Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in City Life

Portia Daniels' life is sorted. She has a perfect man (Jason, a hot TV producer from Ireland), a perfect apartment (in lower Manhattan), a perfect job (writing for TV). Best of all for her, unlike the rest of her family, she lives in perfect obscurity. On the other hand, it's all drama with her mother, Dessie, Kerry-born queen bee of hit reality show, Ladies of Los Angeles, and sisters, Vinnie, a supermodel-turned-Insta-guru and Ariel, a Tik-Tok teen sensation. When Jason drops a bombshell that leaves her life in tatters, Portia flees to be with her family.

In 1992, on his thirtieth birthday, Artie Anderson meets the man who will change his life. Artie spends his days at a tedious advertising job, finding relief in the corner of New York City he can call his own, even as the queer community is still being ravaged by HIV. But when his birthday celebration brings Artie and his friends to his favorite bar, a chance encounter with Abe, an uptight lawyer and Artie’s opposite in almost every way, pushes Artie to want, and to ask for, more for himself.

Hugo Hunter was the most celebrated gay novelist of the 20th century. He published two masterpieces, securing his place alongside the dazzling literary greats of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and rubbing shoulders with everyone from Truman Capote to James Baldwin. But after decades of fame and excess, just as New York City enters the 1980s and awakes to the coming horror of AIDS, Hugo finds himself running out of money. Out of nowhere, he receives an extraordinary lifeline: an offer from his longtime publisher. The money will solve all his problems – except for one thing. Hugo Hunter is an imposter.

New York, 2015, a Monday in spring. Dylan, about to turn thirty-eight, walks out of a successful career in advertising, sublets her apartment and agrees to housesit for Anna, an artist she has never met. She doesn't mention these life changes to her friends, her parents back in England or to Matt, her boyfriend living on the West Coast. In Anna's loft Dylan has time to think, space to write and a chance to try on a new kind of life. When her neighbour Kate invites her to a party and introduces her to Gabe, Dylan tries on a new kind of romance.

A good job, a beautiful wife, a big house in a nice neighbourhood; there's really only one thing missing from the picture: a baby. But motherhood is a serious undertaking, especially for a wife who has always valued her selfhood above all else. And there's also a bigger problem: Temi, the wife's best friend who swears she knows her better than her husband. Set over the course of one day, husband, wife and friend toe the lines of compromise and betrayal.

Eighteen-year-old Lizzie Vogel finds herself a new job in a dentist's surgery after answering a classified advert in the Leicester Mercury for a 'mature lady with a strong interest in dental issues'. Working for an eccentric dental surgeon who's obsessed with becoming a Freemason, Lizzie's life is uneventful until Andy Nicolello turns up one day to deliver a crown. Lizzie seizes her chance to find love and soon begins calling him her boyfriend even though they have never so much as kissed or even sat next to each other on the sofa.

Áine should be feeling happy with her life. She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can't shake the sense that there's something not quite right about the place...The longer Áine spends inside the flat - pretending to work from home; dissecting messages from the friends whose lives seem to have moved on without her - the less it feels like home.

All Men Want to Know traces Nina Bouraoui's blissful childhood in Algeria, a wild, sun-soaked paradise, with hazy summer afternoons spent swimming, diving and driving across the desert. Her mother is French, her father Algerian. When racial tensions begin to surface in their neighbourhood, her mother suffers an unspeakable act of violence that forces the family to flee the country.

It was a whirlwind romance. And when Drew, caught up in the moment, suggests that he and Poppy don’t tell each other anything about their past lives, that they live only for the here and now, for the future they are building together, Poppy jumps at the chance for a fresh start. But it doesn’t take long for Poppy to see that this is a two-way deal. Drew is hiding something from her. And Poppy suddenly has no idea who the man she has married really is, what he is hiding from her or what he might be capable of.

You are young, ambitious, college-educated and a feminist. Your new job is in television. To climb the ranks, you do whatever it takes. You know the rules of this world. When someone senior tells you how pretty you look, you smile and thank him—and make a mental note never to wear that dress alone with him again. When whispers start to circle that your office might have 'a bit of a rape problem', and your close friend confesses her own unsettling encounter, you know there is plenty to gain from staying silent, and all too much to lose through speaking out.

Vera Abramowitz is determined to leave her gritty childhood behind and live a more exciting life, one that her mother never dreamed of. Bobbing her hair and showing her knees, the lipsticked beauty dazzles. As the ultimate flapper, Vera captures the attention of two high rollers, a handsome nightclub owner and a sexy gambler. On their arms, she gains entrée into a world filled with bootleg bourbon, wailing jazz, and money to burn. She thinks her biggest problem is choosing between them until the truth comes out. Her two lovers are really mobsters from rival gangs....

Famous film star Lila Crayne is America's sweetheart: she's generous and kind, gorgeous and magnetic. A golden girl. She and her fiancé, visionary filmmaker Kurt Royall, have settled into a stunning New York apartment, and are embarking on a new movie: a modern feminist adaptation of a classic twentieth-century novel. To prepare for the leading role, Lila begins work with charming and accomplished therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. Soon, Lila's impeccably manicured life begins to unravel on the therapy couch - and Jonah is just the man to pick up the pieces.

A brutal murder. A young woman’s body is discovered with horrifying injuries, a recent newspaper cutting pinned to her clothing. A detective with everything to prove. This is her only chance to redeem herself. A serial killer with nothing to lose. He’s waited years, and his reign of terror has only just begun.... Introducing DI Eve Hunter, Hold Your Tongue is your new obsession.

Helen Clapp is a physics professor. She doesn't believe in pseudoscience or time travel and especially not in ghosts. So when she gets a missed call from Charlie, her closest friend from university with whom she hasn't spoken in over a year, Helen thinks there must be some mistake. Because Charlie died two days ago. Then when her young son, Jack, claims to have seen Charlie in their house just the other day, Helen begins to have doubts.

‘Down among the women. What a place to be!’ So says Wanda, a former radical who left her husband and raised her daughter Scarlet to be as liberated as she. But twenty-year-old Scarlet, with an abortion already behind her, is about to discover real liberation – as a single mother in Fifties’ London. Yet Scarlet’s not alone. Meet her friends: Sylvia, the born victim; respectable Jocelyn, willingly trapped in a dull, bourgeois marriage; Audrey, bristling to break free of her conventional life; and Helen, beautiful, vibrant – and very doomed.

He watches you constantly. He sees everything. As a CCTV operator, he can travel at speed through the streets of Aberdeen and keep people safe, all from the comfort of his chair. He knows your secrets. You are one of the people he likes to follow. He keeps an eye on you, notices every detail of your body language, even in your most intimate moments, when you think no one is watching. But now he wants more. He knows your routine like the back of his hand, but that’s not enough. Now he wants something more fulfilling. And when you know as much as he does, it’s easy to take advantage…

Let’s be real. House hunting is a special kind of hell. After a year and a half, and more failed bids than she cares to count, Margo is officially losing it. Then, a tip-off: a perfect house, off-market, that Margo just knows will save her and Ian’s marriage, and get her life, career and plan to have a baby back on track. A little stalking? Harmless! A bit of trespassing? Necessary! But when Margo’s scheming hits a snag, she is pushed to her breaking point. As her methods get increasingly unhinged, it’s clear that nothing is off limits. It’s not her fault she’s just doing what it takes.

York, 1988. Dr Tom Frith is beginning his first term as a tutor at the University of Eboracum. After teaching primary school children for several years, he's sure shaping the minds of young adults will be a welcome change. But that's before considering the pressures he'll face outside the lecture hall, from helping three hapless students who've been surviving exclusively on porridge, to fielding inappropriate propositions from students chasing higher grades. And then there's the particular challenge of Edna Wallop, the Acting Head of Faculty.

On a weekend morning, college roommates, Ah Li and Panda, wake up with very different reactions to the night before. They have been chased and tear-gassed in the streets of their city after joining tens of thousands of others to protest a national security law that would effectively spell the end of democracy in Hong Kong. Ah Li couldn’t get out of bed, her heart heavy with the lingering images of the police and the violence on the streets, and her worries about the future of her hometown.

Nobody in Manhattan eats better than Bernice Black. It’s 1972, and she is the city’s busiest restaurant critic, juggling her fiance and his two young sons with demands of fine dining. Bernice talks fast, walks faster, has a razor-sharp wit and no patience for anything--or anyone--that gets in her way. When she stops by the famed restaurant of her favorite chef and mentor, Laurent Tirel, early one morning, she stumbles across a horrific scene in the kitchen: Laurent's severed head, perfectly preserved in a flawless mold of jellied aspic.