Showing results by narrator "Clare Corbett" in All Categories

In 1875, Sisi, the Empress of Austria is the woman that every man desires and every woman envies. Beautiful, athletic, and intelligent, Sisi has everything - except happiness. Bored with the stultifying etiquette of the Hapsburg Court and her dutiful but unexciting husband, Franz Joseph, Sisi comes to England to hunt. She comes looking for excitement and she finds it in the dashing form of Captain Bay Middleton, the only man in Europe who can outride her.

Maggie Flynn isn’t your typical 1960s mum. She’s a spy, an unsuspecting operative for MI5, stalking London’s streets in myriad disguises. Widowed and balancing her clandestine career with raising a Beatles-mad teenage daughter, Maggie finds comfort and purpose in her profession – providing a connection to her late husband, whose own covert past only surfaced after his death. But Maggie’s world spins out of control when a chance encounter with a mysterious Russian agent triggers a chilling revelation: he knew her husband.

Now anyone can have a baby. With FullLife’s safe and affordable health-care plan, the brave new world is here. Without the pouch, Eva might not have been born. And yet she has sacrificed her career, and maybe even her relationship, campaigning against FullLife’s biotech baby pouches. Despite her efforts, everyone prefers a world where women are liberated from danger and constraint and all can share the joy of childbearing. Perhaps FullLife has helped transform society for the better? But just as Eva decides to accept this, she discovers that something strange is happening at FullLife.

December 2018, and free-spirited Influencers Bo Loxley and her partner, Zac, are living a life of wanderlust, travelling the globe and sharing their adventures with their millions of fans. Booked to spend Christmas in the Norwegian fjords, they set up home in a remote farm owned by enigmatic mountain guide Anders and his fierce grandmother, Signy. Surrounded by snowy peaks and frozen falls, everything should be perfect. But the camera can lie, and with every new post, the ‘perfect’ life Zac and Bo are portraying is diverging from the truth.

It’s destined to be the ultimate reality show: Ten contestants. A luxurious villa on a stunning private island. Every moment streamed live to a global audience who have unprecedented control over those competing for the cash prize. Coerced by her callous editor to enter the show undercover, Laura is a journalist told to get the inside scoop on her fellow contestants. But once the games begin, she soon finds herself out of her depth and at the mercy of a ruthless producer – a woman willing to do anything to increase viewer numbers.

When Mr. Collins dies after just four years of marriage, Charlotte is lost. While not exactly heartbroken, she will soon have to quit the parsonage that has become her home. In desperate need of support, she writes to her best friend, Lizzie. Unable to leave Pemberley, Lizzie sends her sister, Mary Bennet, to offer support in her stead. To Charlotte's surprise, Mary Bennet is nothing like she remembers. Mary's discovery of academia and her interest in botany (as well as getting out from under her mother's thumb) have caused her to flourish.

New Nigeria is a good, clean, all-American town. The husbands are smiling and handsome, the wives are strong, rich, and powerful, and Nat Turner High is the best public school in the state. Yet, the citizens of this idyllic community find themselves in a rapidly changing country and, to be perfectly honest, some of them are a teeny bit uncomfortable with it all.

The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone...so she ventured out from the safety of the enchanted forest on a quest for others of her kind. Joined along the way by the bumbling magician Schmendrick and the indomitable Molly Grue, the unicorn learns all about the joys and sorrows of life and love before meeting her destiny in the castle of a despondent monarch-and confronting the creature that would drive her kind to extinction.

A huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women.It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S.

BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of three of Eric Ambler’s best-selling spy thrillers, plus Nick Perry’s play The Battle of San Pietro and a bonus documentary, Ambler at 80. Eric Ambler has been hailed as ‘the father of the modern spy story’. His tense, gritty thrillers introduced a new realism to the classic espionage mystery, and influenced novelists from Graham Greene to John le Carré. This collection brings together three of his best-known novels, adapted for radio with a full cast.

On a busy train station platform, a man pulls a knife and viciously attacks another passenger before fleeing - apparently unaware of what he has just done. To the police, it looks like a terrorist attack. But forensic psychologist Dr Jo McCready has seen this bizarre behaviour before, in controversial psychological experiments. She knows this is no random killing spree. When a botched cold case resurfaces and the mistress of a controversial billionaire philanthropist is found dead, Jo discovers all these crimes are tangled up in the same web of deadly local secrets.

The summer holidays have begun. In a seaside caravan resort, Isabel and her sister Meg build sandcastles with the children, navigate deckchair politics, explore the pier's delights, gorge ice cream in the sun. But their half-sister Mildred has returned to a nearby coastal cottage where her husband - the mysterious Uncle Paul - was arrested for his first wife's attempted murder. Now, on his release from prison, is he returning for revenge, seeking who betrayed him?

1266. Eleanor of Castile, adored wife of the Crown Prince of England, is still only a princess when she is held hostage in the brutal Baron's Rebellion and her baby daughter dies. Scarred by privation, a bitter Eleanor swears revenge on those who would harm her family - and vows never to let herself be vulnerable again. As she rises to become queen, Eleanor keeps Olwen - a trusted herbalist, who tried to save her daughter - by her side. But it is dangerous to be friendless in a royal household.

'I started to write short pieces when I was living in a room too small to write a novel in.' So says Angela Carter of this collection, written during a period living in Toyko. These exotic, sensuous stories represent Carter's first major achievement in the short story form. Lush imaginary forests, a murderous puppet show and an expressionistic vision of Japan: each one instantly conjures an atmosphere, dark and luminous in turn, and from the recognisably daring imagination of one of the great 20th-century stylists.

Austria, 1938. Anne von Korvacs watches in horror as Hitler's tanks roll through the streets of Vienna, amid crowds of cheering supporters. Her embittered ex-husband, now a fervent member of the Nazi cause, is among the cavalcade - he is burning with hatred for Anne, seeing her as a symbol of the old Austrian empire he once served. A chance encounter with a British journalist leaves Anne with a secret that must be smuggled out of the country, and Anne knows that she must forsake her beloved Vienna and with her children flee to Britain.

Laugh-out-loud funny for girls in this hilarious new series from TV and radio comedy-writing talent Nigel Smith. The most embarrassing dad in the world is back and embarrassing Nat even more than ever! This time they're on holiday in France, but everything is far from bonne!

Single mother Callie has come to rely heavily on her best friend Suzy. But Callie suspects Suzy's life isn't as simple as it seems. It's time she pulled away - going back to work is just the first step towards rediscovering her old confidence. So why does she keep putting off telling Suzy about her new job? And who will care for her rather frail daughter, Rae, while she is gone?

In the sweltering summer of 1997, straight-laced, straight-A student Karen met Biba - a bohemian and impossibly glamorous aspiring actress. A few months later, two people were dead and another had been sent to prison. Having stood by Rex as he served his sentence, Karen is now married to him with a daughter, Alice, who runs a vintage clothing company in London. They're a normal family, as long as they don't talk about the past, never mention the name Biba, and ignore Alice's flashes of dark, dangerous fury.

A woman stands on a bridge, the water rushing below. In a few seconds she will jump, plunging more than 200 feet to her death. Who is she? And why is she desperate to take her own life? Nina Kennedy, a wife and mother, is afraid. A man is following her, threatening her family, toying with her sanity. What does he want? And how long will it be before he strikes? Eight-year-old Ava sits waiting for her daddy. But, like the others in the children's home, she knows her father will never come. The home is a place of whispers and shadows. But no one dare tell the truth. Until now....

In the spring of 1938 Elise Landau arrives at Tyneford, the great house on the bay. A bright young thing from Vienna forced to become a parlourmaid, she knows nothing about England except that she won't like it. As servants polish silver and serve drinks on the lawn, Elise wears her mother's pearls beneath her uniform and causes outrage by dancing with a boy called Kit. But war is coming, and the world is changing. And Elise must change with it. At Tyneford she learns that you can be more than one person. And that you can love more than once.