Showing results by narrator "Lucy Scott" in All Categories

It all starts with a young girl playing her ukulele in a dingy folk club. There is something different about the song she sings - a song called 'Life Is Beautiful'. It breaks hearts. It makes money. It might even change the world. But no story of beauty and success in our cruel modern world can be entirely innocent. Can it? Young Girl With a Ukulele is a dark and clever story of music and fame - and the sinister forces which can lie behind them.

Jane Seymour is a shy, dutiful 15-year-old when her eldest brother, Edward, brings his bride home to Wolf Hall. Katherine Filliol is the perfect match for Edward, as well as being a breath of fresh air for the Seymour family, and Jane is captivated by the older girl. Over the course of a long, hot country summer, the two become close friends and allies, while Edward is busy building alliances at court and advancing his career. However, only two years later, the family is torn apart by a dreadful allegation made by Edward against his wife.

Will Shakespeare is about to meet the girl who will change his life forever. After a mixed-up courtship with the Hathaway sisters ends badly, Will jumps at the chance to go to London, where he can pursue his dream of becoming an actor. There, Will meets the unusually tall (and strong) Meg who has earned the nickname "Long Meg" for her height. She's also fleeing her own past as an orphan turned thief. Disguised as "Mack", Meg was once a member of a band of boy thieves who betrayed her.

St. Petersburg, 1911: Inna Feldman has fled the pogroms to take refuge with relatives in Russia’s capital city. Welcomed into the flamboyant Leman family, she is apprenticed into their violin-making workshop. But revolution is in the air and, as society begins to fracture, she is forced to choose between her heart and her head. She loves her brooding cousin, Yasha, but he is wild and destructive; Horace Wallich, the Englishman who works for Fabergé, is older and promises security and respectability.

Sophie, bereft after the loss of her mother and her husband's betrayal, walks out. She seeks refuge with her friend Jill on the Isle of Wight, not suspecting she is about to be drawn into another crisis. For Jill, a psychologist, has her own complex reasons for persuading Sophie to stay.

When Jake Jellicoe signs up as a cabin boy aboard the Flounder, Captain Dreadnought promises him a share of the loot. But he soon discovers that the captain isn't all he seems. And before he knows it, Jake is caught up in a race for the dread pirate Redbeard's treasures! Har-har, me hearties!

It's Easter in the Suffolk village of Great Saxwold. Oliver Hardcastle is scraping an existence as an organic farmer. Miranda Marlow, high-earning international town-planner, is not looking forward to a weekend with her mother at a country-house hotel. But thanks to a teenage Goth, a wine-tasting at Chateau Saxwold, and an urban fox, love finds a way to change Miranda's mind.

As the Wars of the Roses draw slowly to a close, England is a place of turmoil. Edward IV is on the throne but his position is unstable and he finds himself challenged by a man who could become Henry VII. But Isabel, a silk weaver to the court and mistress to Richard III, can cut through the turmoil with her clever ways and her pretty smile. Her sister Jane is mistress to Edward IV. Could they hold the power?

Fourteenth century England.The country is in turmoil.The King is in debt to the City,and the old order had broken down.The King's mistress,Alice Perrers,becomes the virtual ruler of the country. Dislaked and despised by the Black Prince, her strong connections to the merchants make her a natural ally for the King's ambitious second son,John of Gaunt. Together, they create a powerfull position for one of his henchmen, Geoffrey Chaucer.

When Boyd moves back into the family home with his amicably estranged wife, Vita, and his young, beautiful girlfriend, Honey, it seems the perfect solution: Boyd can get his finances back on track and deal with his ailing mother; Honey can keep herself safe from her troubled past; and Vita can carry on telling herself she doesn't mind her marriage is over. But the house is small and full of memories, and living together is unsettling. For Vita, Boyd and Honey, love proves to be a surprising, dangerous thing and, one year on, their lives are changed forever.

A leading industrialist of the 19th and 20th centuries, Andrew Carnegie was one of America's most successful and generous businessmen. The autobiography tells of his rise to power, from humble beginnings in Scotland to controlling the biggest steel empire in the history of the United States. Carnegie lays down the blueprint for success, with an abundance of inspiring life lessons, while also giving unique first-hand impressions of burgeoning 19th century America and some of the most prominent people of the age, including Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Often compared to Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest tells the poignant story of a passionate and spontaneous young woman who becomes trapped in a dull and restrictive upper-class existence. Married at the tender age of 17 to Geert von Innstetten, an ambitious nobleman and civil servant nearly 20 years her senior, unworldly Effi is whisked away to the quiet town of Kessin, on the Baltic coast of Prussia, where she is left to raise a daughter alone while her husband travels for work.

A brilliant debut brimming with secrets, mystery and friendship, set against a backdrop of the First World War in the walled gardens of Ickworth estate. ​October 1916. Clara is sent to stay with her formidable aunt and uncle in the grounds of a country estate. Clara soon discovers that her new surroundings hold secrets: a locked room and a hidden key, and a mysterious boy who appears in the gardens only at night.... But can Clara face up to her own secrets and a war she's desperate to forget?

Three-a-Penny describes what it is like to be a woman in a man's world - about the ups and downs of earning a living as a writer in the 1920s and '30s. Lucy Malleson wrote over 70 crime novels and was part of what is often referred to as the Golden Age of crime writing. But in order to be published she used a male pseudonym and successfully concealed her true identity for many years.

There are those who never grow old because they are taken too soon. There are those who grow old without worries, enjoying everything life has to offer. There are those who desperately try to slow down the ticking clock. And then there's Betty. Betty, who mysteriously stops growing old on her thirtieth birthday - the same age as her mother when she died. The years leave no trace on Betty's face, but as everyone around her is transformed by the relentless march of time, her once golden life begins to come apart.

1553: deeply divided England rejoices as the rightful heir, Mary Tudor, sweeps to power on a tide of populist goodwill. But the people should have been careful what they wished for: Mary's mission is to turn back time to an England of old. Within weeks there is widespread rebellion in favour of her heir, her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, who is everything that Mary isn't. From now on, Elizabeth will have to use her considerable guile just to stay alive.

A bold, sharp, gripping debut about a couple whose perfect life in the Swedish countryside is not what it seems.... In an idyllic house in a Swedish wood, Merry and her husband are building their new dream life with their young baby, far away from events that overshadowed their old life in New York. And they’re happy, aren’t they? Blissfully, blissfully happy. When Merry’s childhood friend Frances comes to stay, Frances barely recognises her old friend Merry, pureeing baby food, baking, living the Swedish dream....

The horror of the male experience during World War One was well documented in poetry, memoir, and fiction throughout the 20th century. Women's voices of despair, endurance and anger, however, have often been forgotten. These poems of political fury, widowed brides, industry undertaken, and sons and friends loved and lost, give a heartbreaking insight into the experience of women throughout World War One.

Renee Gulliver appears to have it all: a beautiful house overlooking a scenic estuary on England’s East Coast, a successful career as a relationship therapist, three grown-up children, and a beloved grandson, Xavier. But then Xavier vanishes after Renee fails to pick him up from school, and the repercussions are manifold. Renee is wracked with remorse; the local community question her priorities, clients abandon her; and, as long-held grievances surface, her daughter Mia offers her a heartbreaking ultimatum.

It’s 1979 and Amanda Fernsby, nineteen and inexperienced, dreams of lasting love. She leaves London with her parents to start a new life in rural Sussex, moving into Marshywood, a charming, rustic cottage. Now, surrounded by nature, she is excited to begin her new life, but there are bumps in the road ahead.