Showing results by narrator "Alix Dunmore" in All Categories

Elsa M. Anderson is a classical piano virtuoso. In a flea market in Athens, she watches an enigmatic woman buy two mechanical dancing horses. Is it possible that the woman who is so enchanted with the horses is her living double? Is she also looking for reasons to live? Chasing their doubles across Europe, the two women grapple with their preconceived conceptions of the world and each other, culminating in a final encounter in a fateful summer rainstorm.

Finally, this felt like revenge. I was out of the labyrinth, it was all a memory, no map needed. I could enjoy the scenery. Enjoy looking. So I looked. The tautening skin, the stirring muscles, those green eyes, vibrant despite their sightlessness. I stared at him as if he were a picture. I stared at him the way women never get to stare at men: without fear.

Kim is becoming a writer, and is determined to write a bestseller. She's been convinced of this idea by Matthew, an American literary agent who is as emotionally unavailable as he is handsome (very). Kim lives in her own carefully constructed reality, which her imagination is constantly pumping full of hot air. As she attempts to buoy herself using other people for external motivation, they poke holes in her fantasies, leading her to wonder if she's going to come crashing down or somehow stay afloat.

Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors, the four friends developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations.

Sheffield. 2019. Evie and her husband wait in a shopping centre coffee shop for a woman they have only ever spoken with online. When she arrives, they go to a motorway hotel together and have sex with the casual promise afterwards to meet again sometime. When they took their marriage vows, they had meant every word. So how had they drifted so far from the life they had imagined?

This is the story of three women - one an orphan and refugee who finds a place in the studio of a famous French artist, the other a wife and mother who has stood by her husband for nearly forty years. The third is his daughter, caught in the crossfire between her mother and a father she adores.

It’s 1916 and, as war rages in Europe, Gráinne leaves her job in a department store to join Countess Markiewicz’s revolutionary efforts. It is a decision which will change her life forever. A rebellion is brewing, and as Dublin’s streets become a battleground, Gráinne soon discovers the personal cost of fighting for what you believe in. Decades on, student Nicky is recovering from a break-up when a research project leads her to her great-grandmother’s experiences in revolutionary Ireland.

Wry, compassionate and glittering with wit, Penelope Lively's stories gets beneath the everyday to the beating heart of human experience. In intimate stories of growing up and growing old, chance encounters and life-long relationships, Lively explores with keen insight the ways that individuals can become tangled in history, and small acts ripple through the generations. From new and never-before-published stories to forgotten treasures, Metamorphosis showcases the very best from a literary master.

When designer Camille Fontaine returns to the sun-drenched Spanish island of Majorca, painful memories resurface. She isn’t the only one with dark secrets to hide. Sunseeker Isobel seems to have everything. Is her perfect life a lie? Rising Hollywood star Stephanie should have the world at her feet, if only she can believe in herself. Michel has loved Camille for decades, but his search for the truth could destroy their last chance for happiness.

In traditional Japanese culture, people eat, sleep and wear the seasons, from kimono motifs to petal-shaped sweets, and festivals dedicated to nature’s spectacular displays. This mindful celebration of nature leads to a deep awareness of the seasons, called kisetsukan. This audiobook reveals the hidden depths of kisetsukan, and how its concepts can transform your life.

A short feminist polemic that argues that the afterlife of the witch hunts continues today: the same reasons for which women were demonized in the past—being single, ageing, deciding to not have children—lead to them be persecuted now.

Jessie wakes to darkness, cold, and the rain beating down on her. She reaches out, and her hands meet hard stone. Suddenly she knows where she is. Deep in the woods, far underground, at the bottom of the well where her best friend's lifeless body was found fifteen years ago. After returning to her hometown to investigate a new murder, she now finds herself poised to become the killer's next victim. Jessie gazes up to the circle of night sky above her, the relentless raindrops landing on her face.

The bride is marrying the love of her life, but is he really the person she thinks he is? The chief bridesmaid is keeping a secret that could destroy her best friend. The mother of the bride is surprised by the appearance of her first love… When a family gather together for a wedding on the Amalfi coast, it sets the scene for scandal, secrets and sizzle under an Italian sun.

Staring at the Sun charts the life of Jean Serjeant, from her beginning as a naive, carefree country girl before the war through to her wry and trenchant old age in the year 2020. We follow her bruising experience in marriage, her probing of male truths, and her adventures in motherhood and in China, and we cannot fail to be moved by the questions she asks of life and the often unsatisfactory answers it provides.

Hotshot lawyer Rebecca Madison is dreading the annual family Thanksgiving break where the question on everyone’s lips will be ‘why are you still single?’. When it comes to her career, she’s the best of the best, hired for her take-no-prisoners approach and sharp instincts. But when it comes to her love life…well, she hasn’t found the loophole for happy ever after yet. So when she has a one night stand with a gorgeous stranger she meets in a bar, Becca decides to do what she does best: make a deal with Mr One Night to be her Mr Right (just for the holidays).

Watch what happens when 17-year-old Hannah disappears without a trace. See how the family rallies when a ransom note demands half a million pounds for Hannah's safe return. Now observe what happens to a family when they lose their house, their status, all their wealth. Note how they disintegrate under the pressures of guilt and poverty and are forced to confront their true selves.

A hit-and-run on a woodland road near Amsterdam involving an Afghan boy is connected to a powerful international crime syndicate. Journalist Farah Hafez, together with her colleague Paul Chapelle, gets caught up in an investigation that takes them all the way to Moscow and has greater political and personal ramifications than they bargained for. After this perilous journey, their lives will never be the same again.

Steven is one unlucky closeted sixth former. Whenever he has a strong emotion, be that happiness or sadness, weird things happen. Like, potentially dangerous things. Recently, he kissed another boy for the first time and...the boy's head literally exploded. Steven flees to the miserable town of Grunsby-on-Sea, determined not to hurt anyone else with his "Emomancy". With a best friend as determined as Freya, it is impossible to stay hidden for long though, especially when she realises Steven might be in danger after a mysterious organisation called DEMA start asking questions about him.

Journalist Anna Tate is assigned as a ghost-writer to Dr. Nate Reid, a neuroscientist renowned for his work at The Pain Laboratory. Damaged by her own past, Anna finds herself becoming obsessed with Nate's late wife Eva Reid, a former patient of Nate's who was unable to experience pain. As she strips away the secrets of their relationship, she makes a shocking discovery, and the raw truth of each is revealed.

In an age of social media and selfies, of pixel-perfect pictures and surgically enhanced celebrities, the pressure to change our bodies can often seem overwhelming. We are told we should conceal the signs of ageing and get our bodies back after pregnancy. We ought to perfect our complexions, build our biceps, trim our waistlines. More than ever before, we should contort our physical selves to prejudiced standards of beauty and acceptability. In this thought-provoking work, acclaimed political philosopher Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key principle of equality.