Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

Harriet and Fletcher Tuke have worked hard to raise their children well. Daniel, the eldest son, has always accepted that his birth father died soon after he was born, and Fletcher has raised Daniel as his own. But as Daniel comes of age and begins to fall in love with childhood friend Beatrice Hart, he can’t help but wonder about his heritage – his olive skin and dark eyes reminding him daily of the difference between him and his siblings, and between his and Beatrice’s families.

The moment artist Riana Evans sees the dilapidated mansion in Wales she longs to buy it, despite its unhappy past – 20 years ago, five maids died there in mysterious circumstances. So she is delighted when the house’s elderly and eccentric owner sells it to her for a pittance. The house’s “ghosts” prove good for business – inspiring her paintings and providing welcome atmosphere for a series of successful ghost-spotting weekends.

The George pub in the backstreets of Liverpool lost its landlord when he ran off with the barmaid. Now his wife Eve runs the pub with the help of her three daughters and together they face up to all that life can throw at them. Warm-hearted, full of nostalgic descriptions of life in an earlier era, Lyn Andrews' latest has all the ingredients that her many thousands of fans look for and find in each new novel.

After Ruth Dixon's mother deserts her on Christmas Eve, her father comes home drunk and commits an unthinkable act. Without money or friends she has nowhere to go, but when he hurts her a second time, she knows what she must do. She is rescued by Jay, a businessman, who takes her to the convent where she meets Sister Madeline. Along with the rest of the nuns, Maddy provides food, shelter and education for orphans. Ruth comes to see her new friends as family, and things are finally looking up.

Thousands of short stories were published during the First World War, which coincided with the heyday of the fiction magazine in Britain. Much of this material has never been republished since the end of the war and is virtually lost to the modern audience. This new collection is an important work of recovery, introducing little-known magazine short fiction - which was primarily written for a civilian readership - by major writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle as well as more neglected authors.

1912 in The Yorkshire Dales and Alice Bentham and her brother Will have lost their mother to cancer. Money is scarce and pride doesn't pay the doctor or put food on the table. Alice gets work at Whernside Manor looking after Lord Frankland's fragile sister Miss Nancy. Meanwhile Will and his best friend Jack begin working for the Lord of the Manor at the marble mill. But their purpose there is not an entirely honest one.

Best friends Bernie and Molly are just seventeen when they set off from Ireland in 1928, heading for Liverpool. They quickly find jobs and rooms; soon both women are in love with local men. Tragically, though, Bernie is widowed when she's still barely an adult, while Molly has chosen a bad 'un and faces the deepest shame when he deserts her. But this difficult start only reinforces the bond between the women, and gives them the strength to build a brighter future...

A love story, a modern nightmare and an honest and incisive portrayal of a woman who honours her husband's wish to die and finds herself in the dock for murder. When Deborah reluctantly helps her beloved husband Neil end his life and conceals the truth, she is charged with murder. As the trial unfolds and her daughter Sophie testifies against her, Deborah, still reeling with grief, fights to defend her actions. Twelve jurors hold her fate in their hands, if found guilty she will serve a life sentence.

Poppy Mazzini, born in Hull over her father’s grocery shop, lives up to the promise of her fiery red hair and Italian ancestry. Her lovely singing voice and good looks lead her to her great ambition - to go on the stage and see her name top of the bill. She becomes a music hall star both in her native town and in the south, after an appearance in the theatre at Brighton.

The extraordinary true story of surviving the unimaginable … In 1945, seven-year-old Barbie and her sister Eva were trapped, terrified, in wartorn Germany. With their father missing, and hundreds of miles from their mother, news of the approaching army left them confronted with an impossible choice: to face invasion, or to flee on foot.Eva, aged nineteen, was determined to find her mother.

Rose Pritchard and her seven-year-old daughter Maddie have left everything behind to come to the village of Millthwaite, Cumbria, in search of the person who once offered Rose hope. Almost immediately Rose wonders if she's chasing a dream - but she knows in her heart that she cannot go back. She's been given a second chance - at life, and love - but will she have the courage to take it?

Mary McGann's marriage has always been difficult, thanks to her husband Frank's drunken, jealous nature. Only because the little money he earns in the docks keeps food in the mouths of their children is Mary prepared to put up with him. But when Frank throws them all out on the street, Mary flees to her family in Dublin. There she meets Richard O'Neill, a handsome though solitary man. Despite the attraction between them, Mary's not looking for love....

When best friends Dee Campbell and Jean Williams leave school, in 1959, it feels like every opportunity awaits them. Their families haven't long moved from a rundown part of the city to leafy Kirkby when Jean's father wins the Irish sweepstake and soon Jean's set up her own hairdressing salon, while both girls have fallen for good-looking lads with prospects. It's hard to imagine being any happier. But Dee's father is about to discover a disturbing truth about her fiancé. With one revelation, the Campbells are torn apart. As Dee flees to Ireland, Jean marries Tony, blissfully unaware that she's not the only pretty girl to catch his eye....

Britain is at war and Ruth, a gifted pilot, is determined to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Over in America, Jack and Lucy Nelson, are also keen to join. After a perilous journey by sea, Jack is posted to White Waltham, where he quite literally bumps into Ruth.

It's December 1953. As the village prepares for the festivities, for many people, a happy Christmas is by no means certain. Recovering from a car-crash, Stella Simmons, the winter wedding that she and her sweetheart had planned seems impossible. Elsewhere in the village, Jackie Tozer is dreaming of America and Hilary Napier, who thought the war had robbed her of her chance at happiness, has to ask herself if she could ever imagine leaving her life at the big house. The darkest time of the year finds everyone asking questions with no easy answer.

England, 1940: Clara is forced to flee her home as the Nazis invade the beautiful island of Guernsey, leaving her mother Julia behind. She's scared and alone, but her spirits lift a little when she learns she's headed for Blackpool. Her slight hopes are crushed however when she is housed with and at the mercy of a cruel shopkeeper, Miss Brandon. Clara is worked like a dog, but the warmth of some newly made Blackpool friendships will go far to save her. Separated from her beloved daughter, Julia heads to London to try and track Clara down but she is thwarted at every turn.

Lexi Jakes thought she could run from her past. But when her biological mother is found dead, strangled with a red silk scarf and holding a chess piece, Lexi knows that her worst nightmare has come true. Because the murder has all the hallmarks of her own serial killer father, renown strangler Peter Graves. Now with her own precious daughter’s life in danger, Lexi will do anything to keep her child safe...she is the serial killer's girl after all.

Working at a tiny village school in rural Yorkshire has its own unique set of challenges - but when teachers Lydia Knight and Jake Immingham are tasked with getting the children to put on a Christmas play for the local elderly people’s home, they know they’re in for a tricky term! But in between choreographing sugar plum dance routines, reindeer costume malfunctions and trying to contain Rory Scott’s wannabe rap star aspirations, Lydia realises that, even as a teacher, she isn’t past being taught a couple of things - and one of those things is a much-needed lesson in Christmas spirit.

York, 1879. Greta Costello must rely on her wits to survive. She finds refuge as a Saturday girl for an old jeweler, Saul Abrahams, and her eye for detail, her long fingers, and her appreciation of beauty persuade Saul to train her as a pearl stringer. This skill will lead her through hardship and pain toward a new life. Scotland, 1879. Jem Baillie knows the immense power of a perfect pearl. His father was a fisher on a tributary of the Tay River in Perthshire, Scotland, and together they found the rarest of pearls, a great white pearl they call Queenie.

Back in 1950 Pamela Rhodes became one of the first policewomen in the country. But the force's new female recruits faced a sceptical public in rural Yorkshire and even before they stepped out on the beat there were the prejudices of older male officers to overcome. Yet from the first Pam was thrust into the front line. From runaway bulls to investigating ladies of the night and cases of vice, her innocent eyes were quickly opened.