Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Strevens" in All Categories

In 1935 Evelyn Shillington started a diary, little knowing the years of turmoil it would cover. Eve joined her beloved husband, Captain Rex Shillington, whenever she could on his postings, giving her a unique view into army life. Through the abdication crisis to the turbulent years of the Second World War, Eve documented it all with an inimitable spirit and brave humour. The diaries lay forgotten in an attic for years until an enterprising antiques dealer discovered them by chance. Published 70 years later, they offer a new perspective into life on the home front, a firsthand account that was almost lost forever.

Inspired by her uncle, Lisa Samson has communed with trees since her childhood. Tragically, a disease from mainland Europe now poses a very serious threat to the ash tree's survival. Epitaph for the Ash explores how barren our landscape could become without the ash's familiar branches protruding from limestone scars and chalky cliff faces.

Sentenced to death for a simple confidence trick, Mary Jebb escapes the gallows...but her reprieve is harsh: seven years in the unforgiving penal colony of Botany Bay. Yet Mary is determined not to be forgotten, sending two pennies, engraved with a promise, to the two men who sealed her fate.

A succinct and personal biography of Elizabeth II, who has managed to remain an enigma, despite being the most recognized woman in the world. Tracing her life through its major stages, and uncovering her greatest personal loves and trials, A Brief Life of the Queen offers the freshness of the first-hand insights and compelling storytelling for which Robert Lacey’s best-selling biographies are renowned.Robert Lacey is a British historian noted for his in-depth research and page-turning narrative style.

The first book about ten-year-old FRANKIE FOSTER – the girl who wants to help, but ends up causing chaos!Frankie Foster loves fixing people's problems. Her help might not always be welcome – and she might cause the odd total disaster – but Frankie always fixes things. Eventually!It all started with the “My Beginnings” essays that Frankie and her classmates had to write for English. Her best friend, Jem, wrote all about how she felt being adopted and it was so good it got chosen to be read out at the end of term Speech Day!

 1926, Kent. Lady Ansley's old Gaiety Theatre group are reuniting at Wychbourne Court for the weekend to perform the Follies. But, as Chef Nell Drury observes, Lady Ansley is worried. And rightly so, for as the group of actors and actresses - from the pompous Hubert Jarrett to the dashing Neville Heydock - prepare to take the stage, simmering tensions, old scores, fears and buried memories begin to resurface. What happened to Mary Ann Darling, the young Gaiety actress who disappeared 30 years ago? As the performance draws to a close, the real drama is only just beginning.... 

London, 1941. Livy makes her way through Blitz-torn London to the Mirrormakers’ Club, the only place that makes her feels safe, where she finds herself drawn into the mystery of a missing diamond and torn between two men with competing claims on her. London, 1841. Charlotte is helped from the scene of an accident by a man who shows her a building he is working on and whose kindness unlocks a hope she has long kept buried. But that man is not her husband.

Felicity Fox is a rarity for a woman living in the early 1800s. Not only does she frequent the 'gambling hells' where most ladies would not dare to tread, she can also beat any man at his own game. It’s no wonder she’s gained notoriety as the 'Queen of Diamonds'. Edward, Earl of Addington, despises gambling and is not exactly enamoured of Felicity Fox either, especially after she tried to swindle his family. Except now the Earl requires assistance from the Queen of Diamonds - and there’s everything to play for.

It is 1963, and in her mansion in the foothills of the Pyrenees, Joana idles her days away, banished by her husband and alienated from her family. Meanwhile, in Barcelona, her daughter, Carla, is in trouble. Hating all her parents stand for, Carla has embraced the student movement against the Franco regime, but her father has been watching her, and her beloved fiancé is arrested. Terrified and powerless, pregnant Carla runs to her grandmother Maria, but they know their movements are still being followed. Why did her daughter, Joana, marry into the Franco regime and abandon her family? Maria has never understood.

The stage is set.... Deborah O’Hara loves leading her troupe of actors. But when she becomes entangled in a web of secrets spun by the rakishly handsome Damian Beaumaris, Duke of Cirencester, she is forced to play the hardest role of her life. That of the stunning but disloyal Paulette, the Duke’s widowed sister-in-law. To regain the honour of his family Beau needs Deb’s help. But, despite his intentions, he doesn’t bargain on the forbidden sparks that fly with his beautiful leading lady….

Time is running out ... A killer who won’t stop. An investigator who won’t give up. When a beautiful young woman is found murdered on Cape Town’s Seapoint promenade, police profiler Dr Clare Hart is drawn into the web of a brutal serial killer. As more bodies are discovered, Clare is forced to revisit memories of the horrific rape of her twin sister and the gang ties that bind the city’s crime rings. Are the murders really linked to human trafficking, or is the killer just playing sick games with her?

The gruesome murder of a homeless teenage boy suggests a methodical serial killer is at work in Walvis Bay, a depressed port, isolated in the Namib Desert. Police profiler and investigative journalist Dr Clare Hart is sent to work with Tamar Damases, head of the town’s Murder Unit. Until a few days ago, her relationship with Captain Riedwaan Faizal seemed to be going well - but she knows she is not the only woman in his life.

Coralie Casey is haunted by her past. Looking for a fresh start, she sets up a range of natural beauty products, and escapes to Penmorfa, a quiet coastal village in west Wales. Gethin Lewis, now an internationally-acclaimed artist living in New York, is visiting his home village of Penmorfa one last time to wind up his father’s estate. But the village soon disrupts their carefully laid plans.…

Ginnie Holmes has found something she never intended to find - an overwhelming passion for a man she should not be with. At an abandoned boathouse hidden on the riverbank of the Thames, Ginnie steps into a world that’s just a little bit brighter than her ordinary life. Then, in a single terrifying event, the lovers' secret becomes a deadly catastrophe, and Ginnie finds herself in the path of extraordinary danger.

Miku Takeshita knows she's in trouble when her supply teacher turns out to be a nukekubi-and when Japenese demons kidnap her baby brother Kazu it's up to her and her best friend Cait to break into their snow-blocked school and get him back…

As an illegitimate child, Frederica Bracewell was treated by her uncle like a servant. But when she encounters the new gamekeeper, shy Frederica starts to feel like a true lady... After a debauched existence, Lord Robert Mountford revels in the simplicity of a gamekeeper's lifestyle. Until temptation strikes! Frederica is a far cry from the ladies of the ton, but she may just be his undoing... and unmasking!

Isis and Hopi, orphaned when crocodiles kill their parents, are due to perform for the pharoh's tomb-builders near the legendary Valley of the Kings. But the villagers fall under suspicion when the heavily-guarded royal tombs are broken into. Can Isis and Hopi discover the truth about the robberies - in time?

Autumn, 1839. As the London nights darken, rumours spread about the devil's chariot, which preys on young women walking alone at night. Novice private investigator Liberty Lane has no time for such horror stories, so when a poetic young man begs her to find his missing fiancee, she accepts, suspecting there is a more prosaic explanation. Meanwhile, she is engaged to help prevent a royal scandal involving Prince Albert's worldlier brother, Prince Ernest.

When Rebecca’s friend Abi convinces her to get away from it all at the fabulous Hawksley Manor hotel in York, it seems too good to be true. Pampering and relaxation are just what Rebecca needs to distract herself from the creeping suspicion that her husband is hiding something from her. She never imagined that by the end of the weekend she would have dined with celebrities or danced the night away in exclusive clubs. 

Caseley is the 21-year-old daughter of Teuder Bonython, successful shipyard owner and consul for Mexico. When Teuder falls ill, Caseley takes responsibility for the shipyard, the consulate, and her father's health, but in Victorian England, she must hide her talents in a world dominated by men. Not conventionally beautiful, Caseley also resigns herself to a life without love...until she encounters a half-Spanish captain, Jago Barata.