Showing results by publisher "Bolinda audio" in Genre Fiction

A woman approaching the ‘invisible years’ of middle age abandons her failing writing career to retrain as a chiropodist in the East Berlin suburb of Marzahn, once the GDR’s largest prefabricated housing estate. From her intimate vantage point at the foot of the clinic chair, she observes her clients and co-workers, listening to their stories with empathy and curiosity. Part memoir, part collective history, Katja Oskamp’s love letter to the inhabitants of Marzahn is a tender reflection on life’s progression and our ability to forge connections in the unlikeliest of places.

East London, 1940. At the outbreak of war, hopeless romantic Prue Carmichael and her sister must leave their rural parish behind when their father is posted to a church in Stepney. To Prue, the blitz-ravaged streets of London seem an unlikely place for love to bloom – until a chance encounter throws rakish engineer Jack Quinn into her path. But as their connection deepens, his troubled past begins to emerge, and Prue realises Jack has secrets to hide.

It’s midnight in the hospital when Jude’s phone rings, interrupting her precious 15-minute break. When she sees it’s her 70-year-old mother, Margaret, she braces herself for the usual complaints. But her blood runs cold at four words that will change everything...‘something terrible has happened.’ Margaret has been accused of an unspeakable crime committed 20 years ago. She insists she’s not guilty, and begs Jude to help her prove it. But as Jude is drawn into the dark secrets of her family’s past, she starts to question whether her mother is really as innocent as she claims to be.

Gerard is 12. He hates his name, but loves flying round the streets of Glasgow on his bike, or mucking about with his gang, the Broncos. He’s a bright kid, but trouble seems to follow him. No one really knows what it’s like at home for Gerard; he’s used to carrying a lot on his small shoulders. Gerard doesn’t always make good decisions. And on one April morning, in the blink of an eye, he makes a very bad one – one that will upend his whole world.

'You're everything to me. I'd have to lose my life before I'd lose you.' This is the vow Silas made to Cathleen on the day he asks her to marry him. Throughout their childhood their love has grown stronger and now, in 1900, they start to plan a life together. But a jealous woman is determined to ruin their happiness and uses Silas's father – a good and honest man – to do so, forcing him to make an impossible sacrifice. As a dutiful son, Silas has no choice but to obey his father, and Cathleen must pay the bitter price.

Kelly knew that, although Barney would always love her, his restless soul would never allow him to stay, but she could never have envisaged how his leaving would alter her life. Alone once more, Kelly finds herself remembering the past – in particular, what happened in the autumn of 1877 and how it destroyed her family. Filled with regrets and wishes that life may have been different, Kelly begins to see that she must confront her past – and only then will she finally be free.

Powerful, hard-hearted Leonard Mears ruthlessly presides over his wife and children, exiling them from the outside world and brutally punishing any disobedience. But he is also a man with a dark secret – an illegitimate daughter that he forced his sister to bring up. The girl is now a young woman who, unbeknownst to him, is determined to find the father that abandoned her.

Singenpoo wanted me to follow. She had written a sign the only way she could. What a relief. What a cat. Singenpoo does a disappearing act. And she might not be back.

We seem like perfect families. But our secrets must never come out... I trust my best friend Lydia with my life. We share everything, even the things we can't tell our husbands. So when we go on a beach holiday together, it's a dream come true. One night, we treat ourselves to dinner on the beach with our husbands while our children sleep soundly in the cottage behind us. But when I go to check on them, my entire world shatters. My son's bed is empty, the window wide open, his favourite teddy left between the crumpled sheets. I stifle a scream as my worst nightmare comes true.

Despite a deathbed warning from her beloved mother, Phoebe Mulligan has no choice but to throw herself on the mercy of her uncle, Edward. Wrenched from all she holds dear, the tragic young girl is delivered to Blackburn town, where she must live in a household terrorised by the cold, forbidding presence of her mother's brother. Phoebe cannot understand why she is treated so harshly by Edward Dickens. She is not to know the guilty secret that lies in his past, a secret that casts a sinister shadow over his feelings for his lovely niece.

On a moonlit night in 1898, Kathleen Wyman lies in labour at Bessington Hall. Her husband, Edward, is sure that she has been unfaithful to him. In his blind, jealous rage he later gives away the baby to gypsy Rona Parrish, summoned to help with the delivery. Kathleen, frenzied with grief, is soon after locked away in an asylum.

When Will wakes up after a car accident, he’s lost three years of memory. All he wants is his girlfriend and childhood sweetheart, Gem, beside him. Instead, nothing is as he remembers. Gem has finally moved on from hers and Will’s breakup. With a new life and boyfriend, the last thing she expects is a call to say Will needs her – the man who nearly destroyed her. As Will recovers, he is determined to prove to Gem that he is the man he once was. But by unlocking the secrets of his past, will he be able to piece together what caused him to change so dramatically?

The people who live in Salvation (known to the locals as Ruination) are villainous, perverse, and unashamedly venal: there is John, who runs the local pub, Jean Flinch whose reputation at the 'Virgin Wall' is infamous and little orphan Ernie, whose giant jawbone is both a curse and a blessing. When Ernie re-invents himself as The Slapping Man, all hell breaks loose as the locals clamor to find their own salvation by giving Ernie a good slap.

Set in pre-World War I Europe, The World Is Made of Glass is a powerful novel of love, sexual obsession, murder and guilt. A cryptic and mysterious case history appears in the autobiography of pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung: ‘A lady came to my office. She refused to give her name. What she had to communicate to me was a confession. Some 20 years ago, she had committed a murder.’ Jung’s encounter with the woman had an explosive effect on him and brought him very close to total breakdown.

Watch what happens when 17-year-old Hannah disappears without a trace. See how the family rallies when a ransom note demands half a million pounds for Hannah's safe return. Now observe what happens to a family when they lose their house, their status, all their wealth. Note how they disintegrate under the pressures of guilt and poverty and are forced to confront their true selves.

A summer holiday with her eccentric, infuriating family and assorted glamorous hangers-on is the last thing Tash French would usually volunteer for. But her mother is insistent and, out of a job and recently ditched by her boyfriend, Tash decides that spending July in the vast rambling Loire chateau might have its compensations. It's a summer of lust, bed-hopping, unresolved sexual tension, horses, dogs, bolshy kids and lots of bad behaviour. And in the midst of bedlam, at least two people fall in love.

Having been made High Commissioner in Nairobi, Ed Barnes is keeping his head down and staying out of trouble. But when his daughter, Sophie, is kidnapped following a security crisis for which he is blamed, his attempts at normality fall apart once again. He finds himself at the heart of a complex negotiation with a dangerous Somali terrorist group, in an effort to avert a regional security crisis and free his daughter.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, beloved teacher Mrs Walker and her eight-year-old son wave goodbye to their friends in the school playground. But they never make it home. It’s only been a week, but the bright little faces at the picture-perfect school I’ve stepped into have captured my heart. Their big doe eyes, their paint-covered fingers and clinging hugs. They’ve been through so much, with their favourite teacher and classmate still missing. I’m doing all I can to help them adjust, but I can’t avoid the rumours that say Cate Walker’s charismatic husband is involved in her disappearance.

When headteacher Kirsty's local MP resigns after a sex scandal, she's set on running in the by-election to replace him. When he fails to dissuade her from standing, Rick sets out to influence Kirsty's campaign to his own advantage. Kirsty battles on in the spotlight as the domestic and the political start to collide – until a revelation from the past threatens to derail the whole operation.

Always a rebel, Marianne was the first girl in her class to bleach her hair and learn how to smoke. A few boyfriends and one abortion later she falls in love with Salim, the proud and elegant Pakistani with eyes like treacle. East meets West in a passionate mixed marriage. However, Marianne knows little of the Islamic view of motherhood...