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

Alice may be the president's daughter, but she's nobody's darling. As bold as her signature color Alice Blue, the gum-chewing, cigarette-smoking, poker-playing first daughter discovers that the only way for a woman to stand out in Washington is to make waves - oceans of them. With the canny sophistication of the savviest politician on the Hill, Alice uses her celebrity to her advantage, testing the limits of her power and the seductive thrill of political entanglements.

As death and destruction fall from the skies day after day in the London Blitz, Australian ambulance driver Lily Brennan confronts the horror with bravery, intelligence, common sense and humour. Although she must rely upon her colleagues to carry out her dangerous duties, Lily begins to suspect that someone at her ambulance station may be giving assistance to the enemy by disclosing secret information.

It is April 1939 and unaware that the German war machine is advancing towards the Channel Islands, seventeen-year-old Meg Colivet and her sister are enjoying a holiday in Oxford with their aunt. Here Meg meets charismatic German undergraduate Rayner Weiss and the couple fall passionately in love. But all too soon, Britain is at war with Germany, Guernsey has been occupied and Meg's family home requisitioned by the German army.

It is 1940 and Britain is at war with Germany. In London, eighteen-year-old Susan Banks longs to do her duty. Her secret ambition is to learn to fly - to serve her country and realise her dream. But she knows it is out of the question for a girl like her; a foundling, unwanted and unloved and dependent on strangers for her welfare. Just as she fears she will be trapped forever in a life of servitude and loneliness, she meets Tony Richards, a flying instructor based in Hampshire.

When World War II breaks out, Carrie Anderson sets up a bookstall at her local train station in the hope of providing a sense of escapism for travellers, troops and evacuees. Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and armed with a colourful array of Penguin paperbacks, Carrie’s business soon booms. And when she gifts a book to a dashing officer, an act of kindness becomes the beginning of Carrie’s very own love story. But as war rages on, and Mike is posted abroad, Carrie’s world is turned upside-down.

Francis O'Neill is an IRA terrorist - and he will kill for the cause. Gentleman Joe is his boss - and he wants power. Liam is his brother - and he wants money. Richard is the British intelligence officer - and he wants to recruit him. Bridget is his wife - and she wants to get out. A Traitor in the Family is the story of a man who remains devoted to a cause while everyone around him gives in to temptation....

German power is rising again, threatening a war that will be even worse than the last one. The English aristocracy turns to an age-old institution to stave off war and strengthen political bonds—marriage. Debutantes flock to Germany, including Viviane Alden. On holiday with her sister during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Viviane’s true purpose is more clandestine.

Lady of the house Octavia Cavendish lives like a bird in a gilded cage. With her family’s fortune, her husband, William, has made significant additions to the estate, but he too feels bound - by the obligations of his title as well as his vows. Their son, Harry, is expected to follow in his footsteps, but the boy has dreams of his own, like pursuing the new adventure of aerial flight. Meanwhile, below stairs, a housemaid named Emily holds a secret that could undo the Cavendish name.

1939: In a village in south-east Nigeria at the brink of world, young Obi watches from a mango tree as a colonial army jeep whooshes by, filled with soldiers laughing and shouting, their buttons shining in the sun. To Obi, their promise of a smart uniform and regular wages are hard to resist, especially as he has his sweetheart Rose to impress and a family to support. Years later, when Rose falls pregnant to another man, his young heart is shattered. As the Burma Campaign mounts, and Obi is shipped out to fight, he is haunted by the mystery of Rose's lover.

21-year-old Lucy feels content with her life in Hertfordshire—not least because she lives next door to Tom and Jamie, two very different brothers for whom she has equally great affection. But her comfortable life is turned upside down when Tom decides he must travel to Spain to fight for the Democratic party in the bloody Spanish Civil War. He is quickly followed by Jamie, who, much to Lucy's despair, is supporting General Franco and his Fascist party.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Stranger by Kate Riordan. When you're the outsider, who do you trust? Cornwall, 1940. For decades, Penhallow Hall has stood frozen in time, protecting the secrets of its isolated inhabitants. But the far corners of England are no shelter from the war, and Penhallow must finally open its doors to strangers. Three newcomers arrive, each looking to escape their past. They adjust easily to the routine - nightly blackouts, the threat of invasion - but tensions mount, and secrets are forced into the open.

Stepping off the boat in Mombasa, 18-year-old Rachel Fullsmith stands on Kenyan soil for the first time in six years. She has come home. But when Rachel reaches the family farm at the end of the dusty Rift Valley Road, she finds so much has changed. Her beloved father has moved his new partner and her son into the family home. She hears menacing rumours of Mau Mau violence and witnesses cruel reprisals by British soldiers.

Paris, 1939: The pavement rumbles with the footfalls of Nazi soldiers marching along the Champs Elysees. A young writer, recently arrived from Ireland to make his mark, smokes one last cigarette with his lover before the city they know is torn apart. Soon he will put his own life and the lives of his loved ones in mortal danger by joining the Resistance....

At the famous Patisserie Clermont in Paris, 1909, a chance encounter with the owner's daughter has given one young man a glimpse into a life he never knew existed: of sweet cream and melted chocolate, golden caramel and powdered sugar, of pastry light as air. But it is not just the art of confectionery that holds him captive, and soon a forbidden love affair begins. Almost 80 years later, an academic discovers a hidden photograph of her grandfather as a young man with two people she has never seen before.

On the cobbled streets of Bradford in 1931, Lily Briggs does all she can to keep trouble at bay for her and her family. She works hard at Calvert Mill to make ends meet and take care of her parents and younger siblings. Saturday nights at the dance hall and dressmaking with her two best friends keep Lily upbeat, and now there’s a blossoming romance with childhood friend Harry Bainbridge to put an extra spring in her step, too.

From the coauthor of the international best seller The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. "I can't stand this poky little town any more. How can I bear it for three more months? Today alone has lasted years...." Disinherited by her father, the debutante Miss Layla Beck is forced to spend the hot summer of 1938 in Macedonia, West Virginia, and is tasked with recording the small town's history. She arrives with one goal: to get out as quickly as possible.

On a bombing mission over Germany, David Turner's thoughts are with Sally Barnes in Liverpool. Deaf since childhood, Sally is young and vulnerable and David wishes he could be with her to protect her from the horros of war. But to Sally, David is just the boy from down the road. It is Lee, the young carefree American airman, who has won her heart.

From best-selling novelist Marie Joseph - a collection of heartwarming, life-enchancing stories that show her at her very best. In them Marie Joseph explores the many aspects of love as it was in the sixties and seventies - its nostalgia, tendernesses, pitfalls and moments of never-to-be-forgotten happiness.

Lily and Vincent have been dancing everything from the waltz to the foxtrot together since they were six years old. Now a teenager, Lily realises she has feelings for Vincent that she never knew were there. However, with Vincent off to war, Lily is evacuated to a mother and baby home with her younger siblings. It is there that she finds she has more in common with the fallen women than she once thought. But as the bombs begin to fall in Liverpool, will she ever see her sweetheart again?

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady - a queen in her own right. But all reigns must come to an end.