Showing results by narrator "Kristin Atherton" in All Categories

Growing up in the Polish village of Tarnogrod on the fringes of a deep pine forest gives Mala the happiest childhood she could have hoped for. But, as the German invasion begins, her beloved village becomes a ghetto and her family and friends are reduced to starvation. She takes matters into her own hands and bravely removes her yellow star, risking sneaking out to the surrounding villages to barter for food.

Berlin, 1938: It’s the height of summer, and Germany is on the brink of war. When fledgling reporter Georgie Young is posted to Berlin, alongside fellow Londoner Max Spender, she knows they are entering the eye of the storm. Arriving to a city swathed in red flags and crawling with Nazis, Georgie feels helpless, witnessing innocent people being torn from their homes. As tensions rise, she realises she and Max have to act - even if it means putting their lives on the line.

Gwen has had quite the year. Newly single and in trouble at work, a family Christmas could be exactly what she needs – fresh country air, piles of presents and festive films. But since when were families relaxing? Between her parents interfering in her love life, fighting with her sister and an awkward run-in with Dev, the boy next door, Gwen is grateful that Christmas only comes but once a year. But when someone in her family makes a Christmas wish, she wakes up to discover she has to relive the day all over again.

Annie is single, unemployed and just a bit stuck when her beloved father dies unexpectedly. Furious at his partner’s plans to scatter his ashes somewhere of no emotional significance, Annie seizes the urn and, on a whim, decides to take it on a tour of the 31 sea areas that make up the shipping forecast, which her father loved listening to, despite living in landlocked St Albans. Travelling around the coastline of Britain searching for the perfect place to say goodbye, she starts to wonder if it might be time to rethink some of the relationships in her life.

1990. Harriet is a journalist. Her job takes her to dangerous places, where she asks questions and tries to make a difference. But when she is sent to Romania, to the state orphanages the world is only just learning about, she is forced to rethink her most important rule. 2018. Ellie is a gardener. Her garden is her sanctuary, her pride and joy. But, though she spends long days outdoors, she hasn’t set foot beyond her gate for far too long. Now someone enters her life who could finally be the reason she needs to overcome her fears.

In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded ‘For Sale’ signs line the streets. The sea is higher - it’s higher everywhere - and those who can are moving inland. A young girl called Chance, however, is just arriving. Chance’s family is one of many offered a cash grant to move out of London - and so she, her mother, Jas, and brother JD relocate to the seaside, just as the country edges towards vertiginous change.

When teenage friends Lizzie and Alice decide to head off for a walk in the countryside, they are blissfully unaware that this will be their final day together - and that only Lizzie will come back alive. Lizzie has no memory of what happened in the moments before Alice died - she only knows that it must have been a tragic accident. But as she tries to cope with her grief, she is shocked to find herself alienated from Alice’s friends and relatives. They are convinced she somehow had a part to play in her friend’s death.

It is the summer of 1938 and Phyllis Forrester has returned to England after years abroad. Moving into her sister's grand country house, she soon finds herself entangled in a new world of idealistic beliefs and seemingly innocent friendships. Fevered talk of another war infiltrates their small, privileged circle, giving way to a thrilling solution: a great and charismatic leader, who will restore England to its former glory. At a party hosted by her new friends, Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences.

On a beautiful summer's day, at a remote lake in the middle of Dartmoor, three members of the Fowler family take a dinghy out onto the water, leaving mother Sarah at the shore. Less than sixty seconds later, she checks to see where they are. The boat is drifting in the middle of the lake. It's empty. Sarah's family have completely vanished.

Carrie Morgan expects trouble when she returns to Woodsmoke after ten years. What she does not predict is the beautiful stranger who walks into her life with the first frost and with whom Carrie begins to fall in love. Bound to her family’s book of spells and a deep magic that flows from the mountains, Carrie’s family warn that her new love is a curse who will disappear when the frost thaws.

In March 1942, twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger and nearly a thousand other young Slovakian women were deported to Poland on the second transportation of Jewish people sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The women were told they'd be working at a shoe factory. At Auschwitz the SS soon discovered that by putting Jewish prisoners in charge of the day-to-day running of the accommodation blocks, camp administration and workforces, they could both reduce the number of guards required and deflect the distrust of the prisoner population away from themselves.

Every night on their long journey to Paris from their troubled homeland, Levon's grandmother has read to them from a very special book. Called The Nocturne, it is a book full of fairy stories and the heroic adventures of their people who generations before chose to live by starlight. And with every story that Levon's grandmother tells them in their new home, the desire to live as their ancestors did grows. And that is when the magic begins...

This collection of short stories is about women and their experiences in society, about bodies and the bodily, mapping the skin and bones of its characters through their experiences of isolation, obsession and love. Throughout the collection, women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and seaside towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to the bodies of its inhabitants.

Sophie Taylor has a secret and Joe Walsh thinks he knows it (all). He’s devilishly handsome, incredibly hot – and far too sure of himself. Unfortunately, Sophie desperately needs his help. She has lost her laptop – and her sequel to the sensational, spicy romance that everybody’s talking about. Because Sophie is not just hiding something small. She is Este Cox, the mysterious romance author the entire world is desperate to unmask.

A task a day to cure a broken heart. Esmé Peel is approaching thirty with some trepidation, but hope in her heart. If she can just get her long-term boyfriend Andrew to propose, she will have ticked everything off her 'things to do by the time you're 30' list. She didn't reckon on finding another woman's earring in her bed however, and soon she finds herself single, homeless and in need of a new plan. Her best friend Carys gives her the perfect present – The Single Girl's Calendar – which has a different cure for heartbreak every day:

The greatest love story ever told. When Romeo and Juliet meet, they fall in love—but how can they ever be together when all their families know is hate for one another?

When your best friend is a unicorn, magical adventures are guaranteed! Imagine a school where you meet your own unicorn and have amazing adventures together! That's what happens for the girls at Unicorn Academy on beautiful Unicorn Island. Layla can't believe how lucky she is to be at Unicorn Academy! She adores her lively unicorn, Dancer, though she's too nervous to go jumping and riding fast like their friends. When the trees around Sparkle Lake start dying, Layla must find her courage and take Dancer on a thrilling adventure to find the cure!

You’re looking over your shoulder, thinking someone’s watching. You’re checking the doors are locked, spooked by a noise. You’re running through the woods, convinced you’re being followed. You’re being stalked. And they won’t stop until you’re theirs.

Nick and Anna work the same summer job at their local cinema. Anna is mysterious, beautiful and from a very different world to Nick. She's grown up preparing for the end of days, in a tightly controlled existence where Christmas, getting drunk and sex before marriage are all off-limits. So when Nick comes into her life, Anna falls passionately in love. But Anna, on the cusp of adulthood, is afraid to give up everything she's ever believed in and everyone she's ever loved. She walks away and Nick doesn't stop her.

Twelve has spoken the Pledge, and now she is a Huntling. She has given up her name to train in the art of fighting monsters and keeping the peace, and she won’t get to choose a new one until she has earned it. But when the Lodge’s walls are breached for the first time, and a little girl is taken, Twelve is the only one interested in going after a child. Teaming up with Dog, the Stone Guardian of the Lodge, Twelve ends up on an epic adventure that will change her life, her name—and her entire world.