Showing results by narrator "Carole Boyd" in All Categories

A stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family’s sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick’s mannerisms, appearance and every significant detail of Patrick’s early life, up to his 13th year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself.

The pretty Arnold sisters have grown up on their father's farm and yearn for something more out of life than drudgery and toil. Ellen, loyal and honest, is her father's favourite, but Georgina is impulsive and unreliable, and can't please a father who has never shown her love.The big house, Grindle Hall, offers them both a chance of betterment, but while Ellen follows the steady path, Georgina takes a darker road and soon, her actions will have fateful consequences for them all. Only Ellen can help them, but will a sister's love be enough?

"No matter how devoted, dedicated, conscientious and altogether noble a teacher is, I feel pretty sure that each and everyone feels the same sense of freedom and relief from her chains when the end of term arrives...." So it is for Miss Read - but on the very first day of the long summer holiday she falls and breaks her arm. Instantly, all her plans for the holidays are in tatters. But Miss Read's friend, Amy, comes up with a plan: and so it is that the two of them leave Fairacre for the island of Crete.

Gwen and Rhys are on the run. Rhys was hoping this meant a windswept cottage on a cliff top, but he’s had to settle for a miserable caravan in the isolated village of Rawbone. With the locals taking an unhealthy interest in their daughter, Gwen and Rhys start to realise that something is very wrong. As they uncover the village’s terrible past, Gwen discovers that Torchwood will never leave her behind, and now she and Rhys stand alone in defence of the Earth. And the children of Rawbone can only bring her closer to the secret forces that want her out of the way.

The dramatic and shocking events of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 are to be the backdrop to Juliet Barker's latest book: a snapshot of what everyday life was like for ordinary people living in the middle ages. The same highly successful techniques she deployed in Agincourt and Conquest will this time be brought to bear on civilian society.

Lally Fraser, widowed at 20, seeks comfort with dashing young mill owner Roly Sinclair. But when she finds she is expecting his baby, she turns to his dour brother Harry for help. Secretly in love with her, Harry offers her marriage. Roly, though, is anything but pleased. Threatening scandal or worse, he sets out to destroy them both. And when Harry is injured in a vicious attack, Lally must take charge of the mills to protect her children and the man she is growing to love from his worst enemy - his own brother.

In this rich and memorable evocation of the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire are the lives, loves and sorrows of the central characters. There is Sarah Burton, fiery young headmistress; Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall, a councillor tormented by his own disastrous marriage; Jo Astell, a socialist fighting poverty and his own illness; and Mrs Beddows, the first woman Alderman of the district (like Winifred’s own mother).

Set in 1952, this story begins when three people meet in a churchyard. One is a local farmer, Ben Morris, walking through the churchyard from his farmhouse. The other two, Lucy and Eileen Baker, are mother and daughter, bringing flowers to lay at the resting place of a man by the name of Barney Davidson. There is an air of mystery about them that greatly intrigues Ben.

From an unusual weight-losing recipe found in an old notebook - and used with alarming consequences - to the queen of copy-cats who drives her neighbour mad with anger, Over The Gate is a hugely entertaining collection of tales from Fairacre, past and present.

Charlotte Drummond knows she has a duty to obey her father. Girls, especially well-bred upper-class ones, are expected to be submissive to the men in their lives. But Charlotte's father is a cruel man, viciously beating her and her brothers for the slightest reason. He even wants to marry her off, at just sixteen years old; to a man she does not love. Lion-hearted Charlotte wants to defy him but to protect her brothers from his fury she agrees to become the wife of Brooke Armstrong.

From its dawn in the 1660s to its twilight in the 1960s, Cliveden was an emblem of elite misbehaviour and intrigue. Conceived by the Duke of Buckingham as a retreat for his scandalous affair with Anna-Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the house later served as the backdrop for the Profumo affair. In the 300 years between, the house was occupied by a dynasty of remarkable women each of whom left their mark on this great house.

Vibrant and headstrong, Ally Pearce loves working on the Edith, her family's narrow boat, proving she's the equal of any man on the Leeds to Liverpool canal. Betsy, delicate, calculating and sensuously beautiful, wants only to become a 'lady' - and will use the most unladylike means to become one. When Dr. Tom Hartley enters the sisters' lives after a tragic accident both are attracted to him - but for very different reasons.

Amy Pearson's family is desperately poor - even by the standards of Edwardian Liverpool - but they have each other. Until Amy is torn from her home by her rich aunt, a woman obsessed by religion and snobbery who wants a girl she can mould as she wishes. Clever and pretty, ten-year-old Amy is perfect for her purposes.

When Lily Elliott's father dies she loses everything - not just a beloved protector and his wonderful ship the Lily-Jane, but also the way of life she has always known. As her mother sinks into a dream-world and the money which had always seemed sufficient turns out to have been mostly debts, Lily watches, bewildered, as destitution comes ever closer for the Elliott women and their loyal housekeeper. Then two rescuers appear.

When the rector, Peter, and his wife Caroline, decide to go to Africa for a year to work in a mission, they take their twins with them. The village inhabitants whose lives revolve around the church and this family are bereft. They don't immediately take to the woman locum, Anna, who has modern ideas, happy clappy hymns and so forth, but she does fill the church with parishioners determined to keep an eye on her.

Florence Stanville is a woman with a past. When she moves to Guisethorpe on the east coast of England, the townsfolk are intrigued by the glamorous and mysterious stranger, with her flame-red hair and abrupt manners. Florence doesn’t care about the gossips—she’s drawn to the peaceful seaside town by the pull of her childhood, when she lived for a brief but happy time with her beloved late mother. The riddle of those days remains, and now Florence can only snatch at half-remembered memories and shadowy figures in her dreams.

Enjoy this perfect pair of quirky crime dramas featuring art theft, forgery, murder and double-dealing. Craft, tells the story of failed artist, Adam Bax. He is amazed when one of his paintings sells for a large sum, unexpectedly giving him overnight fame. Though still deeply disillusioned with the world of art, he embarks on a little nefarious money-making scheme, aided and abetted by his estranged wife, Tessa. Cashing-in in a way you wouldn’t quite imagine this comedy drama follows the twists and turns of the over-inflated underworld of the British art scene.

Widely considered as one of the finest historical novelists of the 20th century, Mary Renault brought the ancient world alive, turning age-old myths of gods and monsters into compelling human stories. In The King Must Die and its sequel, The Bull from the Sea, she retells the legend of Theseus, one of the greatest heroes of Ancient Greece.

In these four supernatural dramas, first broadcast on radio in 1984, a house hides more than meets the eye; a B & B landlady helps her guests forget their troubles; a Japanese man inadvertently awakens a vengeful spirit; and a mother and baby become unsettled in remote mill.

In Village Diary, Miss Read describes the people of Fairacre with exactitude, a sense of comedy, and sharp observation. In addition to those characters familiar to readers of Village School, there are newcomers, including dictatorial Amy, an old college friend; Mr Mawne, whom the village sees as a possible husband for the unwilling Miss Read; and the earnest new infants teacher.