Showing results by narrator "Katherine Manners" in All Categories

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.  

People aren't sure what to make of Susan Green - family and colleagues find her prickly and hard to understand, but Susan makes perfect sense to herself, and that's all she needs. At 45, she thinks her life is perfect, as long as she avoids her feckless brother, Edward - a safe distance away in Birmingham. Yet suddenly faced with the loss of her mother and, implausibly, with the possibility of becoming a mother herself, Susan's greatest fear is being realised: she is losing control.

Frankie Turner knows what it's like to be unwanted; she was brought up in care. Now as a social worker to kids in the same system, she’s someone who understands ... But Frankie is hiding an unthinkable secret: one that may have its roots in the murder of a young, beautiful woman fifteen years ago.

England, September 1939: Lily Shepherd boards a cruise liner for a new life in Australia and is plunged into a world of cocktails, jazz and glamorous friends. But as the sun beats down, poisonous secrets begin to surface. Suddenly Lily finds herself trapped with nowhere to go.... Australia, six-weeks later: The world is at war, the cruise liner docks, and a beautiful young woman is escorted onto dry land in handcuffs. What has she done?

Joel is afraid of the future. Since he was a child he's been haunted by dreams about the people he loves. Visions of what's going to happen - the good and the bad. And the only way to prevent them is to never let anyone close to him again. Callie can't let go of the past. Since her best friend died, Callie's been lost. She knows she needs to be more spontaneous and live a bigger life. She just doesn't know how to find a way back to the person who used to have those dreams. Joel and Callie both need a reason to start living for today....

Little Lorna Bell is from a notorious family on a rundown estate. Everyone thinks she's a nasty piece of work. The schoolchildren call her a thief. But Lorna's hair is matted, her shoes pinch her feet, and school teacher Claire Penny can't help herself; some kids just need a bit more support, a bit more love, than the rest. As the bond between teacher and pupil grows stronger, Claire sees Lorna's bruises, and digs to uncover the disturbing tale behind them. Heartbroken, Claire knows she has to act. She must make Lorna safe.

A standalone thriller from the prizewinning queen of Nordic noir and author of the Thora Gudmundsdottir series. A chilling thriller from the author of The Silence of the Sea, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for best Scandinavian Crime Novel. A journalist on the track of an old case attempts suicide. An ordinary couple return from a house swap in the states to find their home in disarray and their guests seemingly missing.

Sara made one promise to herself when she was growing up in foster care: that if she was lucky enough to have a family, she’d always do whatever it took to protect them. Looking around her home with its cozy kitchen and living room, where her energetic teenage daughters and gorgeous 4-year-old son all eat, play and live together, she knows she’d do anything to keep them safe. So when Sara’s husband Matt loses his job and every shred of his confidence with it, she knows it’s up to her to bring the family back from the brink.

When Becca’s first love shows up on her social media feed, she can’t help but smile fondly. Once upon a time Connor was the love of her life, and though it was over 10 years ago, he’s always held a place in her heart. Then he sends her a message. He sounds happy - still kind and funny, still living across the world in Australia. But he wants to know everything about her life now. How can Becca tell him the truth? About her workaholic husband, her stressful job, and the challenges of caring for her elderly father and her three-year-old daughter, Mia?

He was there for her first steps. He helped with her homework. And then, two days before her ninth birthday, Martha’s father walked out. She never knew what went wrong, but she and her mother, Fran, never saw or heard from him again. Fifteen years later, Martha and Fran live in a remote, pretty cottage in Cornwall. Fran paints illustrations for children’s books, while Martha trains as an animal nurse at the local vet’s surgery. But then Martha sees a strange message on her mother’s phone - from her father. Desperate for answers, she tracks him down.

It shouldn't have been like this. Being on television was meant to lead to fame and a glamorous social life. But for Lizzie Partridge, 40-something, divorced and TV cook on Midlands This Morning, it meant dinners for one, coping alone with an airhead adolescent daughter and following middle-aged men into corner shops pretending she needed a bottle of Lea & Perrins. Her good friend Louie - if only he wasn't gay - thought he knew what the trouble was: Lizzie was always on the wrong side of the glass, looking in at other people's lives. 

London, the 1720s. Welcome to Romeville, the underworld of that great city. The financial crash caused by the South Sea Bubble sees the rise of Jonathan Wild, self-styled Thief-taker General who purports to keep the peace while brutally controlling organised crime. Only two people truly defy him: Jack Sheppard, apprentice turned house-breaker, and his lover, the notorious whore and pickpocket Edgworth Bess.

In March 2015, Naja Marie Aidt's 25-year-old son, Carl, died in a tragic accident. When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back is about losing a child. It is about formulating a vocabulary to express the deepest kind of pain. And it's about finding a way to write about a reality invaded by grief, lessened by loss. Faced with the sudden emptiness of language, Naja finds solace in the anguish of Joan Didion, Nick Cave, C. S. Lewis, Mallarmé, Plato and other writers who have suffered the deadening impact of loss. 

Fourteen-year-old Lisa Jura was a musical prodigy who hoped to become a concert pianist. But when Hitler's armies advanced on pre-war Vienna, Lisa's parents were forced to make a difficult decision. Able to secure passage for only one of their three daughters through the Kindertransport, they chose to send gifted Lisa to London for safety. As she yearned to be reunited with her family while she lived in a home for refugee children on Willesden Lane, Lisa's music became a beacon of hope.