Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in 20th Century

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Without a Trace. A compelling story of courage, friendship and love by international number-one best-selling author Lesley Pearse, read by Emma Powell. Coronation Day, 1953. In the Somerset village of Sawbridge, young shopkeeper Molly Heywood slips away from the celebrations to her friend's cottage and makes a shocking discovery: Cassie is dead, and her six-year-old daughter, Petal, has vanished without a trace.

In 1942, Charlotte Gray, a young Scottish woman, goes to Occupied France on a dual mission: to run an apparently simple errand for a British special operations group and to search for her lover, an English airman who has gone missing in action. In the small town of Lavaurette, Sebastian Faulks presents a microcosm of France and its agony in 'the black years'. Here is the full range of collaboration, from the tacit to the enthusistic, as well as examples of extraordinary courage and altruism.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Promise from the bestselling author Lesley Pearse. War threatens to take all she has loved and lived for. When Belle Reilly's husband Jimmy enlists and heads for the trenches of Northern France, she knows she cannot stand idly by awaiting his return. Volunteering to help the wounded, Belle is posted to France as a Red Cross ambulance driver.

The village of Alvesdon has been home to the Castells for generations. But the year is 1939 and the peace and tranquillity there is about to be shattered once more by the stormclouds of war in Europe. As three generations of the family gather, they must all face the prospect of their lives being transformed beyond recognition the moment Britain declares war on Germany.

Twenty-three-year-old Katy Speed is fascinated by the house across the street. The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, other times they have children. Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders if these mysterious visitors have just been released from prison. Is Gloria secretly bringing criminals, or worse, into the heart of the community?

Fifteen-year-old Maisy Mitcham and her twin brother, Duncan, lose their mother to an insane asylum one night in 1960. The twins are sent to their grandmother's country house, Nightingales. Cold and distant, she leaves them to their own devices, to explore and to grow. That is until the day Duncan doesn't come home from the woods. With their grandmother seeming to have little interest in her grandson's disappearance and the police soon giving up hope, it is left to Maisy to discover the truth.

Winter, 1900. A little boy washes up on the beach of a small fishing village in Scotland, barely alive. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea many years before. When the village is snowed in, Dorothy agrees to look after the child until he can be returned home. But, as the past rises to meet the present, long-buried secrets in this tight-knit community start to come to light. And Dorothy finds herself thrown together again with the reclusive fisherman Joseph, after years of keeping their distance.

Despite her privileged upbringing, Daisy Lennox has always longed to make something of her life. She is drawn to the suffragette movement, but when her father faces ruin they are forced to move to the country and Daisy’s first duty is to her family. Here she becomes engaged to her childhood friend – a union both families have dreamed of. But, on the eve of their wedding, war is declared, and Daisy knows her life will never be the same again...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jefferies, read by Avita Jay. Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper is newly married to a rich and charming widower, eager to join him on his tea plantation, determined to be the perfect wife and mother. But life in Ceylon is not what Gwen expected.

Cliffehaven, December 1946. From a hill above the town of Cliffehaven, a young woman makes a heart-breaking choice that will change the course of her life forever. Hours later, a baby is found in the Nativity crib of the local church. Who could have left him there, and why? The mystery preoccupies everyone in Cliffehaven - not least Peggy Reilly, who has enough to contend with at Beach View Boarding House without this extra secret to unravel.

Victoria is astonished when she discovers an abandoned newborn baby on her doorstep, along with a note begging her to 'take care of little Rose'. Who is the mother? Victoria, Naomi and the Churchwood bookshop organising team set about trying to identify her, concerned for her welfare and hoping to give her a chance to reclaim her baby. As they piece together the heartbreaking story, all sorts of surprises emerge. But they can't keep the baby a secret for long: can they reunite the little family before the authorities take Rose away?

Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives to the unprecedented experience of the war itself.

Liverpool, 1941: After German bombs shatter the life Cadi has built for herself in Liverpool, she is more determined than ever to sign up and do h bit. Joining the WAAF also means she is closer to her beau—until Jez is sent thousands of miles from home. While Jez is in Africa, someone from the past starts spreading vicious rumours that could threaten their relationship, and Cadi finds herself torn between keeping secrets and telling the truth to protect those she holds dear.

Without a mother, Rosie is at the mercy of her father and thuggish brothers. Then one day a friend comes to the farm in the form of cockney housekeeper Heather Farley. But soon enough Heather vanishes, abandoning Rosie to her fate. Only when Thomas Farley comes to find his sister several years later does Rosie learn the terrible truth about Heather - and her family. Running away from home, she finds herself pursued by the man who brought ruin on her family. Is he out to get her, too? Or could he have some other reason for chasing her?

Liverpool, 1855. Ada Houston is alone. Her grandfather has recently passed away, and her brother is missing, last seen working on the Liverpool docks. Everyone assumes him to be dead. But she will not give up hope. Ada's determined search takes her to the Crimea, where she joins the team of Florence Nightingale's nurses. She may have set off looking for her brother, but along the way Ada finds friends, romance and a new purpose in her own life in the most troubling and difficult of places.

On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human. In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy.

A multigenerational novel of love, oppression, trauma and the pursuit of freedom, inspired in part by the author's own family history, China Room twines together the stories of a woman and a man separated by more than half a century but united by blood.

When her husband returns shell-shocked and broken from the Great War and his mother makes her life a misery, Betty Wellow discovers how bitter and hard life can truly be. But it is not until a devastating storm sweeps through their small fishing village and endangers her life that she sees her chance to escape - and takes it. Fleeing to Bristol, she changes her name to Mabel Brook and takes a position as a maid. But tragedy strikes once more after the sudden death of her mistress, and she is cast back onto the streets.

Victoria is looking for a life away from the dangers of wartime London for herself and two orphaned children. Her search takes her to Churchwood in Hertfordshire which looks ideal, but the village residents are already dealing with their own problems . . .With so much trouble and uncertainty in the village, can Victoria and her little family find the safe haven they crave?

The world seems an effervescent place of parties, jazz, and family happiness to Mary van der Linden. But the Eisenhower years are ending, and 1960 brings the presidential battle between two ambitious senators: John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. When an American newspaper reporter called Frank Renzo enters the van der Lindens' lives, they are forced to confront the terror of the Cold War that is the dark background of their carefree existence.