Showing results by narrator "Penelope Rawlins" in All Categories

Schoolteacher Sophie Lawson has fled to the Cotswold countryside after a tragic break-up and is throwing herself into dating and organising Cranswell's annual Christmas concert. The festive fun is marred by the arrival of a handsome but surly musical director, tricky pupils and concert preparations falling into disarray. Disaster strikes, but the show must go on. Will the concert bring Christmas harmony to Cranswell and will Sophie end the year on a high note?

With her signature blend of 'lose yourself' love stories and buried secrets, Sunday Times top ten best seller Tasmina Perry is back with this gorgeously romantic read, perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore and Rachel Hore. From Paris to St Petersburg, this spellbinding tale of love, loss and long-buried secrets is guaranteed to break your heart.... Everyone remembers their first kiss. You never forget the last.... It's 1961. Bright-eyed young journalist Rosamund Bailey is determined to change the world.

Life never stays still for long on Big Sky Mountain. Rosa and Grandma Nan are off on an adventure to Toe-Dipper Bay, to see who's in trouble—a distress flare has gone up! When they arrive they find the beach covered in plastic rubbish, and a family of beach otters farming seaweed, while doing their best to tidy up. Rosa and Grandma Nan join in, but they have to find out who sent the distress flare—because who is that out wrecked out at sea? Rosa and Grandma Nan will need the otters' help to build a raft to get out there....

Close to Rome, set among ancient ruins and freshwater springs, languishes the magnificent Villa Rospo, a jewel in the Tode family portfolio, and one they had virtually forgotten - until Sir Ecgbert and Alice decide it's the perfect place for their honeymoon. Now suddenly everyone wants a piece.

Kate and Pete have been the perfect couple ever since they were teenagers. Fifteen years later, they have two young daughters, live in a beautiful London townhouse, and seem like they have it all. But one day, Pete leaves for work and never comes home. In a note Kate discovers, he confesses that he’s been unhappy for a long time and that he’s met someone else. Distraught, she later learns that he has left everything behind, including his mobile phone, and she sets out to learn the truth about his disappearance.

Abandoned at the altar, Rosalind Shaw descends into the kind of depression which involves her watching too much daytime TV. After several inebriated months, Ros relocates to St Albans and begins a new life, as part-owner of a bookshop. However, just when Ros begins to feel that life might be improving, her rather hairy neighbour, Daniel, knocks on her door with a bunch of flowers and some rather distressing news....

Perhaps the most brilliantly successful ghost story ever written, The Turn of the Screw creates a terrifyingly believable impression of innocent children so corrupted by evil that they remain deceptive pictures of innocent beauty. Their governess must struggle alone to confront and exorcise the demons that she believes possess their souls....

From number-one New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult and her daughter and cowriter, Samantha Van Leer, comes Off the Page, a tender, wonderfully imaginative and romantic crossover novel. Meant for each other... Meet Oliver, a prince literally taken from the pages of a fairy tale and transported into the real world. Meet Delilah, the girl who wished Oliver into being. It's a miracle that seems perfect at first - but there are complications.

Reports are coming in that an unidentified woman was in the car with James Wilshire (24), the Earl of Rossex, when it crashed in Fenshire late on Tuesday evening and killed him. She died from her injuries later in hospital. The police have not named the woman, but sources at Francis Court, where the earl lived with his wife Lady Beatrice (21), claim the dead woman was the wife of a member of staff.

Weigh anchor and prepare for the voyage of a lifetime with this spectacular collection of sea stories taken from myths, folklore and oral histories from all over the world. Young listeners can thrill to the epic voyages of the trickster Maui, who made the islands of Polynesia; swim with dragons alongside China's Lin Moniang; and enjoy the mischievous antics of the Klabautermann, a mischievous German sea-goblin. Pirates, mermaids, ghost ships and more can be found inside.

Catherine the Fashion Princess Fairy helps make sure princesses everywhere have the perfect outfits for their royal functions. But when Jack Frost and his goblins steal her magical objects, all sorts of things start to go wrong! Can Kirsty and Rachel help get them back before fashion disasters strike the human and fairy worlds?

One year ago, Casey Cassidy was happy. She had great friends, a wonderful teaching job and a busy life - until with one missed flight, everything changes. One year later, Casey knows what it means to find that once-in-a-lifetime love people dream of. But when Ben leaves, her heart is shattered. Left facing a year of firsts without him, piecing her life back together seems impossible. But then a friend offers her a home in rural France. In the solitude and emptiness, Casey needs to comes to terms with what’s happened and find a way to move forward.

To everyone who knows her now, Zoe Maisey - child genius, musical sensation - is perfect. Yet several years ago Zoe caused the deaths of three teenagers. She served her time, and now she's free. Her story begins with her giving the performance of her life. By midnight, her mother is dead. The Perfect Girl is an intricate exploration into the mind of a teenager burdened by brilliance and a past that she cannot leave behind.

Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most enigmatic geniuses of European literature. What happens when his idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting.

Being married to a celebrity isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when that celebrity has a very public affair with his co-star.... Alice McBride is determined that the one thing she won't lose in her marriage breakup is Borne Manor, her beloved home, but she gets more than she bargained for when she rents it out for the summer and a sexy cowboy comes to stay. Country music star Robinson Duff has had his own share of heartbreak and needs somewhere quiet to hide out for the summer.

With the world in turmoil, spiritual forces are needed more than ever before. Harnessing the angel and new age movement can help you make sense of life when it feels directionless. Angels provide us with hope and illuminate a new path forward. Rather than visiting or becoming dependent on gurus, psychics or mediums, expert Theresa Cheung is here to show you how to directly communicate with angels on your own.

Imogen should be enjoying her life–she is happily married with a high-powered career that could see her rise to the very highest levels of management. But that’s never going to happen because Imogen’s boss, Michael, has discovered she has a secret, something she has hidden from everyone, even her devoted husband. If the secret is ever revealed, her life will be destroyed, which means Imogen is completely and utterly in Michael’s power, and he loves it.

The whole of Fairyland is very excited—there's going to be a new royal baby! But when Foster the stork fails to deliver the new bundle of joy on time, the Royal Baby Fairy asks friends of the fairies, Rachel Tate and Kirsty Walker, for their help. Just where can the extra-special baby be?

Meet the courageous Mrs Annie Edson Taylor. The bravest woman you've never heard of and the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel – over a decade before any male daredevil had the balls to do the same! From the author of the bestselling Heather's Picks title Mrs Van Gogh: a gripping historical novel inspired by a true story.

Mire House is dreary, dark, cold, and infested with midges. But when Emma Dean inherits it from a distant relation, she immediately feels a sense of belonging. It isn't long before Charlie Mitchell, grandson of the original owner, appears claiming that he wants to seek out his family. But Emma suspects he's more interested in the house than his long-lost relations. And when she starts seeing ghostly figures, Emma begins to wonder: Is Charlie trying to scare her away? Or are there darker secrets lurking in the corners of Mire House?