Showing results by narrator "Helen Stern" in All Categories

When Sarah’s summoned by her godmother to remote Norfolk, she doesn’t want to go. Crossing the bridges where the two rivers meet, said to be haunted by the ghost of a little boy, a large Tudor house looms in front of her. And Sarah’s instantly reminded her of the summer when she last visited. The summer she would like to forget. Which left her unable to ever move forward… Can a person ever recover from the loss of a sibling?

Working in a museum under a false identity is Brigitte’s only hope. Until she meets Isabelle Valette, who confides in hushed tones that she is part of the Resistance. And when her new friend tells her of a train leaving Paris that can take children to safety, Brigitte knows her daughter must be on it, even if it breaks her heart. But getting Sophie onto the train is dangerous. If they are caught smuggling a Jewish child out of Paris, they will be killed. And with the enemy closing in, can Brigitte get her beloved daughter to safety before it is too late?

When the Nazis invade Paris, Antoinette Valette’s world shatters overnight. In an instant, she goes from being a celebrated violinist, to fearing for the life of her Jewish husband and son. With nowhere to flee, hiding in plain sight is her family’s only choice.

Paris, 1940: Madeline tries to scream, but she can’t breathe. A German soldier is working to free her from the rubble–but if he reaches her, he will find the books hidden beneath her clothes… When the Germans seize Paris, its peaceful streets fill with terror overnight, and nowhere is safe. Desperate to help her friends, Parisian bookseller Madeline Valette turns her bookshop into a sanctuary for those in hiding, but she knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s found out.

Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution. Mothers and Others finds the key in the primatologically unique length of human childhood.

The Duke of Malmesbury’s daughters discover that passion can derail even the best-laid matrimonial plans. Lady Cecily is known as the “Ice Princess” because of her cool blond beauty and her refusal to wed any of her several eligible suitors. She has no choice but to obey her father, the Duke, who wants Cecily to marry the one man who can assure the family’s social and financial positions: The arrogant and infuriating Viscount Ravenwood, who has been her enemy since childhood.

Queen Margaret knows she must protect the crown - and her son Prince Edward's claim to it - at all costs. With her husband, King Henry, increasingly frail, it is up to Margaret to fight for their inheritance. And as the Wars of the Roses rage on, her enemies and their wives lurk close, threatening to unravel everything she is trying to protect.

The first chapter of a manuscript arrives on Publisher Marina’s desk. She assumes it’s just another novel by another aspiring writer. As the chapters arrive one by one, Marina is convinced they are about her past. There’s only one person who can know everything about the scandal, the trial, and the trauma that nearly broke her. This is one story that should never be told, and Marina is so desperate she will do anything to stop it getting out.

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

When a heartsick Maggie is sent on an errand by her mother to Cannes, she is keen to get it over with as quickly as possible. She has been tasked with collecting a treasured box of photos from her late grandmother Elizabeth’s best friend, the impossibly glamorous Allegra Morgon who is desperate to tell Maggie all about the year she and Elizabeth spent in Paris. The sixties were in full swing, the air hummed with jazz, artists and students made the streets their own, and the City of Love was weaving its magic.

When her husband returns from war, the Marchioness of Hawkstone battles for her independence. Less than two weeks after their wedding, Gavin Colporter, Marquess of Hawkstone, left his lovely wife Mollie at home and went off to war with Lord Wellington. Four years later, Mollie has become accustomed to running the estate and doing as she pleases. It's quite a shock when Hawkstone returns and immediately begins to assume his rights and responsibilities as lord of the manor. Can she learn to submit to his authority? What will he say when he hears certain scandalous rumors about her activities in his absence?

The scandal would rip through English society - but how can they resist falling recklessly, irreversibly in love? A series of disasters in Eleanor Lindale’s well-to-do family kept her out of the social whirl where she might have attracted suitors. Now, at age 25, she believes she is irretrievably on the shelf. But her quiet life in Brighton abruptly changes when she’s asked to chaperone her beautiful seventeen-year-old niece, Lady Aurora Crossways, for a brief season before Aurora’s wedding to Philip Radford, Earl of Huntley.

Posing as one of Robin Hood's thieves to avoid the evil Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only Big John and Robin Hood know the truth - that the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. It's getting harder to hide as Gisbourne's camp seeks to find Scarlet and drive Robin Hood out of Nottinghamshire. But Scarlet's instinct for self-preservation is at war with a strong sense of responsibility to the people who took her in when she was on the run, and she finds it's not so easy to turn her back on her band and townspeople.

Sir Merrick Hadrian hunts monsters, both human and supernatural. A Knight of the Order of the Round Table, his use of magick and the technologies of steam power have made him both respected and feared. But his considerable skills are useless in the face of his greatest challenge, guardianship of five unusual children. At a loss, Merrick enlists the aid of a governess....

After a police operation ends in catastrophe, Eve West is suspended. She faces expulsion from the force until John Duran - a criminal Eve incarcerated herself - offers his help. But he wants something in return. Convinced there has been a miscarriage of justice, Duran wants Eve to free a fellow inmate convicted of the murder. But why is a brute like Duran assisting this other inmate? And why has he specifically chosen Eve to investigate?

Over twenty years of marriage to Max, Prue has remained a busy, contented mother and stepmother. Now, Prue's stepdaughter, Violet, has returned with her new husband from New York and, suddenly, Prue is precipitated into a secret life. As she moves between a sleepy village in Hampshire and buzzing London, Prue finds herself crossing the boundary between innocence and knowledge, exploring the line between the gluttony and surrender of desire and facing the stark realities that result.

Scarlet’s true identity has been revealed, but her future is uncertain. Her forced marriage to Lord Gisbourne threatens Robin and Scarlet’s love, and as the royal court descends upon Nottingham for the appointment of a new Sheriff, the people of Nottingham hope that Prince John will appoint their beloved Robin Hood. But Prince John has different plans for Nottingham that revolve around a fateful secret from Scarlet’s past even she isn’t yet aware of.

Mary Bennet - overlooked, laughed at, despised - married a missionary and vanished into a life of service out in Africa. But now Miriam, her daughter, is coming to England, disliking everything she has been told about her family. Her aunts and cousins are expecting someone quiet, dull and bookish, just like her mother, not the quick-tempered, impulsive girl who arrives. How can this adventurous girl with her desire for freedom possibly fit into their well ordered world? And what havoc will she cause as she tries?

Catherine Collins, a very ordinary young woman - plain, quiet, often overlooked but possessing a reputation for having great common sense. Or so her distant cousin Elizabeth Darcy believes when she recommends her as governess for little Matilda Courtney. Catherine travels to Northumberland, full of good intentions to do her best and be a credit to the family. But appearances and reputations can be deceptive, and Robert and Martin Courtney will soon learn exactly what type of girl Elizabeth has sent them.

Many years have passed since the dramatic events of Pride and Prejudice. In The Cousins of Pemberley series we follow a new generation of heroines - cousins with lives as different and interesting as those enjoyed by their mothers. Cassandra Wickham, daughter of a flirt and a scoundrel, an innocent abroad in a world where money can buy you anything, even a bride. When danger threatens and the man she thought she could rely on fails her, there is only one place she can turn to for help...Pemberley.