Showing results by narrator "Antonia Beamish" in All Categories

Danny gets a terrible start in life and runs away from his drunken father when he thrashes him to within an inch of his life. But life on the streets is no better, and he falls into the clutches of evil men, finding that being big and strong for his age is no protection from the people who want to do him harm. Help comes in the form of Constable Jones, who is determined to help out the children who need it, and new friends Ron and Cassie, who are also runaways. Can Danny’s dream of a loving home ever be a reality?

Pig/Pork explores the love-hate relationship between humans and pigs through the lenses of archaeology, biology, history and gastronomy, providing a close and affectionate look at the myriad causes underlying this multimillennial bond. What is it that people in all four corners of the world find so fascinating about the pig? When did the human obsession with pigs begin, how did it develop through time and where is it heading? Why are pigs so special to some of us but not to others?

Evie Grant is forty-five years old, a widow, and single mum of two children about to leave the nest. Suddenly alone in the family home, Evie realizes she hates her job, hardly goes out and hasn't had a date since who knows when... So it feels like fate when the opportunity arises for a girls trip to New York City. Staying with her sister on the Upper East Side, Evie is enchanted by a snow-covered city consumed by preparing for Christmas. Bobble hat firmly on, Evie is walking through the city one day when she bumps into Daniel Roberts, Hollywood heartthrob and one-time boyfriend of hers.

Lisa is running. She has taken her child, Jack, and she has run from his father. She thinks she's safe. She's found a remote house where no one will be able to find them. She’s about to wake up in her worst nightmare. And now she must face what she's tried to escape. Risking everything to protect her little boy, Lisa knows that, in order to survive, she’ll have to fight, but it's hard to face someone you loved, especially someone you still love, who knows who you really are—and what you are really capable of. Family is everything. What would you do to protect it?

Agnes Day - subeditor, suburbanite, failure extraordinaire - has discovered disconcerting gaps in her general understanding of the world. Terminally middle class and incurably romantic, Agnes finds herself chronically confused by the most basic interactions. Life and love go on without her, but with a little façade she can pass herself off as a success. Beneath the fiction, however, the burden of truth becomes harder to bear.

D. H. Lawrence is dying. Exiled in the Mediterranean, he dreams of the past. There are the years early in his marriage during the war where his desperation drives him to commit a terrible betrayal. And there is a woman in an Italian courtyard, her chestnut hair red with summer. Scattered and blown by the winds of history, their stories are bound together and brought before the jury. On both sides of the Atlantic, society is asking and continues to ask: is it obscenity - or is it tenderness?

'In the pursuit of magnificence, nothing is sacred', says Angela Carter, and magnificence is indeed her own achievement. One of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation, her work as a journalist and critic was no less original. Long autobiographical pieces on her life in South Yorkshire and South London are followed by highly individual inspections of 'abroad'. Please note that many of the essays in this collection also appear in Shaking a Leg.

When Penelope Kite attends the opening of an art exhibition on the arm of the gorgeous Mayor of St Merlot, Laurent Millias, it seems she is finally settling into life in Provence. But beneath the glamour, trouble is lurking. Shock waves ripple when British expat artist Roland Doncaster collapses after choking on an olive. A tragic accident? Or was he poisoned? Penelope is thrust once again into the middle of a murder investigation, but when she casts suspicion on one of the Mayor's friends, she finds herself out in the cold.

It's 1987. One morning, 15-year-old Tania Mills kisses her mother, walks out of her front door and disappears. In 2014, when a new lead comes in for Tania's case, DS Sarah Collins is asked to investigate. PC Lizzie Griffiths, the subject of Collins' last investigation, is back on the job and working at a domestic violence unit. When a quirk of fate brings Lizzie and Collins back into contact, each must try to reconcile the claims of the past with the demands of the present.

Three sisters and a brother meet up in their grandparents' old house for three long, hot summer weeks. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past, but now they may have to sell it. And under the idyllic surface, there are tensions. Secrets are uncovered, and passions erupt as a way of life - bourgeois, literate, ritualised - winds down to its inevitable end.

Property carries a great promise: that it will make you rich and set you free. But it is also a weapon, an agent of displacement and exploitation, the currency of kleptocrats and oligarchs. Property is a vivid, far-reaching analysis of our concept of property ownership, from 16th-century feudalism to the present day. Above all, Property asks how we have come to view our homes not as a natural human right, but as investments—and it offers hope for how things could be better, with reform that might enable the social wealth of property to be returned to society.

It's New Year's Eve, and at a house party, three women bond over dodgy cocktails and fortune cookies, and vow to make this year their best one yet. But as the months unfold, Gemma, Saffron, and Caitlin find themselves tested to their limits. Under pressure, they are each forced to rethink their lives. But dare they take a chance on something new?

India, 1902. When Lilly Myerson is summoned by her mother to spend one hot summer in Nainital, she leaps at the opportunity. It's the only way to escape her violent and controlling husband Royce, but in return, he forces her to leave behind her beloved son Teddy. In Nainital, Lilly meets Duffy, tiger tamer at the renowned Tiffert's Circus, and together they hatch a plan. She will join the circus, create a new identity, and earn her independence—and hopefully enough money to rescue her son.

Famous killers have fan clubs. Hamish Wolfe is no different. Locked up for the rest of his life for the abduction and murder of three young women, he gets countless adoring letters every day. He's handsome, charismatic and very persuasive. His admirers are convinced he's innocent and that he's the man of their dreams. Who would join such a club?

At 28, Violet's father is beginning to worry she will never find a husband. But every suitor he presents, Violet finds a new and inventive means of rebuffing. Because Violet does not want to marry. She wants to work, and make her own way in the world. But more than anything, she wants to find her mother Lily, who disappeared from Hastings Pier 10 years earlier. Finding the missing is no job for a lady, but when Violet hires a seaside detective to help, she sets off a chain of events that will put more than just her reputation at risk.

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, here is over a century's worth of literary travels into past and the future. The anthology covers millions of years of Earth's history - from the age of the dinosaurs to strange and fascinating futures, through to the end of Time itself.

When Beth Wakeford takes her eight year-old daughter, Carmel, to a local children's festival, they become separated. Unable to accept the possibility that her daughter might be gone for good, Beth embarks on a mission to find her. Meanwhile Carmel begins an extraordinary and terrifying journey of her own, with a man who believes she is a saviour.

Call the Midwife meets Dr Barnardo's in this gritty drama that will appeal to fans of Katie Flynn. St Saviour's will never turn a homeless child away.... When there is nowhere else to turn, St Saviour's will give them hope.... It's 1948, and London's East End is still a bombed-out landscape. Sister Beatrice, who runs the St Saviour's Children's Home, knows that life is still a precarious existence for many children, and it seems that there is no end to the constant stream of waifs and strays who appear at their door....

It's Fran's 30th birthday and things are good. Her outlandishly handsome boyfriend Michael is escorting her to the Ritz, but something has gone very wrong. By the end of the evening Fran is howling in bed with one of Michael's old socks. In her quest to figure out why her life has suddenly gone down the pan, Fran comes up with a failsafe plan. And so begins the greatest love story of all time... The Greatest Love Story of All Time is Lucy Robinson's first novel.

How far would you go to keep your family safe? Angie Watts had the perfect ordinary family. A new home. A beloved husband. Three adored children. But Angie’s happy life is shattered when her son Liam falls in with the wrong crowd. And when her son’s bad choices lead to the murder of her husband, it’s up to Angie to hold what’s left of her family together. Her son is missing. Her daughter is looking for help in dangerous places. And Angie is fighting just to keep a roof over their heads. But Angie is a mother.