Showing results by narrator "Julie Maisey" in All Categories

While her husband and daughter work at the Cadbury's Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her hands full at home with her youngest, Martin, and other daughter Sheila, newly returned home with baby Elaine. With Sheila's husband away doing his bit in the RAF, Ann knows she should be grateful to have all her children safe under one roof. But she can't help but fear for their uncertain future as bombs fall ever closer to her Birmingham home.

Scotland, 1940: Isla Donaghue is just sixteen when her mother dies, and her idyllic life comes to an abrupt end. Unable to cope, Isla’s father sends her to the poorhouse when he joins the merchant navy. Horrified at the harsh conditions of the poorhouse, Isla is determined to escape. Enlisting the help of her newfound friends Meg and Sophie, she devises a plan to flee to Liverpool.

Born at the turn of the twentieth century, Mae Strickland is only a few days old when her mother suddenly dies. Her aunt Maggie brings Mae up together with her own children, Eddie and Alice, and the girls become like sisters. In spite of Mae's unhappy start, life feels full of promise. Then, as the First World War looms, everything changes. While the local men - including young Eddie - leave to fight, Mae and Alice train as field nurses. As they travel to the front line in the wake of family tragedy, nothing can prepare them for the hardship that lies ahead.

Trapped in an abusive marriage to Lord Caraway with her beloved daughter Melissa, 24-year-old Lady Elodie Caraway knows she has to escape before her deepest and darkest secrets are revealed giving her husband every reason to seek his revenge. But time is of the essence, if she is to save herself and Melissa. With the help of lifelong friend Aiden Newman, they swiftly leave Oakland Hall for a new life in Liverpool's docklands. On arrival, Elodie and Melissa are welcomed as lodgers by Molly Haywood’s family, Aidens aunt – no questions are asked.

Peggy and Dar Tenant’s dream for security and respectability has been their driving force since they married. Just as they prepare to buy their own home, tragedy strikes, when Dar is involved in a devastated accident at the docks and Peggy’s world crashes around her. With Dar seriously ill in hospital Peggy’s reduced to scrimping and saving to keep a roof over her family’s head having to revisit the hardships of her youth that she dearly wanted to escape from.

England, 1942: 23-year-old Betty runs away from Bristol to make a new life for herself. Betrayed by her husband, Betty flees to the seaside town of Bournemouth, where she has fond memories of childhood holidays. There, she finds a small family bakery in desperate need of a new shop girl.... At the Barton Bakery, Betty finds a sanctuary with shopkeeper Audrey Barton, but Audrey is fighting battles of her own. Her husband is at war and in grave danger, she is heavily pregnant and her customers are horrified by the demands imposed by rationing.

June 1944. Ginnie Travis is working in her father's furniture shop, when the continued bombing raids and her sister Shirley's untimely pregnancy force the two girls to go and stay with their aunt in Shropshire. Here Ginnie falls in love with an American, Lieutenant Nick Miller, stationed nearby. But she discovers that Nick has a fiancée back home and a heartbroken Ginnie ends the relationship. Then news of their father's death in an air raid reaches them. With the family left almost penniless and Shirley and her child to provide for, Ginnie is responsible for them all.

The Great War is over, and sisters Iris and Rose are adjusting to life in their modest Liverpool home after their brother Charlie has returned from the front. But when their mother sends Rose to the beautiful Welsh village of Tregarron to recover from an illness she discovers a new world of possibility at her feet. There, she obtains a job as housemaid to the wealthy but tragic Rhys-Pritchard family and falls in love with the young but troubled head of house. Meanwhile at home, Charlie, keen to improve his social standing, becomes engaged to the daughter of a successful coal merchant, while Iris falls for a porter from the local fruit market. Then tragedy strikes, and the whole family must pull together if they are to survive the turmoil ahead. Their support of one another can only bring them closer together, but will they be forced to put their dreams on hold in the process?

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret - a dark and terrible secret that she can't confess to anyone she knows. But then one day she hears of a criminal, Stuart Harris, locked up on death row in Texas. Like Zoe, Stuart is no stranger to secrets. Or lies. Or murder. Full of heartache yet humour, Zoe tells her story in the only way she can - in letters to the man in prison in America. Armed with a pen, Zoe takes a deep breath, eats a jam sandwich, and begins her tale of love and betrayal.

Robin hasn’t been home for decades. After running away to London, she never expected to see her cantankerous mother, Faye, again. But when Faye has a fall, the two women are thrown together once more. The years apart have not made their hearts grow fonder, and the ground between them is unsteady. Then Robin finds an unopened scroll - the last of the treasure hunts her much-missed father used to take them on every Sunday. A hunt he believed might change everything.

Grace and Dougie have been courting for years, so when Dougie decides to emigrate to Australia he expects Grace to follow once she turns 21. Grace used to be besotted with Dougie, but she is increasingly worried by his bullying behaviour and gambling. On her way home from seeing Dougie off, Grace is nearly run down by a truck driven by widower Ben, who is on his way to the hospital to see his young son. Soon, Grace has agreed to look after Ben's child while he recovers from his accident. As they spend time together Ben struggles to ignore his growing feelings for Grace.

He gazes at the bodies. Young men, probably in their early thirties. The wooden flooring around them has been stained dark red. He wonders what kind of monster could have done this. And why. As a murder detective in the Met Police, D.I. Matthew Denning is used to seeing the very worst of humanity. But when a young woman's body is discovered in an East London churchyard, her face obliterated by blows, he is plunged into his most shocking case yet.

London, 1915. World War I has been raging for over a year, but despite it all Rose Spencer is feeling hopeful about the future. She's in love and planning her wedding to lovely, bicycle-shop owner Charlie. She loves working as a seamstress at the glamorous London's Lyceum Theatre but secretly can't help fantasising about seeing her own designs come to life. And even when she won't believe in her talent, thankfully best friends Joyce and Annie are always around to push her to have faith in her dreams.

As a primary school teacher, Ava Lam is familiar with the 'buddy bench': a rainbow painted bench where sad or lonely children can sit to show they need a friend. But are buddy benches just for kids? Ava might have assumed so—until she finds herself sobbing her heart out on a park bench and a kind stranger sits down next to her. The stranger, Dr Sam Stone, has a house, an impressive job and he's even training for a marathon. But whilst Sam appears to have everything figured out, it seems he needs a sympathetic ear just as much as she does.

Sara and her family needed a fresh start after a tragedy that ruined many lives. They have found peace since arriving at their new home in the Kielder Forest National Park 12 months ago. That is, unless you count the dark cloud that has settled over them, and the crippling tension behind closed doors. Sara tries to pretend everything is normal, but in reality, she is haunted by a devastating truth about one of her children.

All families have secrets... some are deadly. When D.I. Matthew Denning is called to investigate a house fire in a North London street, he never anticipated the horrors that awaited him. As Denning and D.S. Molly Fisher search the wreckage, the bodies of the Galloway family - Brian and Ellie, son Simon, daughter Amber and 9-year-old grandson Caleb - are discovered in the smouldering house. All evidence points to a tragic accident... until Matthew and Molly discover that the family was dead before the fire, murdered in their home by a faceless psychopath.

Old crimes don't stay buried forever... The launch of a gripping new crime thriller series featuring D.I. Matthew Denning and D.S. Molly Fisher, Know No Evil will utterly engross fans of Ian Rankin, Angela Marsons and L.J. Ross. It's high summer, and London sizzles in the grip of a heatwave. But when the body of a young mother, Leanne Wyatt, is discovered in an East London park, the heat rises to boiling point for D.I. Matthew Denning. Under pressure to solve the case, and fast, he delves into Leanne's history and finds that she was close to some dangerous individuals - could one of them have taken her life?

January 1941: As Charlie Barton tiptoes silently out of the house one cold winter morning to go off and fight for his country, his wife, Audrey, is left to run the family bakery on her own. Times are tougher than ever, but at the Barton Bakery in Bournemouth, Audrey is determined as always to serve the town with love, loaves and cakes, even as the town is reeling from the struggles of the Blitz. Audrey’s brother, William, has returned from battle with serious wounds. His fiancé, Elsie, is waiting for wedding bells, but William is a changed man, and will her hopes be in vain?

December 1940: All that Audrey Barton wants is her family together for Christmas. But the war changes everything.... The Barton family bakery in Bournemouth has been at the heart of the town for generations: Audrey and Charlie Barton have never been rich, but their bread and cakes – and their love and advice – have enriched the lives of others in the town for many years. When war breaks out, it doesn't take long for trouble to arrive on the bakery doorstep.

Life has always been tough for May and Gus Lavender. Their father went away to sea never to return, and then their mother falls victim to the typhus sweeping through Liverpool. Regarded as orphans by the authorities, May and Gus are sent to the Brownlow Hill Workhouse. Like all workhouses, Brownlow is the last resort for the poor and the destitute. May and Gus will have to rely on each other more than ever if they are to survive the hardships to come....