Showing results by narrator "Katy Sobey" in All Categories

Annie Perry is born beside the coal-muddied canals of the Black Country, at the height of the Industrial Revolution. The youngest in a large Romani family who cannot afford to keep her, when she is eight years old, Annie is sold as a servant to the famous and feared bare-knuckle boxer Bill Perry, The Tipton Slasher. Bill is starting to lose his strength, but refuses to give up his crown. When it looks like a fight might become Bill's last, Annie steps into the ring, fists raised in his defence.

In Second World War Bath, young, naïve wireless engineer Will meets Austrian refugee Elsa Klein: she is sophisticated, witty and worldly, and at last his life seems to make sense . . . until, soon after, the couple's home is bombed, and Will awakes from the blast to find himself alone. No one has heard of Elsa Klein. They say she never existed.

London, 1879. Della Rose scans the crowds until she finds her target. A well-dressed gentleman with a fine gold watch. Stealing it will be easy. Everyone knows she has the quickest hands in the notorious Seven Dials. The gentleman’s name is Cole Winthrop and he’s been watching her for a while, waiting to see whether the scandalous things people say about her are true. Because if they are, he needs her help. Something was stolen from him long ago. And only a thief can get it back. But to do so, Della must first learn how to walk, talk, ride and flirt like a lady.

After her husband Jack is transported to Australia as a convict, Hannah and her children are sent to the workhouse. Hearing nothing from Jack and believing he's dead, Hannah reluctantly agrees to marry widower Ellis Duxbury. But her children must remain in the workhouse, and when they are sent away as apprentices, it's up to Hannah to track them down. On Christmas Eve, Hannah is blessed with a miracle when Jack returns to the village. Yet more trouble lies ahead as Hannah is arrested, accused of bigamy and threatened with deportation herself.

Life is going well for Maria. Welcomed into the Saward family, she has secured herself a job as a maid for Queen Alexandra and is living with her family in a beautiful cottage on the Royal Sandringham estate. The luxuries and privilege associated with the royal family are a far cry from the poverty and suffering she endured before, though the royals, like the nation, are tightening their belts. But when a mysterious relative turns up, seemingly on the run from the law, Maria's new-found happiness could be under threat.

It's 1915, and Ada, Jessie and Beatrice Saward live in a small Norfolk village with their parents. Their father, Harry, is the station master at Wolferton, the local stop for the Sandringham Estate. With members of the royal family and their guests passing through the train station on their way to Sandringham, the Saward family have a unique position within their small community.

When Emma’s useless fiancé tells her a lie she cannot forgive, she decides enough is enough. She leaves him, quits her dead-end job, and travels hundreds of miles away to Honeymoon in the Dorset countryside, to help her friend Tia turn the old train station into a boutique hotel. Tia has told Emma that it will be a project, but when Emma arrives in Honeymoon and sees a weed-choked crumbling ruin, her vision of an idyllic life in Dorset begins to disintegrate. But when she meets twinkly-eyed builder Aiden, she can’t help but feel that the stars have for once aligned.

Gabriela, a senior negotiator in the FCO’s Counter-Terrorism Unit, runs a small and powerful team based in Whitehall. She is tenacious, hard-working and the family breadwinner. Her husband, Tom - a freelance architect - looks after their two small children. When Gabriela returns from a seven-month stint in Moscow, something doesn’t seem right. Isobel is a journalist working for the local paper in Camden. Walking home from a party one night, she witnesses a horrific attack. But someone has seen her and is making themselves known in increasingly frightening ways.

When Eden turns the key in the red door of Four Winds Cottage, the clifftop house where she used to holiday as a child, she is overwhelmed with bittersweet memories. She lost her mother recently, and she’s hoping Seaglass Bay will heal her broken heart. The villagers welcome Eden with open arms, but she can’t help but notice that life is tough for them when the holidaymakers go home. Her mother always gave so much to those around her, and Eden is determined to follow in her footsteps.

1882. When Violet Latimer steps off the train in Paris, she instantly feels at home. Here she can escape her scandalous origins in the rookery of Seven Dials and finally make a name for herself as a painter. But it’s not long before her past catches up with her. The notorious gangster Archie Neville is fresh out of prison and determined to make her his wife–and catch whoever put him away in the first place.

Norfolk, 1940. In the dark days of the war, Emmeline’s nursery is the only thing giving mothers hope. But how long can she keep that hope alive? An inspiring and emotional story of love and strength in the darkest of times. Emmeline’s daughter, Lydia, has already been evacuated and now, as Emmeline loses neighbours and friends to the bombs raining down around her, she must leave London too – for safety and a fresh start.

Amelie has lived in Cornflower Cottage since she was born. She did her homework at the scrubbed kitchen table and helped her mum hang washing from the line on the old oak tree in the garden. And when her beloved parents died, Cornflower Cottage became Amelie’s armor against the world. The trouble is that Cornflower Cottage is too big for just her. With a broken boiler and a leaking roof, Amelie knows she must do something to make ends meet.

When the parish guardians send Lydia, daughter of convict James Knowles, to apprentice in the cotton mill at Caton, she is distraught at being parted from her younger siblings and mother, Betty, but she has no choice. At the mill, Lydia is bullied by some of the other girls and things do not go well when she stands up to the ringleader. Fearing she has killed someone and with the word murderess ringing in her ears, Lydia runs for her life.

Recently, Kilian has grown distant, a terrible tragedy at sea causing him to withdraw. Try as she might, Gaby can’t get her beloved husband to open up, and she knows Kilian has been lying about where he has been going. Gaby wants to believe she can trust him. Gaby’s sisters rally round in her hour of need and remind her of everything she has that is worth fighting for. But just as she makes her decision, she sees helicopters circling the sea, and the call she has dreaded her whole life comes in.

The Cambridge Fens, 1938. Little Rosanna is part of a close-knit Fenland family and the youngest of three cousins. In a time of childhood abandon and adventures on the water, life couldn't be more perfect. But things are not always as they seem. When Rosanna's new baby brother is born, tragedy strikes the family. And with the outbreak of World War II just around the corner and a move to the Norfolk countryside, Rosanna's life is changed forever.

Running from her past, Rachel answers an advert to be a live-in assistant to glamorous and eccentric author Dorothy Winters. But behind the closed doors of Dorothy's mansion, she quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems. When Dorothy's manuscript throws up striking similarities to events in Rachel's own life, she becomes convinced that the past she's tried to hide is catching up with her. Then the phone calls start. The parcel arrives. The blood shows up in the bathroom. And Dorothy's friend disappears....

A miraculous new Christmas story from award-winning author Sally Nicholls about hope and heartbreak, wartime romance and the power of love. 17-year-old Margot Allan was a respectable vicar’s daughter and madly in love with her fiancé Harry. But when Harry was reported missing in action from the Western Front, and Margot realised she was expecting his child, there was only one solution she and her family could think of in order to keep that respectability. She gave up James, her baby son, to be adopted by her parents and brought up as her younger brother.

Kitty Marchland has always known that her family isn't like others. But when her father uproots them to a remote cottage in the woods, she realises that her parents are keeping secrets from her - secrets that could unravel everything. Years later, Kitty starts to question what really happened out in the forest. When the police revisit a suspicious death, she must examine her most painful memories - and this time, there’s nowhere to hide.

Isadora and her family are visiting the Frost Festival, a huge celebration of the winter fairies! There's ice skating, fairground rides, gingerbread houses and lots of delicious fairy hot chocolate. It's magical! But in the hustle and bustle Isadora gets separated from both her family and Pink Rabbit. Can she find them before the grand fairy lights are switched on?

When Isadora's cousin, Mirabelle, comes to stay, Isadora is really excited. Mirabelle, who is a witch, is older than Isadora and always has the best ideas for things to do. So when she suggests that instead of taking Pink Rabbit Isadora should take a dragon to 'Bring Your Pet to School Day', Isadora ignores her worries and goes along with the plan.