Showing results by narrator "Helen Stern" in All Categories

The first chapter of a manuscript arrives on Publisher Marina’s desk. She assumes it’s just another novel by another aspiring writer. As the chapters arrive one by one, Marina is convinced they are about her past. There’s only one person who can know everything about the scandal, the trial, and the trauma that nearly broke her. This is one story that should never be told, and Marina is so desperate she will do anything to stop it getting out.

Paris, 1789. As the shadow of the guillotine falls over a nation at war with itself, three very different women find themselves caught up in the storm of revolution...

The Duke of Malmesbury’s daughters discover that passion can derail even the best-laid matrimonial plans. Lady Cecily is known as the “Ice Princess” because of her cool blond beauty and her refusal to wed any of her several eligible suitors. She has no choice but to obey her father, the Duke, who wants Cecily to marry the one man who can assure the family’s social and financial positions: The arrogant and infuriating Viscount Ravenwood, who has been her enemy since childhood.

Working in a museum under a false identity is Brigitte’s only hope. Until she meets Isabelle Valette, who confides in hushed tones that she is part of the Resistance. And when her new friend tells her of a train leaving Paris that can take children to safety, Brigitte knows her daughter must be on it, even if it breaks her heart. But getting Sophie onto the train is dangerous. If they are caught smuggling a Jewish child out of Paris, they will be killed. And with the enemy closing in, can Brigitte get her beloved daughter to safety before it is too late?

Hanna’s world is crumbling. An unimaginable crime has been committed, and everyone’s looking for someone to blame. Her loved ones are under suspicion. Now Hanna must work out who is threatening her family – before it’s too late. No one could have seen this coming.

Raised at the court of King Henry III as a chamber lady to the queen, young Joanna of Swanscombe's life changes forever when she comes into an inheritance far above all expectations, including her own. Now a wealthy heiress, Joanna's arranged marriage to the king's charming, tournament-loving half-brother, William de Valence, immediately stokes the flames of political unrest as more established courtiers object to the privileges bestowed on newcomers.

The scandal would rip through English society - but how can they resist falling recklessly, irreversibly in love? A series of disasters in Eleanor Lindale’s well-to-do family kept her out of the social whirl where she might have attracted suitors. Now, at age 25, she believes she is irretrievably on the shelf. But her quiet life in Brighton abruptly changes when she’s asked to chaperone her beautiful seventeen-year-old niece, Lady Aurora Crossways, for a brief season before Aurora’s wedding to Philip Radford, Earl of Huntley.

In the summer of 1889, a young man sits painting a line of elms in Kensington Gardens. One day, he glimpses a mother at play with her two daughters and decides to include them in his picture. From that moment, he is haunted by dreams that seem to foreshadow his doom. A century later, in Kentish Town, a painter and her grown-up daughters receive news of an ancestor linking them to the long-vanished double portrait of Molly & the Captain. Meanwhile friendship with a young musician stirs unexpected passions and threatens to tear the family apart.   

Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution. Mothers and Others finds the key in the primatologically unique length of human childhood.

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

When her husband returns from war, the Marchioness of Hawkstone battles for her independence. Less than two weeks after their wedding, Gavin Colporter, Marquess of Hawkstone, left his lovely wife Mollie at home and went off to war with Lord Wellington. Four years later, Mollie has become accustomed to running the estate and doing as she pleases. It's quite a shock when Hawkstone returns and immediately begins to assume his rights and responsibilities as lord of the manor. Can she learn to submit to his authority? What will he say when he hears certain scandalous rumors about her activities in his absence?

Over twenty years of marriage to Max, Prue has remained a busy, contented mother and stepmother. Now, Prue's stepdaughter, Violet, has returned with her new husband from New York and, suddenly, Prue is precipitated into a secret life. As she moves between a sleepy village in Hampshire and buzzing London, Prue finds herself crossing the boundary between innocence and knowledge, exploring the line between the gluttony and surrender of desire and facing the stark realities that result.

This is the story of Esther Simpson, a remarkable woman history has largely forgotten, but whose selfless actions left an indelible mark on the cultural and intellectual landscape of the modern world. Forgoing marriage, family, even, it seems, a private life, she committed her whole life resettling academic refugees before, during and after World War Two. She thought of these refugees as her family and by the end of her life could count among her 'children'.

It is the eve of the Longest Night. Eliza Baker and the rest of Lord Jayden's servants excitedly prepare for the lavish festival as their masters enjoy a head start on the debauchery that awaits. Eliza's madly in love with Kell, a sweet, deliciously sexy guard. Kell returns her feelings, but is striving to make himself a worthy man before he asks Eliza's father for permission to court her. To keep the Demon of Winter at bay, an offering must be made during the festival.

Posing as one of Robin Hood's thieves to avoid the evil Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only Big John and Robin Hood know the truth - that the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. It's getting harder to hide as Gisbourne's camp seeks to find Scarlet and drive Robin Hood out of Nottinghamshire. But Scarlet's instinct for self-preservation is at war with a strong sense of responsibility to the people who took her in when she was on the run, and she finds it's not so easy to turn her back on her band and townspeople.

Scarlet’s true identity has been revealed, but her future is uncertain. Her forced marriage to Lord Gisbourne threatens Robin and Scarlet’s love, and as the royal court descends upon Nottingham for the appointment of a new Sheriff, the people of Nottingham hope that Prince John will appoint their beloved Robin Hood. But Prince John has different plans for Nottingham that revolve around a fateful secret from Scarlet’s past even she isn’t yet aware of.

Politicians from all sides compete to convince us they can fix our immigration “problem”, but all the solutions on offer look remarkably similar. Apparently, if we want less inequality at home, we need less immigration from abroad. But what if this assumption is wrong? What if the drive to restrict migration isn’t reducing poverty here, but creating a migration system that is actually exacerbating local inequality? In The Huddled Masses, migration researcher Katy Long shows why we need to rethink the relationship.

After a police operation ends in catastrophe, Eve West is suspended. She faces expulsion from the force until John Duran - a criminal Eve incarcerated herself - offers his help. But he wants something in return. Convinced there has been a miscarriage of justice, Duran wants Eve to free a fellow inmate convicted of the murder. But why is a brute like Duran assisting this other inmate? And why has he specifically chosen Eve to investigate?

Mary Bennet - overlooked, laughed at, despised - married a missionary and vanished into a life of service out in Africa. But now Miriam, her daughter, is coming to England, disliking everything she has been told about her family. Her aunts and cousins are expecting someone quiet, dull and bookish, just like her mother, not the quick-tempered, impulsive girl who arrives. How can this adventurous girl with her desire for freedom possibly fit into their well ordered world? And what havoc will she cause as she tries?

Pirate captain Thayer Drake lures ships onto reefs for plunder, and business is lucrative. Yet, saving a lass from drowning after her ship wrecks becomes more than he bargained for when the crazy wench dives back into the raging sea for her blasted purse. Tavern songstress Gilly McCoy, penniless and fleeing from the man who murdered her lover, stowed away on the doomed ship. Now at Drake's mercy, Gilly must earn her passage by performing for the captain. And that is not all: she must also kiss the captain at every ring of the ship's bell....