Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Contemporary

Daniel was the first boy to make Alison a mix tape. But that was years ago and Ali hasn’t thought about him in a very long time. Even if she had, she might not have called him ‘the one that got away’; after all, she’d been the one to run. Then Dan’s name pops up on her phone, with a link to a song from their shared past. For two blissful minutes, Alison is no longer an adult in Adelaide with temperamental daughters; she is 16 in Sheffield, dancing in her skin-tight jeans. She cannot help but respond in kind.

After losing her sister, Savanna Litchfield has been living half a life. When Savannah's therapist suggests joining a trip around the world for grieving teens she agrees to go clutching tightly to the unread journal her sister left behind. Seventeen-year-old Cael Woods is angry. One year after losing his older brother his life has spiraled. Once the most promising hockey player in the junior league, Cael can no longer step onto the ice. When his parents sign him up for a trip abroad no part of him wants to go. As Cael and Savannah embark on a journey they begin to find solace in each other.

Dani Dorfman is looking for an escape. She's not expecting to land a new job to take her from Los Angeles to Amsterdam, but after recently getting dumped and fired, she's determined to make this a fresh start. But at the end of her first week, the big move is looking like an even bigger mistake. Especially when she crashes her bike into Wouter van Leeuwen, her handsome Dutch exchange student from ten years ago. Her first love, until he inexplicably ghosted her. Wouter is at a crossroads of his own - in order to inherit his family's gorgeous canalside home he needs to get married.

It’s been thirteen years since Mars Darling first met West Emerson on a bench outside their writing class. What started out as a friendly rivalry turned into a best friendship and then, for a time that felt all too brief, a romance. Now over a decade later, as Mars stands at their college campus as a once-esteemed YA fantasy author, ready to take on a book festival, she comes face to face with West. The muse behind her infamous trilogy’s heartthrob hero, the man who betrayed her in the worst way.

Grace Underwood has been hiding a dark secret about the night her parents died. Only her tyrannical Uncle Bellamy knows the truth, and he’s been using it against her ever since. He’s been treating her like dirt for a decade, forcing her to work tirelessly on his ranch, but once he crosses the line too many times, Grace finally risks everything to walk away.

Freshly divorced and in need of a job – Kate Elliot’s life needs a rewrite. So when she unearths an old letter from her ex-talent agent, Jojo Francisco – she takes it as a sign from the universe to brush off her old acting skills and become someone else entirely. Meanwhile, Charlie Francisco is back from LA, leaving his dumpster fire of a life behind. He may be well over his head in filling the shoes of his late eccentric father but he is determined to prove he can, and he might just have the job for Kate: to pose as the author for a novel that the real writer wants nothing to do with.

The story begins on the Italian coast in 1962. A young innkeeper watches in disbelief as a beautiful American girl gets out of a boat and climbs towards his hotel. She turns out to be an actress, on the run from the shenanigans going on down the coast in Rome at the filming of Cleopatra. A few days later international star Richard Burton, much the worse for wear, appears in the village, too. Half a century later, and half a world away in Hollywood, an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the woman he last saw in his hotel 50 years before.

From the outside, anyone would think that Lucy Palmer has it all: loving children, a dashing husband and a gorgeous home. But when her marriage to Michael comes to an abrupt and unexpected end, her life is turned upside down in a flash. As the truth of her marriage threatens to surface, Lucy seizes the opportunity to swap her house in London - and the stories it hides - for a rural escape to her parents' farmhouse in the Chilterns. But Lucy gets more than she bargained for when she moves back to her childhood home.

Sumire is in love with a woman 17 years her senior. But whereas Miu is glamorous and successful, Sumire is an aspiring writer who dresses in an oversized second-hand coat and heavy boots like a character in a Kerouac novel. Sumire spends hours on the phone talking to her best friend K about the big questions in life: what is sexual desire, and should she ever tell Miu how she feels for her? Meanwhile K wonders whether he should confess his own unrequited love for Sumire. Then, a desperate Miu calls from a small Greek island: Sumire has mysteriously vanished....

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their rustic beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, its quirky furniture and mismatched pots and pans greeted like old friends. Now, sandwiched between her children who are adult enough to be fun but still young enough to need her, and her parents who are alive and healthy, Rocky wants to preserve this golden moment forever. This one precious week when everything is in balance; everything is in flux.

Holly is feeling on top of the world - celebrating a new promotion and dying to pop the champagne with her best friend Roz. But is Holly just imagining things, or is Roz - who supported her every step of the way - not as happy for her as she should be? Something about Roz's behaviour doesn't add up. And soon Holly has the sneaking suspicion that there's a target on her back. Has someone been playing dirty in a war Holly didn't know she was fighting? And is Roz more tangled up in this than she'll admit? Only one woman can be left standing - but will the best woman win?

Bad luck has always followed Olivia. But when a steamy text from a random number turns into the most entertaining relationship of her life, it seems things are looking up. Colin has always considered Olivia his flatmate's annoying little sister. Until she moves in with them, and he realises she's turned into an altogether sexier distraction. He's determined to keep his distance, but it isn't easy. Especially when he discovers she's the girl he's been secretly messaging.

Annabel is in the thick of sandwich generation territory. Widowed for nearly a decade and bringing up two teenagers alone, she now faces the dilemma of what is best for her ageing mother. Her strong-willed sisters, Ginnie and Clarissa, have already mentally sold her mother’s London house, mentally spent the proceeds, but Annabel isn't sure what her mother will think of their plan.

Fixie Farr can’t help herself. Straightening a crooked object, removing a barely there stain, helping out a friend...she just has to put things right. It’s how she got her nickname, after all. So when a handsome stranger in a coffee shop asks her to watch his laptop for a moment, Fixie not only agrees, she ends up saving it from certain disaster. To thank her, the computer’s owner, Sebastian, scribbles her an IOU - but of course Fixie never intends to call in the favour.

If your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, Bennet Taylor is failing miserably . . . with a big emphasis on the miserable. Where’s that zest she keeps hearing about? She’s a temp worker in New York City with no direction, no future, and no social life. And at the painful center of this listlessness is grief over the death of her first love.

Hallie Piper is turning over a new leaf. After crawling out of a hotel room (hello, rock bottom), she decides it's time to become a full-on adult. She gets a new apartment, a new haircut, and a new wardrobe. But when she logs into the dating app to look for new love, she finds none other than Jack: the guy whose hotel room she'd snuck out of. After agreeing they are absolutely not interested in each other, Jack and Hallie realise that they're each other's perfect wing-person - and join forces in their searches for The One. They even make a wager to see who can find true love first.

Dig Ryan hasn't seen Delilah for 12 years, but when she bursts back into his life he can't help falling for his first love all over again. Nadine has been in love with Dig for 15 years, so she can't help feeling cheated when her best friend has his head turned again by her old nemesis Delilah. But how low will Nadine stoop in order to make Delilah go away? And how can she make Dig realise who he really loves?

It was Betty, defiant to the end, who sent Lorna back to Longhampton. If Lorna’s learned one thing from Betty it’s that courage is something you paint on like red lipstick, even when you’re panicking inside. And right now, with the keys to the town’s gallery in her hand, Lorna feels about as courageous as Betty’s anxious little dachshund, trembling beside her. Lorna’s come home to Longhampton to fulfil a long-held dream, but she knows, deep down, there are ghosts she needs to lay to rest first.

London has not been kind to Lottie Allbright. Realising it’s time to cut and run, she packs up and moves back home - but finds her family in disarray. In need of a new place to stay, Lottie takes up the offer of a live-in job managing a local vineyard. There’s a lot to learn - she didn’t even know grapes could grow so far north! Butterworth Wines in the rolling Derbyshire hills has always been run on love and passion, but a tragic death has left everyone at a loss. Widowed Betsy is trying to keep the place afloat but is harbouring a debilitating secret.

Breathing Lessons covers the events of a day in the life of Maggie Moran, nearing fifty, married to Ira and with two children. Her eternal optimism and her inexhaustible passion for sorting out other people's lives and willing them to fall in love is severely tested one hot summer day. Maggie and Ira drive from Baltimore to Deer Lick to attend the funeral of the husband of Serena, Maggie's childhood friend.