Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Strevens" in All Categories

Oxfordshire, 1947. Exhausted by the war and nursing a tragic secret, Kit Smallwood flees to Wickam Farm to recuperate. There she throws herself into helping set up a charity sending midwives to India. Then Kit meets Anto, a handsome, complicated but charming trainee doctor nearing the end of his English education, and she falls utterly in love. But when Anto informs his family that he is to return home with an English bride, his parents are appalled.

On May 3rd, 1942, fifteen-year-old Alma Braithwaite and her fellow boarders at Goldwyn's school huddle in an air-raid shelter as bombs rain down on Exeter. When the girls emerge, the school is in ruins. Twenty-one years on, Alma lives alone and teaches music at her old school. The arrival of a new student takes Alma back to that summer and the long shadow it cast on her life.

Ginnie Holmes has found something she never intended to find - an overwhelming passion for a man she should not be with. At an abandoned boathouse hidden on the riverbank of the Thames, Ginnie steps into a world that’s just a little bit brighter than her ordinary life. Then, in a single terrifying event, the lovers' secret becomes a deadly catastrophe, and Ginnie finds herself in the path of extraordinary danger.

As an illegitimate child, Frederica Bracewell was treated by her uncle like a servant. But when she encounters the new gamekeeper, shy Frederica starts to feel like a true lady... After a debauched existence, Lord Robert Mountford revels in the simplicity of a gamekeeper's lifestyle. Until temptation strikes! Frederica is a far cry from the ladies of the ton, but she may just be his undoing... and unmasking!

The first book about ten-year-old FRANKIE FOSTER – the girl who wants to help, but ends up causing chaos!Frankie Foster loves fixing people's problems. Her help might not always be welcome – and she might cause the odd total disaster – but Frankie always fixes things. Eventually!It all started with the “My Beginnings” essays that Frankie and her classmates had to write for English. Her best friend, Jem, wrote all about how she felt being adopted and it was so good it got chosen to be read out at the end of term Speech Day!

When Rebecca’s friend Abi convinces her to get away from it all at the fabulous Hawksley Manor hotel in York, it seems too good to be true. Pampering and relaxation are just what Rebecca needs to distract herself from the creeping suspicion that her husband is hiding something from her. She never imagined that by the end of the weekend she would have dined with celebrities or danced the night away in exclusive clubs.

The Pembrokeshire village of Morlan is a beautiful place to live, but breathtaking views of the Welsh coastline aside, four of the female residents find themselves stuck in a painful rut. The arrival of pole dancing exercise classes in the village hall offers each of them a chance to bond and discover previously hidden strengths. Together the group form a bond of friendship that will help them face the trials and tribulations in their personal lives.

As St Ives moves into early summer, Chief Inspector Louis Peppiatt is handed the coldest of cold cases - the disappearance over thirty years ago of local farmer Philip Trehearne. Merrin McKenzie, who crossed Peppiatt's path in a case the winter before, is related to the troubled family and among his first ports of call. In an investigation that spans decades, unearths family secrets and uncovers emotional betrayals, the inner workings of the seemingly peaceful Cornish town are shockingly exposed.

When Joel Leicester walks into the hotel where Rosa Tempest works, she can’t believe her bad luck. Out of all the hotels in all of North Yorkshire, the man who broke her heart would have to walk into Carrick Park! The last time Rosa saw Joel it was after a whirlwind holiday when they’d been greeted by a woman claiming to be his fiancée. Rosa never stuck around to hear Joel’s side of the story, but now, six years later on, Fate has another trick up its sleeve as a potentially disastrous summer wedding at Carrick Park can only be saved by Joel and Rosa working together....

The stage is set Deborah O'Hara loves her life, leading her troupe of actors. But when she becomes entangled in a web of secrets spun by the rakishly handsome Damian Beaumaris, Duke of Cirencester, she is forced to play the hardest role of her life: that of the stunning but disloyal Paulette, the duke's widowed sister-in-law. To regain the honor of his family, Beau needs Deb's help.

Amy Carter is determined to make Bellefontaine, her farmhouse hotel in the French countryside, a success. Of course, there’s the time and money she’s put in to making it beautiful, but she also has something to prove - particularly to people like Fabien Coste. Fabien is the owner of the nearby château, and he might just be the most arrogant, patronising man Amy has ever met...unfortunately, he’s also the most handsome. But as rumours circulate in the local community, Amy quickly sees the less idyllic side of life at Bellefontaine.

Jessie Tempest has two main interests: reading books and selling books. Her little bookshop in the seaside town of Staithes is a cosy hideaway from the chilly Yorkshire wind, but it’s also Jessie’s sanctuary from the outside world. When writer Miles Fareham and his son Elijah arrive to stay in the holiday apartment above the shop, it’s a test for Jessie who has always felt clueless when it comes to kids. But as she learns the story of the single father and the inquisitive eight-year-old, Jessie realises that first impressions aren’t always the right ones.

Osborne House, 1879. Queen Victoria has occupied the British throne for over 40 years. Bringing together her extended family from across Europe offers a chance for old alliances to be strengthened and new unions to be forged. May Teck, daughter of a duke and princess, is constantly reminded that she lacks the pedigree to be a true royal. Alicky lives in the shadow of her siblings, until she meets the heir to the Russian throne. And Willy is destined to be the kaiser of Germany. As shifting forces of power send warning ripples across Europe, an unavoidable war looms on the horizon....

It was meant to be a romantic Christmas getaway... Except Flora's boyfriend Paul is more interested in whether there's WiFi in their holiday cottage than he is in the pretty village of Padcock where it's located. It seems he's incapable of taking time out from his work for gossip mag darling Maxine Marling - or Maxine Marmoset as Flora not so secretly calls her (well, she does look like a marmoset!) - to spend time with his actual girlfriend.

Sisters Georgie and Kate have always been close. Brought up by their mum Jan after the death of their father, this family of women have always been able to rely on each other. Jan loves her daughters with all her heart. She knows some people think she’s an over-protective mother, but they didn’t know what she knows. She has always kept her girls close but now she can feel them slipping away. Secrets have a nasty habit of refusing to stay hidden, and now Georgie and Kate are about to discover that while lies can cause pain, the truth could destroy them all.

Since giving birth to her second child, Lucy's life is totally unrecognisable: the romance in her marriage is officially dead and so is the career it took her years to build. Instead of playing the cello behind superstars at packed-out arenas, Lucy now spends most days mopping up broccoli vomit whilst listening to her four-year-old recite facts about the gallbladder. Something needs to change.

When Edith Wight's parents fail to collect her from boarding school for the summer holidays, she's packed off to live with eccentric Uncle Francis - a vet who runs a practice in a remote part of the New Forest. Francis is the last in a long line of vets who treat mythical creatures: among his patients are pegasi, unicorns, dragons and much more. And when he receives a summons from the Himalayas - where one of a remote family of yetis is suffering from a mysterious illness - Edith finds herself on the voyage of a lifetime.

When Kate's younger daughter Ella goes off to university, she realises her life has become consumed by the minutiae of family life. In her 'empty nest', Kate starts to wonder: what now? Decades after abandoning her university hobby of rowing, Kate gingerly joins a local ladies' rowing team and rediscovers her passion for the pleasing rhythmic sensation of paddle slicing through water. More than anything, though, Kate finds that the team of strong women bring new adventures and unlikely friendships she hadn't even realised she missed having.

Gafferty Sprout is a Smidgen. A Smidgen looks like a human, sounds like a human, and loves chips with curry sauce like a human, if humans were three inches tall. Generations ago there were lots of them, living in a maze of tunnels beneath the human village of Dundoodle. But then something happened and they just disappeared.

It should have been the perfect holiday: lazy days with friends in a rambling old house right on the beach. But when one family drops out and Kath invites her brother and father along instead, everything starts to unravel. All Kath wants is to have sex with her husband without a small child bursting in and demanding toast and Marmite. Her brother Rob wants to find out whether he has a hope in hell with the woman he loves. Giles wants to find a way to get closer to his daughter, while eight-year-old Anna just wants to be a mermaid.