Showing results by narrator "Sandra Duncan" in All Categories

A Question of Trust is vintage Penny Vincenzi: rich with characters, life-changing decisions, glamour, love, desire and conflict. London, 1950s. Tom Knelston is charismatic, working class and driven by ambition, ideals and passion. He is a man to watch. His wife, Alice, shares his vision. It seems they are the perfect match. Then, out of the blue, Tom meets beautiful and unhappily married Diana Southcott, a fashion model. An exciting but dangerous affair is inevitable and potentially damaging to their careers.

A selection of enchanting stories by one of the world's best-loved children's authors, Enid Blyton. Ribby the Gnome has a very bad habit: he always borrows things and never brings them back! But when he takes a wizard's umbrella and doesn't return it, he's in for a horrible surprise. The umbrella is magic, and it is very angry!

Week after week the postcards arrive, addressed to a name Ellie does not know, with no return address, each signed with an initial: A. With their bright skies, blue seas and alluring images of Greece, these cartes postales brighten her life. After six months, to her disappointment, they cease. But the montage she has created on the wall of her flat has cast a spell. She must see this country for herself.

Introducing Interviewing by William Seymour - the winning short story of the Bookseller Futurebook audio original competition 2019. When a young job applicant is overwhelmed with anxiety attacks about an impending interview, his world seems about to implode. Worse still, the calm voice of reason in his head is no help at all...Chosen for its unique writing approach and fascinating prose, Interviewing is a piece of writing that is enhanced by a fresh, forward approach to the audio format.

Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past, but Sofia has never spoken of it. She only admits to growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend and promises that, through her, she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis learns that it lies a stone's throw from the deserted island of Spinalonga - Greece's former leper colony.

Becky Brown has selected extracts from the Mass Observation Archives to anthologise the voices of everyday people as they deal individually and collectively with the crisis of the Second World War. The diarists themselves have been selected from every level of society - from warehousemen to widows, soldiers to farmhands, WRENs to architects. The extracts have been chosen to both uplift and to ground, to remind listeners that nothing is new, that everything can be weathered and perhaps even made better. After all, World War II saw the birth of the NHS.

Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known to herself, Jack’s widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day’s outing, this Booker Prize-winning, internationally acclaimed novel is a resonant and classic exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives.

One of Sarah's daughters died. But can she be sure which one? A terrifying psychological thriller that will chill you to the bone. A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, died in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives. But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity - that she, in fact, is Lydia - their world comes crashing down once again.

The publishing house of John Murray was founded in Fleet Street in 1768 and remained a family firm over seven generations. Published to coincide with this remarkable achievement' and in the anniversary year, Dear Mr Murray is a collection of some of the best letters from the hundreds of thousands held in the John Murray Archive. They reveal not only the story of some of the most interesting and influential books in history but also the remarkable friendships - as well as occasional animosities - between author and publisher as well as readers, editors, printers and illustrators.

It was Charles I's love for his queen, Henrietta Maria, that plummeted England into the darkness of the Civil Wars, but it was the love and loyalty of another man that sustained her through days of betrayal, destitution, and death.

Tall and brave, Harry Jermyn is captivated by the witty French princess, just 14 years old when she sails with him to Dover, queen of a land she has never seen, of a people whose language she cannot speak, who despise her for her faith - and wife of a king she has never met.

Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined he would come full circle, home to Yorkshire with his beloved wife, Laura. Now he’s back in the Yorkshire Dales, but Laura is dead, and Chris needs to make a new life for himself. The isolated house he buys sight unseen should give him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow to him to work. Kilnsgate House turns out to be rather more than he expected, however.

A fantastic collection of 30 stories about animals of all shapes and sizes, this will charm children aged six and up. From pet puppies to woodland wildlife, garden birds to pond-dwelling frogs, Enid Blyton was a devoted and knowledgeable animal lover. Listeners who feel the same way are bound to love her wonderful stories about our furry friends - and scaly, feathery or fluttery ones, too!

When Isla, a 65-year-old grandmother, is left nothing but an old painting in her mother’s will, while her sisters and aunt inherit the estate, she is devastated. Close to retirement, getting ready to live on her own terms, the last thing she expects at this time of her life is such turmoil. So, to find an explanation for her mother’s rejection, she embarks on a road-trip.

The Tudors are a national obsession; they are our most notorious family in history. But, as Leanda de Lisle shows in this gripping new history, beyond the well-worn headlines is a family still more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew. The Tudor canon typically starts with the Battle of Bosworth, in 1485, before speeding on to Henry VIII and the Reformation. But this leaves out the family’s obscure Welsh origins, the ordinary man known as Owen Tudor who would fall (literally) into a Queen’s lap, and later her bed.

It's March 1934, and Josephine Tey is travelling from Scotland to London to celebrate what should be the triumphant final week of her celebrated play, Richard of Bordeaux. However, a seemingly senseless murder puts her reputation, and even her life, under threat.

When Josephine Tey sets out to write a novel about the notorious Finchley baby farmers, her research helps to solve the recent sadistic murder of a young seamstress. The girl's death seems to be the result of a domestic feud, but when a second young woman is involved in an horrific accident, the search begins for a vicious killer who will stop at nothing to keep the past hidden.

Evelyn and Muriel Axon, mother and daughter, lead a haunted existence. Objects of horror to their neighbours, they evade or terrorise any social worker who crosses their path. Inside their house, they pursue a covert persecution of each other, shrinking from the unseen occupants of their spare room. But change is in the air… Every Day is Mother's Day is a merciless comedy of colliding lives: of sex, death, madness, adultery and the social services.

Minnie is supposed to find a nice man, get married and have children. The problem is it doesn’t appeal to her at all. She is working as a secretary but longs to make a difference. Then, one day, she gets her chance. She is recruited by the British government as a spy. Under strict instructions not to tell anyone, not even her family, she moves to London and begins her mission - to infiltrate the Communist movement.

Sometimes the facts are even more extraordinary than the fiction... This book tells the story of Lady Catherine, a beautiful American girl who became the chatelaine of Highclere Castle, the setting for Julian Fellowes' award-winning drama Downton Abbey. Charming and charismatic, Catherine caught the eye of Lord Porchester (or 'Porchey', as he was known) when she was just 20 years old, and wearing a pale yellow dress at a ball. She had already turned down 14 proposals before she eventually married Porchey in 1922.

Called to the peaceful churchyard of St-John's-at-Hampstead, Detective Chief Inspector Archie Penrose faces one of the most audacious murders of his career, leading him to Cambridge, where both Josephine Tey and Archie's previous lover, Bridget, have settled down together. It is uncovered that there has been a series of vicious attacks against women in town, spreading fear in the community. Archie and Josephine must race to stop another attack in this beautifully written, intricately plotted mystery.