Showing results by narrator "Julia Franklin" in All Categories

Achieving the impossible is one of Luc Garnier's defining characteristics. Yet Luc has defied the odds and a contract for marriage with Princess Gabrielle is drawn up. This will be a union on paper first, and of flesh later... Except Gabrielle is just the same in private as in public - well bred, well-behaved, and a credit to her country. Luc is determined to find the wanton within...

Cathy Gordon has made a discovery. Adopted at birth, she finds out at the age of twenty-eight that she has a grandfather. But when she arrives at a cricket match to meet Frank, there is no trace of him - only an alarmingly sexy man called Nick. Heading off to Frank's home in leafy Oxford, she encounters a grumpy old man who only takes pleasure in two things: cricket and arguing - especially with his lifelong friend, Barbara.

Ella Norton has opted for the simple life. Gone are the power suits, the high earnings and the high stress of city life - and instead she's got her own cottage, a course in horticulture and a crush on her dynamic tutor, Matt. But life isn't all rustic paradise. Ella has two lodgers - gorgeous, worldly Miranda and unglamorous, naïve Faith - who can't stand each other. And then there's the matter of Matt's wife and the fact that something dodgy and possibly illegal seems to be going on next door.

While the celebrated opera singer Terri Ivory is in hospital, facing what could be the end of her career, her daughter Julie stumbles upon a long-buried secret that forces her to question her past and her place in her mother’s affection. In their empty house that no longer seems like a home, mother and daughter try to keep their closeness to each other and to the men they love.

Love and Louis XIV centres around the Sun King and his relationships with numerous fascinating women: his mother, Anne of Austria, to whom he was devoted; his first important mistress, Louise de la Valliere, who bore him several illegitimate children; Athenais Marquise de Montespan, who acted as unofficial Queen of Versailles; Madame de Maintenon, governess to the illegitimate royal children; and of course, Marie Therese, his wife.

Aunt Maud's cruel words shock Rosie Quest. But they also explain the atmosphere of hostility that surrounds her on the run-down Wirral farm: no wonder her aunt resents having had to take in an illegitimate child, born in the workhouse. It's quite a relief to escape every day to her job as a machinist in Sheraing's garment factory, even though Beatrice Shearing is a demanding employer. But when Rosie catches the eye of Ben Shearing, Beatrice is having none of it.

Stella once thought that if she never saw Jack again, it would be too soon. But life has other plans for her and her stubborn, handsome ex-husband. Looking after their daughter in a time of need, Stella finds herself unwillingly reunited with the man she shared the best years of her life with - followed by the worst. Where tragedy once tore them apart, now Stella and Jack are being drawn back together. But each of them has a new partner and a new life. Should they fight temptation? Should the past remain the past? Or are some loves simply meant to be?

Caroline Hemingway can't help but feel a little strange watching her ex-sister-in-law marrying the owner of Carter's Cider Farm, but she's delighted Anna's found happiness after the death of her late husband, Caroline's brother, James. If only Caroline could find her own love story.... Desperate to escape the rat race, Caroline decides to take the plunge and move to the idyllic village of Little Somerby, where she is given the task of opening and running a restaurant in one of the forgotten barns on the Cider Farm.

With the help of Hayden Prentice, Malo's natural father and himself a onetime drug baron, Enora embarks on a hunt for the truth behind the kidnapping. The journey takes her deep into the exploding world of county lines, the new business model that delivers Class A drugs into every corner of the kingdom. The sums of money at stake are dizzying, and a human life counts for nothing. As Enora Andressen is about to discover....

Ada is a widowed writer, navigating loneliness in Oxford after the death of her husband. She has no children. No grandchildren. She fears she is becoming peripheral, another invisible woman. Eliza is a student at the university. She finds it difficult to form meaningful relationships after the estrangement of her mother and breakup with her girlfriend. Can they find what they are looking for in each other and cast off their isolation for good?

Robyn Moss just wants a simple wedding. A quiet ceremony; a picnic on the beach; dancing barefoot on the sand until the sun goes down. But first, Robyn has one very important thing to do - before embracing her future, she needs to uncover her past. As she sets out to find her birth mother, a tangled thread of love, loss and betrayal that ties together three generations of women begins to emerge. As her wedding day approaches, Robyn discovers that where there is heartbreak, there is hope - and that in the end, love will always win.

A spate of robberies targetting elderly women is disturbing enough, but especially so in a town as peaceful and sedate as Leek. Then one attack turns to murder, and Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy is called to the eerily named Spite Hall. For the body on Nan Lawrance has been found bludgeoned to death, lying over the tapestry she was in the process of embroidering. But what could have made the robbers move from simple theft to murder?

Steaming and frothy......the perfect novel to listen to while you stretch out on a squashy sofa in a corner of your favourite coffee shop nursing a long coffee and maybe something chocolate and indulgent. Cappuccinos weaves together the stories of 6 people whose lives are all touched by an upmarket bistro called Cappuccinos.

This is a beautiful and subtly written story told in the best traditions of an Old Norse tale. It is poetic and delicate and at the same time suspenseful and dramatic. There are dangers and discoveries, adventure and sadness as Tar follows her quest. Will the forces of good keep her safe from her enemies as she follows her destiny?

Poor Viv has begun to look like the sofa she sits on most of the time.... This is a debut novel from actress and audiobook reader Julia Franklin. ‘I’ve read somewhere between 300 and 400 novels as audio books over the last 25 years,’ she says, ‘so I thought it was time to have a go at a novel of my own.’ The result is Turn Up for the Book, a romantic comedy that begins with the breakup, one Christmas, of a marriage.

Bella has given up on men. Happily divorced, her latest boyfriend just omitted to tell her about his current wife, so she’s back on her own again. Then her ex-husband turns up, wanting to sell the family home in which she and their two teenage children are well settled. But all their lives are changed when a television company rents the house for a reality TV fashion makeover programme.

Hannah has always felt in the shadow of her older sister. Cat is the flamboyant one, the one who can make everyone laugh. Hannah is so quiet that her parents used to joke about it. Now Hannah has a daughter of her own, who is about to get married. On the day of the wedding, Cat's caustic tongue is once again let loose - but with devastating consequences. As Hannah is compelled to examine her past and try to make sense of her complicated relationship with her sister.

August 1939. Genie Watkins, a Birmingham kid, would love to have a proper happy family like her Italian friend, Teresa. But Genie hasn't reckoned with the outbreak of war, her already rocky family being split up and the strangely liberating effect it all has on her mother.... Under Birmingham skies darkened by blackout, Genie shares her fears and hopes with Teresa, keeps her spirits up with her nan and glamorous auntie Lil, and tries to hold her family together. And amid it all, she discovers love....

Christmas Eve, 1989. A couple is found slumped in front of their twinkling Christmas tree in an apparent murder-suicide. Today. Librarian Pru Pearce is preparing for her wedding to police detective Andy Barnes. But after one of her Women's Institute friends suffers a suspicious accident at Rookery Grange, a home for the elderly and infirm, Pru and the other ladies are on alert. And when one of the residents is asphyxiated with a pillow, no one can rest easy. With her wedding taking a disastrous turn and a killer on the loose, the part-time detective makes another vow: to solve the mystery.

June 1998. Elodie Marshall has committed a terrible crime. But when she’s deemed unfit to plead, she is sentenced to living within the confines of a mental health facility. Present day. Sleuthing librarian Pru Pearce and her friends from the Winterbottom Women’s Institute are about to embark on their annual getaway. The 1960s Butlins style Harmony Hollows Resort has caught their attention for a few reasons: the northern ballroom championships and the unsolved double murder from 1983.