Showing results by publisher "Bolinda audio" in Family Life

Olga Master's debut novel - immediately hailed for her powerful and original fiction. Loving Daughters is a brilliant, unsentimental portrait of two sisters - one artistic and restless, the other houseproud, her father's favourite. The entry of an eligible young man into their lives creates a disturbing triangle of desire and rivalry.

It is summer and the Canadian Rockies are on fire. Fleeing the fallout of a relationship gone wrong, Alan West returns to the small town in the valley where he grew up. There, his grandfather, Cecil, suffers a heart attack and gives him one last task: he must track down the father he's never known, so that Cecil can make his peace. And so Alan begins his search for the elusive Jack West, a man who skipped town decades earlier and of whom Cecil has always refused to speak.

When Morwen Tremayne read her vows to Ben Killigrew, now master of the greatest clay works in Cornwall, she swore to stay by his side until death parted them. Had she known how closely she would have to hold to those words, she would still have sworn them a thousand times and with all her heart....

Deep down she knew she was only dreaming, knew that whatever feelings she cherished for him could never be fully returned. After all, he was the heir to the biggest clay works in all of Cornwall, and she was but the daughter of one of their workmen. For just as an unexpected passion began to blossom between Morwen Tremayne and Ben Killigrew, the fates seemed determined to stifle its growth. A long, bitter struggle between owner and workforce brought about Charles Killigrew’s sudden illness, and with it Ben’s summons to the head of the family firm.

Hardly out of childhood, Amy Kennedy and fellow orphans Seth, Jay and Daisy are sent from the Lambeth Workhouse in London to the Devon port of Brixham to be taken into service, the girls as maidservants, the boys as apprentices on a trawler. Although her initiation into her job is hard, Amy quickly finds her feet, and shortly her horizons are brightened by an attentive young man, Daniel Newton, the son of a prosperous sea captain.

As a firefighter, Ava sees the devastation caused when homes are ruined. If she uncovers precious possessions that escaped a blaze unscathed, she returns them to their owner. When Cassie and her son lose everything in a fire, they have nothing and nowhere to go. On impulse, Ava offers them refuge by staying with her. After three failed rounds of IVF, Ava and her husband are divided on how to start their own family. Needing to find answers about her own adoption and birth family, Ava embarks on a journey to Ireland with Cassie by her side for support.

Meg Turner has a hard life. She lives on a lonely farm in the Lake District and her only company is her bully of a father and her brother, who resents her. They want to keep her at home, but Meg is desperate for more. She finds comfort in her best friend, Kath, and Lanky Lawson, who is more of a father figure to her than her own. Her true source of hope though, is Lanky’s son, Jack, who she loves and hopes to marry one day. However, as war looms on the horizon and the world is thrown into chaos, Meg realises that the only thing she can really count on is the land she loves.

Dolly Tomkins has always known what it is to live hand to mouth. In the mean streets of a Salford struggling under the mantle of the Great Depression, the only one making a decent living is the talleyman. Though Nifty Jack has a money bag where his heart should be, Dolly’s mam is in hock up to her ears and in dire need of assistance. But when Jack offers to wipe the slate clean, Dolly just can’t bring herself to trust him. Instead, she takes him on at his own game and in the process endangers everything she holds most dear as a revelation about the past rocks the very foundations of her world.

All Fliss wants is to see two blue lines telling her she is pregnant with her much longed for second baby. But as the negative tests stack up, dreams of completing her perfect family feel more hopeless every day. After years of disappointment, Fliss’s husband Ben is spending more time at the office than in their marital bed, and Fliss finds herself wondering who could be responsible for their inability to conceive another child. Yet, where do you lay the blame when it comes to having a child – and can anyone really be at fault …

It’s 1945, the war is over and the soldiers are coming back to the bomb-ravaged East End. Tom Smith is one of the thousands who are returning home. He can’t wait to see his wife, Jessie, their son, Billy, and the new baby daughter he hasn’t even laid eyes on. But life back home wasn’t easy, especially once Jessie’s army pension was stopped after Tom deserted. So when she was told to put her infant daughter Emma-Rose into a home for her own good, she thought it was for the best. But how will Tom take the news?