turned on the burglar alarm - and look forward to a carefree, restful, somehow more...

1940, London. A man learns a shocking truth about his past. Warsaw. A mother writes a diary as the ghetto walls go up. From the bombed streets of London, to occupied Warsaw, to the Polish forests bristling with partisans, will their paths cross? Will their pasts be reconciled? And will they survive the deadly assaults on their freedom and their lives?

This collection contains Virginia Woolf's two most important and impactful non-fiction essays: A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas which have inspired and enraptured readers for decades. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the famous Bloomsbury Group.

Yesterday ended in disaster. Very late at night, I decided to write down everything that had happened; the only way I could think of coping. So here goes. So begins Michele Roberts’ intimate and honest account of the year after her latest novel has been rejected by her then publisher. Written with warmth and sensitivity, she navigates the difficult road from depression and anxiety to acceptance and understanding of the value of the friendships which nurture her and make life worth living - whatever happens.

When 21-year-old Gwendoline Crockford signed up to join the Berkshire Constabulary in 1951, she had little idea of what she was getting herself into. Whether carrying a human skeleton out of the woods, finding a missing child, investigating thefts, or chasing an escaped zebra, every day brought fresh adventures. In this nostalgic, tender and honest account of post-war British society, we follow a bright, determined woman navigating a man's world, serving as many people as she can.

The Virginia Woolf Complete Collection brings together all of her 9 published novels, from her very first published work, the exuberantly youthful The Voyage Out, to the modern masterpieces of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, as well as the hugely ambitious and ever-relevant Orlando, alongside many other wide-ranging and ever-inventive works of fiction.

‘Lisa Timoney's debut has all the elements of a fabulous family drama…it kept me turning the pages from beginning to end’ – Kerry Fisher the bestselling author of The Silent Wife ‘I devoured this’ NetGalley review⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Will her daughter’s secret tear her family apart?...

It’s 2025, and advances in gene therapy have led to the eradication of many once-common diseases. But the ability to engineer and re-engineer the brain has provoked fear – for it means that a truly artificial consciousness is within reach. The idea that humans may no longer be the only sentient species is so unthinkable that legislation is hastily passed, rigorously controlling genetic experiments. But there are certain people who seek to circumvent the law...

There were six of them - three Katherines, two Annes, and a Jane. One of them was the king’s wife for 24 years, another for only a year and a half. One died, two were divorced, and two were beheaded. It was a dangerous, uncertain life.

After the King’s death in 1547, his sixth wife finds a box of old letters - one from each of the first five wives. They are sad, angry, frightened letters. They tell the story of what it was like to be the wife of Henry VIII of England.

A collection of fabulous tales of genies, heroes, flying carpets and fantastic voyages, The Arabian Nights has enchanted generations of children and adults. Forged in the Islamic Golden Age, it was brought to Europe in the 18th Century, where it became an instant sensation. Included here are seven full-cast dramatisations, starring Carolyn Backhouse as Shahrazad and Derek Jacobi as the King, as well as a bonus edition of In Our Time exploring the story behind the tales.