Showing results by narrator "Clare Corbett" in All Categories

Often compared to Catherine the Great or Elizabeth I, Caroline of Ansbach is the great queen Britain forgot it had - a thinker, politician, schemer, patroness and matriarch. This book offers a remarkable portrait of a woman of great political astuteness and ambition, a radical icon of female power. The intellectual superior of her husband, George II, Caroline is credited with bringing the Enlightenment to Britain through her sponsorship of red-hot debates about science, religion, philosophy and the nature of the universe.

The laugh-out-loud funny girl series returns - and Nat is more embarrassed than ever! From TV and radio comedy writing talent Nigel Smith. For some girls the chance to be a bridesmaid is a dream come true. But for Nathalia it's a total nightmare. From the hideous fairy princess bridesmaid dresses to the disastrous bridal shower, everything about the wedding of her cousin, Tiffannee, leaves Nat feeling completely ridiculous!

Hannah Riley and her musician husband, Will, hope that a move to the Suffolk countryside will promise a fresh start. Hannah, a human rights worker, is desperate for a child and she hopes that this new life will realise her dream. Yet when the snow comes, Will is working in London and Hannah is cut off in their remote village. Life in Tornley turns out to be far from idyllic: Who are the threatening figures who lurk near their property at night? And why is her neighbour so keen to see them leave?

After twelve years of marriage to English explorer James Cook, Elizabeth has yet to spend an entire year with her husband. In their house by the Thames, she moves to the rhythms of her life as a society wife, but there is so much more to her than meets the eye. She has the fortitude to manage the house and garden, raise their children, and face unbearable sorrow by herself - in fact, she is sometimes in thrall to her own independence.

Jenny has just given birth to the baby she’s always wanted. She’s never been this happy. Her husband, Leo, knows this baby girl can’t be his. He’s never felt so betrayed. The same night, a vulnerable young woman, Hannah, wakes to find her newborn lifeless beside her. She’s crazed with grief. When chance throws Hannah into Leo’s path, they make a plan that will have shattering consequences for all of them. Years later, a 16-year-old girl reads an article in a newspaper and embarks on a journey to uncover the truth about herself.

1944, Germany. Louise struggles down from the cattle car, stumbling on the platform as guards shout harsh threats to keep moving. Blinking at the rows of terrified women, hope drains from her heart as her sister’s warnings ring in her ears…Seven months earlier, Paris. Louise Beaufoy ushers the American airforcemen down to her basement, heart racing and ears pricked. Will this group finally be the one that gets her caught?

When Caroline walks into the bustling bar of a hotel on a Friday afternoon, no one could have predicted what is about to unfold. With chilling precision, she pulls out a gun and shoots her lover five times in cold blood. The crime, committed in plain sight, leaves no room for doubt—Caroline is guilty. But when questioned, she offers no explanation and refuses to comment. As the case explodes across media outlets, a popular true-crime podcast begins to dig deeper into Caroline's life.

Lucy and Jake live in a house by a field where the sun burns like a ball of fire. Lucy works from home but devotes her life to the children, to their finely tuned routine and to the house itself, which comforts her like an old, sly friend. But then a man calls one afternoon with a shattering message: his wife has been having an affair with Lucy’s husband, he wants her to know. The revelation marks a turning point: Lucy and Jake decide to stay together, but in a special arrangement designed to even the score and save their marriage, she will hurt him three times.

Sisters Margaret and Annie lost their mother years ago, they long for her every day. Their frightfully protective father keeps the girls close but he can’t protect them forever . . . When a scandal rocks the family, the girls are forced to leave their home. The girls flee to Birmingham’s jewellery quarter to stay with the one person they can rely on – their uncle, goldsmith Ebenezer Watts and his warm-hearted wife, Hatt. Annie takes up work at a nearby factory, where she learns to forge cutlery, and Margaret is employed as a chain maker.

Nicola is the kind of girl who double-locks the front door, leaves the plastic covering on new furniture and definitely does not date. Caroline knows that Nicola’s living only half a life. And so she lays down the gauntlet: Nicola must go on as many dates as it takes to find true love in time for Valentine’s Day. Nicola is about to find out that letting go isn’t quite as scary as she imagined…

After solving a series of murders at Blackpool Tower Ballroom, all Lily Richmond and Susie Cooper want is a peaceful Christmas. The last thing they expect is to find a dead body backstage at the Royal Albert Hall. Even worse, the victim is one of Lily’s students, a trust fund debutante set to be the new star of the ballroom dancing world. Lily and Susie set to investigating, but every clue throws up more questions, and around every corner lurk more suspects. And along the way, familiar faces on the dance scene will make themselves known – some that ought to stay in the past.

Budapest, 1963. Special Investigator Bertalan Lázár and his wife, spymaster Franciska Lázár, face formidable challenges as they try to navigate a path through the dangerous underworld of Cold War-era Hungary. Catching the criminals is difficult enough, but there are other more threatening battles raging in higher places.

Maddy runs the bookshop on Market Square. She's struggling to choose a gift for her old school friend Peter, who's just moved back from London following a messy divorce. Peter doesn't have a clue what to get for his teenage daughter Chloe—he worries that he really doesn't know her at all. Chloe wants to buy something special for her grandmother Irene, her confidente and guiding light, who lives alone on the other side of town.

As the Great Smog falls over London in 1952, Florrie Palmer has a choice to make. Will she stay with the Cutters, a gang of female criminals who have terrorised London for years and are led by her own mother? Or leave it all behind to make a safer, duller life with the man she loves? And what will she do if she's too crooked to go straight, and too good to go bad? Over the next five days, Florrie will have to find her own path and the courage to stumble along it - in a fog so thick that she can't see her own feet.

Extraordinary and diverse people inhabit this rich, ripe, occasionally raucous collection of short stories. Some are based on real people - Jeanne Duval, Baudelaire's handsome and reluctant muse who never asked to be called the Black Venus, trapped in the terminal ennui of the poet's passion, snatching at a little lifesaving respectability against all odds....

The Mindful Living series is a new series of short mindfulness books dedicated to enhancing three important areas of our lives: parenting, relationships and work. Best-selling author and mindfulness guru Oli Doyle shows that all the key domains of life provide great opportunities to practice mindfulness and discover peace of mind. In present-moment parenting, Oli guides the listener through a six-week guide to show how mindfulness can help us be completely present in the messy reality that is parenting.

In a vast African landscape, four teenagers and a journalist vanish without trace. As Ella, the sister of one of the missing girls, helps the police piece together what happened, she realises there are terrifying possibilities for her sister and the others.

Five full-cast dramas by the celebrated Scottish writer Liz Lochhead, plus a short story. Liz Lochhead is a widely recognised poet, playwright and performer. She was the Makar, Scotland’s national poet, between 2011 and 2016, and was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2015. The six pieces in this anthology are characterised by their evocative language and focus on different facets of female identity: from schoolgirls, wives and mothers to convention-defying creators and ‘cunning women’.

One ordinary morning, Norah walked out of her house on Willoughby Street and never looked back. Six years later, she returns to the home she walked away from only to find another woman in her place. Fay held Norah's family together after she disappeared, she shares a bed with Norah's husband, and Norah's youngest daughter calls Fay 'Mummy'. Now that Norah has returned, everyone has questions. Where has she been? Why did she leave? And why is she back?

July, 1997. Matilda is killed in a tragic accident on the Dorset rocks, leaving her best friend Sophie alone, wracked with guilt. Decades later, Sophie is back for the first time since that terrible summer, to sell her family's old beach hut and bury the memories forever. But on clearing out the hut, she finds evidence that Matilda's death was no accident. What really happened the night she died? As Sophie edges closer to the truth, the past starts to close in on the present.