Showing results by narrator "Claire Storey" in All Categories

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Anna Karenina, a literary masterpiece by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.

As the plane surges up into the clouds, Stevie finds herself clutching the hand of the stranger sitting in the seat next to her. It is a moment that will change everything. But Ned is heading to see his dying mother, and Stevie is returning to France to escape a terrible loss in her past. Neither of them can think about that tiny flame that just flickered between them. But then their paths keep crossing, leading them both to the same beautiful community garden in a small French village; run by a mysterious old man named Zach – a man with many of his own secrets.

Hannah Driver's life is on the skids: single, newly jobless, and nursing ambitions of becoming a drag king that make her traditional family baulk. She's at a crossroads. Enter Cordy Starling, the charming and composed pianist who moves in with Hannah, and quickly becomes the nudgeor—or rather, full-on shove—Hannah needs to chase her dreams. The prospect of romance with Cordy twinkles on the horizon like a disco ball, promising glitter but guaranteeing chaos.

Sylvia is the spoiled only child of an ambitious mother, Lorna Ellis, who runs a dancing school in Blackpool. Approaching 21, Sylvia is under pressure to scoop up prizes by fair means or foul. Pearl is the oldest daughter in a large, chaotic family who all work at the Pleasure Beach. She often sneaks away to watch ballroom contestants in their glittery finery. Joy is an evacuee who lost her parents to the Blitz. Now she lives and works in a shabby boarding house and works as a cleaner. Though shy and modest, she falls in love with the newest dance craze - the American Jitterbug.

Blackpool, November 1942. Wartime worries fail to dampen the glitz and glamour of the ballroom in the run-up to Christmas. After all, life is for living. Newlywed Pearl's bliss is cut short when her beloved Bernie is called up into the Army. Will dancing at the Tower Ballroom take the edge off her heartache or will it throw temptation her way? Unexpected news of an inheritance presents Joy with a different dilemma. Should she move to Scotland in line with her parents' final wishes or stay in Blackpool to dance with Tommy, the man she loves?

Meet Sara Snow: Christmas fanatic, festive wedding Grinch. Her dream nuptials? Sun-soaked, Beth-free. Meet Beth Callaghan: Expert at running. From countries, feelings, and one-night stands with best friends. Now Beth's back, armed with apologies and tinsel-wrapped determination. But can she melt Sara's frosty heart? Or will she need a Christmas miracle? One thing's crystal clear: Sara Snow will NEVER have a Christmas wedding. Right? RIGHT?

A modern update on the ageless idea that girls should know appropriate and courteous responses to any situation. Good manners aren’t just a quaint and old-fashioned concept. They’re an essential aspect of every young lady’s path to adulthood and the skills she’ll need in whatever she chooses to do.

When DI Tessa Marsden is called to a road traffic accident, she is disturbed by the crime scene she must investigate. She now has a double murder to contend with; two dead girls from the same village. Realizing the murders aren’t linked, Marsden summons the help of the Connection Investigation Agency. When it is discovered that one of the murdered girls was pregnant, the case takes an unexpected turn. Can DI Marsden, with the input of Kat and Mouse, solve the case before another body appears?

Fran Bell is a music exec who’s welded to her career. Even when her parents move to a sleepy village called Mistletoe, she still vows to work through Christmas. When she tells the locals, their shock is palpable. One particular local stands out. Ruby O’Connell, a dazzling singer and the last person Fran expects to find as her parents’ neighbor. They’ve crossed paths before in London. It wasn’t pretty. When they’re thrown together to organize a Christmas festival, their relationship starts to thaw.

Early one morning, in the grounds of Chatsworth, a body is discovered by one of the estate groundsmen. DI Marsden and DS Granger battle through snow-covered roads to begin their investigation. Meanwhile, at the Connection Investigation Agency, Doris, Kat and Mouse are busy juggling their caseloads, while trying to show their new trainee receptionist the ropes.

Deacon Katerina Rowe had a quiet life before she discovered her husband’s criminal activities. Now Leon is on the run, and Kat has started a private investigation business with her good friend Beth, who goes by Mouse. It’s plenty for any Deacon to handle—let alone one who’s heavily pregnant. When a widow asks Kat and Mouse for help, the sleuthing duo find themselves searching for the birth mother of the widow’s husband. But when it becomes clear that the widow isn’t telling the whole truth, Kat and Mouse are drawn into a deadly chase where nothing is what it seems.

Real life doesn’t play out like a movie. Electric connections mostly mean you’ve got static in your jumper. Camila Moore knows that; she’s not daft. She has two teenage boys and bills to pay, plus the only man she’s ever been with has traded her in for a gym bunny. Returning to work’s the answer, but when she finds herself in the wrong room and wrong place at the wrong time, the last thing she expects is to be promoted out of obscurity into the arms of Harriet Imogen Pearson, media darling, hotshot entrepreneur, and notorious lesbian playgirl.

Grace has it all. At least she did until a moment of indiscretion threatened to destroy her career. With everything in London at stake and her fate in the Board’s hands, she escapes to her Aunt’s house in the Lake District—the perfect place to hide from her secrets and to get some much-needed peace and quiet. But Duckton-by-Dale is nothing like she remembered and she certainly didn’t expect to be attracted to her new neighbor, Harriet. But then she also didn’t expect her world to be turned upside down by the quirky ensemble of villagers who plot to give love a helping hand.

October 1940. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Bancroft is working as a typist for a city newspaper, but she longs to be breaking the news herself. When she successfully applies for a junior reporter role at The Tyke, a magazine serving the Yorkshire Dales, she's thrilled – even if she only gets the position because so many men are away fighting. Bobby moves to the sleepy village of Silverdale, but she quickly discovers life in the countryside is a different world.

Tilda has done everything she can to make her life neat, protected, tidy. No longer the girl who was scared of everything, whose family pushed her away, who hit rock bottom. Now she runs her life – as she does her successful business – with the utmost organization. As long as she keeps everyone at arm’s length, she will be fine. She will be safe. But then a chance encounter with a man who’s fallen on hard times changes everything.

1944: Bologna, Italy, and the streets are crawling with German soldiers. Nineteen-year-old Leila Venturi is shocked into joining the Resistance after her beloved best friend Rebecca, the daughter of a prominent Jewish businessman, is ruthlessly deported to a concentration camp. 1981: Exchange student Rhiannon Hughes arrives in Bologna and meets Leila, her landlady. Soon, Rhiannon finds herself being drawn into a web of intrigue. Leila’s nephew seems to be interested in a far-right group, but how is the nefarious leader connected to Leila?

June, 1941. When Bobby Bancroft arrived in Silverdale to take a job as a reporter on The Tyke magazine, the sleepy Yorkshire Dales village felt like a little pocket of a past long gone. But war finally seems to have come to Silverdale. The villagers face new hardships when shortages and rationing begin to bite, young men become scarce as more are called up, and Bobby finds herself juggling her job on the magazine with a new role as an ARP warden. Even her surly editor Reg and his wife are doing their bit, agreeing to take two evacuees from London into their home.

Hattie Gilby has not been back to her family home since the devastating events that took place there years ago. Events that changed Hattie and which continue to haunt her today. But one phone call changes everything. Now Hattie is going back to her family home to face her brothers, Adam and Luke and to hear the last words of her dying mother.

Despite the hardships of life during wartime, Bobby Bancroft has never been happier. Engaged to her airman sweetheart Charlie, living in the beautiful Dales village of Silverdale and gainfully employed at The Tyke magazine, her life seems to be going exactly the way she always hoped it would. As the festive season approaches, Bobby is recruited to help produce a Christmas pantomime for the evacuee children billeted in the village. The project introduces her to some new friends, including a handsome Canadian, Flying Officer Ernie King, and her friend Topsy's upper-crust cousin Archie Sumner.

The lead-up to Christmas sees the Connection private investigation team planning their festive season. Until a new case arrives. Catapulted into their biggest mystery yet, they are tasked with finding a killer who has been released on parole, and subsequently disappeared. Has he returned to finish the murder he tried to commit before his capture? As he targets his intended victim, his attention is also focused on the private investigators and their police colleagues with devastating effect. With families torn apart, Doris must seek assistance from a colleague from her past.