Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

All her short life, 11-year-old Rose Webster has encountered closed doors. Growing up in the slums of London with her siblings, trying to avoid their violent, drunken father, she develops an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and becomes convinced that she and her loved ones deserve better. All Rose has is a quick mind and the will to survive. Can she open that door and seize the chance to make something of herself?

The most talented voice since Dilly Court - an absorbing, thrilling and romantic historical saga with characters you'll fall in love with. Mattie Maguire is a 26-year-old widow with an infant son. Since her husband, Brian, died three years before, she has struggled to keep the family's East End coal business solvent, as well as taking care of her troubled mother-in-law. But unbeknown to Mattie, life is about to get even tougher.

When Nell Draper leaves the workhouse to care for the five-year-old son of Lord Eversham, a wealthy landowner, she has no idea of the heartache that lies ahead of her. Robert can't speak. He can't tell her what makes him happy or sad. Nell has to work that out for herself. And not everyone is happy about Robert's existence. Can Nell save him from a desolate future, secure his inheritance and ensure he takes his rightful place in society?

Sent to the workhouse as a child, all Ella Hathaway can remember is a voice whispering, 'Dearie, promise you will never forget what you saw. Your Ma was killed deliberate...and someone oughter pay for it.' When wealthy spinster Letitia Fairchild witnesses Ella being ill treated, she takes her in as a scullery maid. But as Ella grows up, she is determined to find the truth about her mother's death and appeals to Letitia for help, revealing her only personal possession, a black silk purse. Intrigued, Letitia agrees to begin a quest to solve the mystery of Ella's past.

As snow falls outside Abbotsford vicarage on Christmas Eve, Rose Northwood finds a child lying destitute in the manger of the town's nativity display. Reminded of her younger brother, who died at Christmastime, she is determined to nurse the young boy back to health. But the child has lost his memory and can't recall where he came from…

Where is the line between hope and madness? Stella and her boyfriend were teenagers when their one-year-old daughter, Alice, vanished during a beach vacation. Though her body was never found, Alice was assumed to have drowned. Twenty-one years later, Stella is a happily married mother to a 13-year-old son and a successful therapist. But everything falls apart when a new patient walks into her office. The young woman introduces herself as Isabelle - but Stella is sure it’s Alice....

Sue Wilsher, author of When My Ship Comes In, makes an emotional return to 1950s Essex. Tilbury, 1950s. The Empire is a boarding house run by Vi, Doris's mother - the Empire Girls of the title. When Doris becomes pregnant out of marriage, she is kicked out of the house and forced to fend for herself. Desperate to look after her daughter, she takes any job going. She falls in with the Windrush immigrants and finds herself helping one to a new life in Britain.

Nellie Welche’s life changes for ever when she’s proposed as companion to Princess Sophia, daughter of mad King George III and Queen Charlotte. Taken into the heart of the family, Nellie is privy to the innermost secrets of the wayward House of Hanover. From the first rumblings of the French Revolution to the beginnings of the railway age, Nellie charts their story as she and Princess Sofy support each other through the ups and downs of their extraordinary lives.

Maryann Nelson's widowed mother, Flo, sees the opportunity to better her family by marrying the local undertaker, Norman Griffin. Though on the surface a caring family man, Maryann and her sister, Sal, soon discover that he has another side to him. For Sal, it is too much to bear and she escapes, leaving Maryann to take revenge on Griffin. The chance of a new life opens up when she befriends Joel Batholomew, who works on the canal. Aboard his narrowboat, she finds herself falling in love with her new life.

She should have been safe. But she never came home. Kath has lived on the same London estate for decades. Lately she’s become friendly with the little girl next door, who is often left alone for hours while her mum is at work. They have a system. When Mina gets home from school to the empty flat, she knocks on the wall three times. Knock, knock, knock. I’m home safe and sound. But one day Mina’s knock doesn’t come. Kath raises the alarm and the police begin the search. Kath was the only person looking out for Mina—now she might be the only one who can bring her home.

Malice is book three in the best-selling Rina Walker series, following Harm and Threat. London, 1964. Gang warfare is breaking out, and Rina Walker's struggle to survive amid the battles and betrayals of a gruesome cast of racketeers and gangsters requires all her considerable skills as an assassin. Playing one side off against the other to protect those she loves, Rina is caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse where her life is just one of many at stake....

Beautiful, dark-haired Lily has been abandoned in a Birmingham slum as a tiny child. With few clues as to her identity she endures a childhood of loneliness and loss. At eighteen she applies for a post as nanny with the family of a Captain Fairford, a soldier in Ambala, north India and his highly strung wife Susan. Lily is drawn into the emotional life of the Fairford family and adores her charge, two year old Cosmo.

The close, loving family life Rose has known is shattered when the country goes to war. Rose resolves to do her bit so, aged 16, she leaves home to train as a nurse in London. There she finds freedom, excitement and a different way of life. A brief encounter with a soldier opens her eyes to romance, but is he the man she thinks he is? Can first love survive long separation or will Rose discover that her heart belongs to another? When the war brings searing loss and heartbreak, can Rose find the strength to look to the future?

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Sisters of Battle Road by J. M. Maloney, read by Annie Aldington. In 1939, Annie Jarman and her six young daughters were evacuated from their South London home and sent to the Sussex countryside to wait out the war. Little did they know what was in store for them or how their lives would change.

Keep the family together - that's what her old mum always said. Put up and shut up. And that's what everyone else did around there. Essex, 1959. Flo earns her money as a scrubber, cleaning the cruise ships and dreaming of a day when she might sail away from her life in the Dwellings, the squalid tenements of Tilbury docks. Then the Blundell family are evicted from their home.

After a traumatic past, life finally seems to be looking up for Hanna Foster. But war is on its way... London, 1938. Hanna and Jack Foster had been sent to an orphanage when their parents were killed in a train crash, but were separated when a couple adopted Jack. Bullied and treated like a slave, it soon became clear it was a dreadful mistake. In desperation, Jack takes his future into his own hands and runs away to join the merchant navy, while Hanna takes a job looking after two children. For a time, life seems good, but war is looming and threatens to take away everything Hanna holds dear...

What is it like to broadcast the fateful words "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday," then jump into the unknown? The members of one of the world's most unusual brotherhoods provide the answers in this incredible book. Formed during the Second World War to celebrate the survival of pilots who had been forced to bail out over water, the Goldfish Club has taken on new members ever since. They share one pivotal moment, but their experiences beyond this couldn't be more different.

Some secrets are better left buried.... When 17-year-old Phoebe Turner visits Wilton's Music Hall to watch her Aunt Cissy performing on stage, she risks the wrath of her mother Maud who marches with the Hallelujah Army, campaigning for all London theatres to close. there, Phoebe is drawn to a stranger, the enigmatic Nathaniel Samuels, who heralds dramatic changes in the lives of all three women. When offered the position of companion to Nathaniel's reclusive wife, Phoebe leaves her life in London's East End for Dinwood Court a house that may well be haunted....

Robbed of marriage to the man she loved, Leah Bryce rears his daughter Miriam as her own. But her desire for vengeance lead her to treat the girl with extreme cruelty. Leah's son Ralph has always loved the girl he believes to be his sister, and fights to subdue feelings that are more than brotherly. Only when Leah's malign influence is removed for ever can Miriam overcome the horrors of her girlhood to find love and joy at last.

Accused of killing her brother, Rachel Cade is sent to the workhouse to await trial. There, handsome landowner Jared Lytton comes to her rescue. Despite being vindicated, Rachel is forced to leave the village. She meets the widow Beulah Thomas and her son, William. Working on their farm, she is treated with kindness, and when William asks for her hand in marriage, she agrees. But Rachel cannot forget Jared Lytton, whose path seems destined to cross hers.