Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Friendship

Young widow Julia Nance has found happiness again running her beloved Guesthouse, Fairlight, but with the arrival of war, even her last bookings are being cancelled. Step-daughter Elowen immediately offers to find work with arch rival Alma Jennings, but Julia prefers to keep her close, and searches desperately for alternatives. Offering up her beloved home to be requisitioned, looking for any opportunity for work herself, she finds herself thwarted at every turn, and unwilling to accept the help of unscrupulous brother-in-law Pasco.

When Adela Woods tells her parents she’s pregnant, they immediately send her a thousand miles away to stay with her grandmother in Padua Beach. The intention is that she will leave her baby in 'the forgotten Panhandle of Florida' and resume her suburban life nine months later as though nothing happened. But Adela’s plans are soon washed away by the tide. First, Adela meets Emory, a new mother determined to defy the expectations of everyone around her, returning to high school with her newborn baby strapped to her chest.

Summer, 1953. The sun is shining on Little Green Street, the bunting is being brought out, and Britain is getting ready to crown its new Queen. Except Helen Jones doesn't feel much like celebrating. Her father passed away last year, on the very same day as King George. Life hasn't felt the same ever since. Her husband Tad has a plan. As the newly-appointed chair of the small town's Coronation Tea Party committee, he's hoping that the day will be the perfect moment to bring a spark of joy back to their little family - and to the whole community.

Shortly after being unceremoniously dumped at a petrol station, Anya Mackie finds a pact she signed with Euan Carrick which promised they'd marry if both are still single the following decade. But Euan hasn't been seen for ten years and there's no trace of him anywhere. After accepting the help of Jamie Kildare - another blast from Anya's past with very mysterious reasons for tracking down Euan - the pair set off to find The Back-Up Man.

When Simon Brown reconnects on Facebook with his first love Sylvie—the French pen pal he never actually met—he is determined that this time things will be different. However, life isn't so straight-forward at sixty as it was at sixteen. His daughter's getting married, he's got difficult guests staying at his B&B and his larger-than-life school friend, Ian, has abruptly waltzed back into his life.

Gillian thought she had everything she ever wanted—as a successful publicist running her own Manhattan firm and working with a high-profile-celebrity clientele, she finally made herself at home among the elite who eluded her throughout her youth. That is, until her career implodes, leaving her jobless, friendless, and with a reputation that follows her everywhere. So, when she receives an offer to become a “dorm mom” at Glen Ellen Academy, the prestigious Sonoma boarding school she attended two decades earlier on scholarship, she leaps at the opportunity for a change of scene.

Esme Nash is eager to leave her small town and begin her carefully planned post-grad life: a move to New York City, an apartment with her loving college boyfriend, and a fancy job at an art gallery. But when tragedy strikes, instead of heading to Manhattan, she returns home to care for her ailing father, leaving every bit of her dream behind.

The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond rings exclusively for proposals, they started a tradition that has defined engagements ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead. Now, over a decade later, Gemma Maybrook is still reconciling the reality of her mother's death.

Rhett Gallagher’s adventurous life is imploding. Just as she turns the big 4-0, her long-term relationship collapses and her gran’s death draws her back to the family farm. The only silver lining is that Rhett’s inspirational book, The Modern Pioneer Girl’s Guide to Life—written under a pseudonym—has become a wild success, so much so that when her big publicity moment comes, self-doubting Rhett panics and persuades her best friend, Jasmine, to step into the limelight in her stead.

Jude and Lauren don't have much in common, but maybe that's why they've been best friends since the third grade. Through ups and downs, they've been by each other's sides. But now? They’re broke, single, and do the only thing that makes sense - move in together, just like they talked about when they were teenagers. Except when they were younger, the plan didn't include a five-year-old daughter and more baggage than their new townhouse can hold.

Just once, Delia Reese wants to be the one calling the shots — not the one waiting to be called. Despite her stellar resume, hiring managers at the big banks won’t give her a chance. Following yet another failed interview, Delia commiserates with her roommates and drunkenly finds herself wishing she had the advantages that come with being a man. If society wasn't locked into gender roles, she'd be climbing the corporate ladder in designer heels with no apologies. By morning, her mirror reflects a surprising makeover.

An unlikely friendship between a septuagenarian and a younger woman becomes a story of broken trust, lost love, and the unexpected blooming of hope against the longest odds.

Jules O'Brien and Michelle Davis have been best friends since third grade, when Jules and her single mother moved from Cleveland to the small Alabama town where Michelle's family has lived for generations. Now in their mid-20s, the childhood friends live miles and worlds apart. When Jules agrees to be the maid of honor in Michelle's wedding, she quickly realizes just how different the two have become.

Cale Lambert, a bookish loner of mysterious parentage, lives in a dusty town near the California-Nevada border, a place where coyotes scavenge for backyard dogs and long-haul truckers scavenge for pills and girls. Cale was raised by her grandfather in a loving, if codependent, household, but as soon as she's left high school his health begins an agonizing decline. Set adrift for the first time, Cale starts waitressing at the local diner, where she reconnects with Penélope Reyes, a charismatic former classmate running mysterious side-hustles to fund her dreams.

Mackie, Edele, Alex and Nat are navigating their chaotic and confusing 20s together. They have jobs and pay their own rent (well, most of them) but don't know how to bleed radiators, defrost a freezer or test the smoke alarms. With breakups to deal with and major decisions to make, life can get messy, especially when they're still trying to get the hang of this 'being a grown-up' thing. Welcome to the joys of being almost adults.

Sylvia lives alone, dedicating herself to her job at the local university. On weekends, she helps out at a local hedgehog sanctuary because it gives her something to talk about on Mondays - and it makes people think she's nicer than she is. Only Sylvia has a secret: she's been in love with her boss, Professor Lomax, for over a decade now, and she's sure he's just waiting for the right time to leave his wife. Meanwhile she stores every crumb of his affection and covertly makes trouble for anyone she feels gets in his way.

Cate is a stage designer in her early 40s, embroiled in theatre projects and the lives of her unconventional Chicago friends and lovers, when her life is suddenly overturned. Walking into her best friend's kitchen one day, she witnesses an act of violence that forces her to do something she would never have thought she could do. The bubble of her safe, bohemian world is shattered. Right After the Weather explores what happens when two worlds collide and a group of friends are confronted with their worst fears.

As she walks out of her marriage, a woman remembers the day her husband rescued a boy from drowning. A blind man on his wedding day celebrates the pursuit of love. And a young man leaves prison with only one desire - to see his son again. With power and precision, humanity and insight, Supporting Cast captures the extraordinary moments in our ordinary lives and the darkness and the joy of the everyday.

Whilst nursing the Hangover from Hell, Ellen stumbles downstairs to discover the kitchen slowly filling with water. Panic quickly sets in, and the three flatmates find themselves in the attic desperately attempting to switch off the water supply. But when Ben, Alexa's Hinge date from the night before, walks in, the door slams, the handle breaks, and all four of them are trapped. As the long hours tick by, Ellen nurses her sore head whilst Ben and Alexa really get to know each other, and Jack plans an unorthodox rescue mission.

Years after escaping her unbearable artworld friends in New York for a new life in London, an unnamed writer finds herself back on the Lower East Side attending a dinner party hosted by Eugene and Nicole – an artist-curator couple – and attended by their pretentious circle. It’s the evening after the funeral of their mutual friend, a failed actress, and if the narrator once loved and admired Eugene and Nicole and their important friends, she now despises them all.