Showing results by narrator "Julie Maisey" in All Categories

As a primary school teacher, Ava Lam is familiar with the 'buddy bench': a rainbow painted bench where sad or lonely children can sit to show they need a friend. But are buddy benches just for kids? Ava might have assumed so—until she finds herself sobbing her heart out on a park bench and a kind stranger sits down next to her. The stranger, Dr Sam Stone, has a house, an impressive job and he's even training for a marathon. But whilst Sam appears to have everything figured out, it seems he needs a sympathetic ear just as much as she does.

1914. Working in a bustling café on London's Shaftesbury Avenue, Joyce Taylor dreams of opening her own restaurant. But when the man she loves enlists in the war and a surprise request comes through from her dying grandmother, Joyce's life gets turned upside down. Struggling to keep the café afloat with her new found responsibilities, it's not long before Joyce starts to feel the pressure might be all too much. Luckily, her supportive friends Annie and Rose are on hand to help.

Life changes for the Palin children when Mam dies, and it's up to 12-year-old Sally to take her place. Sally is determined that her baby sister Emily has a better life. When Emily is sent to live with rich relatives, it seems like her wish has come true. Sally and her family may face poverty in Liverpool, but love shared will help them overcome their hardships. Emily, however, wanting for nothing, might find out that happiness is harder to find.

When young widow Marie-Ange Norton is invited by the mysterious Monsieur Malleval to collect an inheritance, she has no choice but to accept. But little does she know what waits for her across the sea in turbulent 19th-century France. When she arrives, she is taken aback by Malleval’s fascination with her family - seemingly inspired by his belief they are connected to a sacred relic he’s read about. As it becomes clear that Malleval’s obsession has driven him to madness, Marie-Ange is horrified to realise she is more the man’s prisoner than his guest....

When photographer Kate O’Donnell takes off for London from swinging Liverpool she has two things in mind: to make a career and to track down her brother, who made the same trip earlier and has disappeared. But a job turns out to be easier to find than Tom, who has left behind a dead flatmate and some very suspicious cops. When Harry Barnard of the vice squad catches up with Kate, Tom’s future looks grim.

This uniquely practical parenting audiobook for raising teenagers in today's world is grounded in evidence-based psychology, exploring the science at work during this period of child development and showing how your behaviour and response as a parent has never been more important. Taking more than 100 everyday scenarios, the audiobook tackles real-world situations head-on. You'll discover how you can create a supportive environment at home and what you can say and do to help your teenager manage whatever life brings.

Receiving letters by post or via e-mail has always been important to me. Even now I feel slightly disappointed if the postman passes the door without anything for me, even though I know the chances are it will be a bill, a parking fine, a bank statement or a catalogue offering me clothing or garden furniture. The same applies when my inbox is empty save for someone offering a deal on a used car or urging me to change my energy provider.

Secret Smile is a gripping psychological thriller from the top-ten best-selling author Nicci French. You have an affair. You finish it. You think it's over. You're dead wrong.... Miranda Cotton thinks she's put boyfriend Brendan out of her life for good. But two weeks later, he's intimately involved with her sister. Soon what began as an embarrassment becomes threatening - then even more terrifying than a girl's worst nightmare.

On board the superyacht Perseus, moored in the glamorous harbour in Antibes, Freya Addison is settling into her new role as hostess. The other crew members all like Freya, she is calm and diligent and a hard worker, but what they don’t know is that Freya has a secret and an ulterior motive for being on board. Because Freya isn’t here to travel the world in style. She has her sights set on one thing only, bringing down the owner of the yacht - the rich and arrogant Julian Falcon. A man who ripped the heart out of Freya’s family.

Ambitious, succesful, attractive, and newly married, Bella Browning is determined to Have It All. She wants love, sex, a beautiful home, a fabulous career, kids AND to keep her jaw-dropping looks. How hard can it be?! Her journalist husband, Don, is terrified. He’s not against babies, but his job takes him all over the world and into warzones! The last thing he wants is a war at home. But he'll do anything to make Bella happy. Won't he? But Bella's about to discover that having it all is absolute rubbish.

> P is for Paris, where it all began. J is for jealousy, where it all came undone. But the most important letter is F. F is for forgiveness, the hardest of all. Sisters Poppy and Rose used to be as close as two sisters could be, but it's been over a decade since they last spoke. Until they both receive a call that tells them their mother has gone - without ever having the chance to see her daughters reunited. Andrea, though, wasn't the kind of woman to let a little thing like death stand in the way of her plans.

As autumn creeps across the Swedish city of Uppsala, elderly Professor Ulrik Hindersten disappears without a trace. When the bludgeoned corpses of two local farmers are unearthed within days of each other, Inspector Ann Lindell and her team are called in to investigate what might connect the crimes. Caught in the middle of a dangerous web as distant events take on a devastating and urgent clarity, Lindell must unravel the threads if she is to stop the deranged killer who may be closer than she thinks....

When Kate Swan's overbearing father demands that she obey him by marrying a man she despises, she refuses and is cast out of her comfortable home in Whitby. Fortunately, a kindly local widow is looking for a lady companion and for the moment, Kate's future is assured. Meanwhile in Shetland, Malcolm McFadden, heir to the Garstan Estate, disagrees with his father's plan to clear the crofters from his land and turn it over to sheep. When he and Kate meet, they are instantly attracted to one other but circumstances get in the way.

Hannah and Juliet Goodwin have been best friends since childhood, but when Juliet's boyfriend Luke is killed just as Hannah marries the affluent Michael, a wedge is driven between them. Juliet begins to neglect her job, her health and all those who love her the most. Then she finds herself drawn into a betrayal that threatens to destroy Hannah's happiness forever.

We teach our children how to tie their shoelaces, how to read, how to ride a bike. We explain the weather and rainbows and why people have jobs. But when it comes to explaining the forceful, baffling, intense and marvellous emotions that we might experience, well, things become vague.

Evil lurks in the city streets. A man is discovered on a leafy North London street, fighting for life after a brutal beating. DI Matthew Denning and his team are quickly called in to track down the monster responsible. Except the victim is hiding secrets of his own. His name shows that he was reported missing two decades ago - but it's clear that the missing person is not the same man lying broken in a hospital bed. A visit to a squalid East London flat unearths a victim with his throat slit, his body left to decompose.

It's 1963. A new band called the Rolling Stones is beginning to make its mark, and the miniskirt is coming into fashion. For young Liverpudlian photographer Kate O'Donnell, it's an exciting time to be in the capital - especially as she's on secondment to an up-and-coming fashion photographer's studio. But there's a darker side to 1960s London, Kate discovers, when the naked, battered body of a teenage prostitute is found amongst the rubbish bins behind a Soho jazz club.

When the Freeman family returns to England after ex-pat life abroad, Isabel realises her life is crying out for something more. But, after years of being defined as Neil’s wife, what? Despite Neil’s misgivings, she finds a position working for the disorganised – if dangerously attractive – Patrick and, although her head is telling her to think of Neil and the children, Isabel is drawn to her new boss

Despite being part of the large O'Donnell family Milly has felt alone in the world since her father went missing in the Irish Civil War. Now, ten years later she is forced to flee her home and journey to Liverpool seeking a better future for herself. There she is taken in by distant relatives and eventually reunited with her paternal grandmother. As Milly tries to build a new life she is haunted by her father's mysterious disappearance. Her new friends strive to help her find answers, but meanwhile Milly's mother seeks to remarry on the assumption that her husband is dead.

Liverpool, 1928. Fifteen-year-old Annie Anderson was adopted by Sylvia and Hugh after the death of their own daughter. Annie is told that her own mother died in childbirth and her father died before she was born. A chance encounter introduces Annie to local lad Andrew Fraser. Their friendship blossoms, but once Annie's adoptive parents learn of it they forbid her from seeing him. When Annie asks why, it sets her on a path to discover more about her origins - but will what she learns bring heartache or joy?