Showing results by narrator "Julia Franklin" in All Categories

Brought to you by Penguin. The second novel in the uplifting railway girls series that shows just how important friendship and love is in a time of uncertainty and change. Perfect for fans of Nancy Revell. Manchester, November 1940 As the war continues and secrets threaten the railway girls...

July 1941. As the war grinds on, Lady Joanna Harcourt knows that her time at Goodwill House is drawing to close. A new chapter awaits, one that she never expected to happen to her – she is going to be a wife and mother again! Excited with their new arrival and with her beloved Flying Officer John Sergeant back in her life, Joanna hopes that even though war clouds gather, love will prevail, and the future will look brighter than ever for the Harcourt family. John has just one last mission to complete, before they can be together.

Born into service, 16-year-old Juliet Harper has always idolised her mother, Agnes. But Agnes is haunted by what could have been and the glamorous life she might have lived if she had stayed in Manchester rather than settling down in the Lancashire moorland with her husband. Life takes another unexpected turn when Juliet's father suddenly dies. Agnes' reputation as a seamstress leads to her being taken on by local landowners the Drysdales, where she is proud to work. But it will be a bumpy road for both of them as they settle in to their new lives.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Orphans of Ardwick by Emma Hornby, read by Julia Franklin. After a cold, hard winter on the streets, three orphan children are about to give up hope when an unexpected turn of events brings them to the doorstep of a grand house in Ardwick...

The railway girls have survived unsettling times, and while the bombings might have eased, their own turmoil has only just begun. With Christmas fast approaching, will their wishes come true?

Two days before an auction of the contents of High Gates House in Borrowdale, Christopher Henderson bumps into Jennifer Reade, the heir to the entire estate, and the expected recipient of the proceeds of the house clearance sale. She discovers a dead man in the cellar of the house but threatens and cajoles Christopher into remaining silent about it until after the auction to avoid complications and delays. The auction begins but is soon halted by the police with the news that a murder has been committed.

Winter has arrived in the town of Windermere and has brought with it the death of Frances Henderson, the best friend of Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown's mother. Simmy must cope with the loss of an important figure from her childhood as well as the confusion at being bequeathed something in Frances' will. When Frances' husband is violently murdered, Simmy must face the fact that the family she was once so close to as a child holds some dark secrets.

January 1941. As the residents of Goodwill House feel the hard bite of winter, land girl Charlie Somiton is still glad of the warm friendships she has made there. Not just her fellow land girls, Daphne and Sal, but also dashing local G.P. Dr James Willoughby who looked after Charlie when she was injured at work. Charlie likes Dr Willoughby, but she fears that there can never be more between them than just friendship. Because despite her upper-class background, Charlie carries with her a terrible secret that she can never share with James.

When Agnes Agistini receives a phone call from Theo, her brother-in-law informing her that her estranged, abusive husband Oscar has died in an accident, she feels nothing but relief. But that relief is short-lived as Oscar’s vengeance from an early grave forces Agnes to return to the place she fled from over forty years ago. A place and time she’s not keen to revisit. At the request of a French notaires dealing with Oscar’s last will, Agnes travels to Cannes in the South of France alongside their daughter Francine and her grand-daughter Jasmine.

Buying and relocating to the Château du Cheval in rural France has fulfilled one of Peter and Ingrid Chevalier’s lifelong ambitions. Despite never being able to trace a missing link in Peter’s French ancestry he feels he has finally come home. Now they must renovate the Château to its former glory and make it pay for itself…With money getting tight, they take the decision to sell a couple of cottages on the estate. Can the Château begin to pay for itself and be sustainable for the future?

Pru Plum is the owner of a famous Mayfair bakery. She wears Chanel and her hair is expensively cut. Few would believe that she turned sixty-six last year. But Pru is not the confident, successful businesswoman she appears. She has done shameful things to get to where she is today. And she will do anything to protect the secrets of her past - especially now she has finally fallen in love...

Dan and Sally Oliver and their friend Chloe Hennessey are lucky to be alive. Three years on, after surviving one of the world's biggest natural disasters - the Boxing Day tsunami - their lives have changed dramatically. Dan and Sally are now parents. Dan is enjoying being a stay-at-home father taking care of their young son, and Sally is the bread winner and loves her job as a partner in a Manchester law firm.

After losing all her family in the Great War, Nell is grateful to marry Stan Hibbert. However, five years on, she is just another backstreet housewife, making every penny do the work of tuppence and performing miracles with scrag-end. When she discovers that Stan is leading a double life, she runs away to make a fresh start. Two years later, Nell has carved out a fulfilling new life for herself and her young children in Manchester, where her neighbours believe she is a respectable widow. But the past is hard to run from, and Nell must fight to protect the life she has made for herself and her children.

Manchester, 1920. Carrie Jenkins reels from the revelation that her beloved father was shot for desertion during the Great War, not tragically killed in heroic action, as she had previously been led to believe. Worse, Carrie's sweetheart jilts her on the eve of their wedding, despite her pregnancy. Facing some tough choices and needing to provide a home for her baby and invalid mother, Carrie is forced to accept the unsettling advances of Ralph Armstrong. It is a decision she will regret.

Glamorised, mythologised, and demonised - the women of the 1920s were determined to reinvent the way they lived. Flappers focuses on six women who between them exemplified the range and daring of that generation’s spirit. Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka were far from typical flappers. Talented, reckless, and wilful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they rewrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and tragic ways.

Jenny loves to house-sit, looking after a stranger's enviably perfect home and pretending to be someone else - just for a bit. Her latest booking is a beautiful, disheveled old rectory in the Home Counties owned by the uber-successful Lewis family. Freed of teaching duties for the summer, and her own teenagers spending time with her objectionable ex, Jenny readies herself for a life of walk-in larders and sparkling water taps.

Manchester, 1940: the minute war was declared, best friends Sally and Debs volunteered for the home guard. An Auxiliary Fire Service girl by night, Sally ends up stationed at the salvage depot by day. When Sally meets Andrew, a quiet carpenter with a heart-breaking smile, she finally feels as though her efforts are making a difference. As love blossoms, Sally feels herself opening up to Andrew in a way she'd never imagined possible. But then, a devastating air raid threatens everything she holds dear.

Who would want to kill widowed mother of two Ellen Tailor, a seemingly innocent, inoffensive woman, and leave her body for her children to find? Rina Martin’s policeman friend Mac can’t find anything that looks like a motive and not much more in terms of suspects. While it is true Ellen didn’t get on with her mother-in-law, it seems hard to believe their arguments escalated into a brutal killing. A former abusive partner seems a more likely suspect, but unfortunately for Mac he seems to have a watertight alibi....

Brought to you by Penguin. Manchester, 1944 Alison is thriving in her rewarding role at the railways. But when family tragedy strikes, her world is turned upside down. Persephone is struggling with matters of the heart. Can she muster up the courage to tell Matt how she truly feels? Colette is...

Set in the picturesque town of Askham, near Ullswater, the story opens with the funeral of Humphrey Craig, the builder who converted Simmy's new house in Hartsop. The following day, when Simmy goes back to look at the grave and the flowers on it, she meets two women, Lindsay Wilson, an academic in her late twenties who is writing a thesis on Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son, and Pauline Parsons, a local matriarch aged 90. Just 24 hours later, Mrs Parsons is found dead on Askham Fell and Simmy is summoned to Penrith police station.