Showing results by narrator "Penelope Freeman" in All Categories

Inside his log cabin, in the Great White Wilderness, young Joanna Grey’s father dies, and she is forced to flee from the lecherous Conrad Owen into the icy wilderness. Lost and exhausted, she’s found by Richard Strange and they shelter in a cabin where they become trapped by raging snowstorms. And despite discovering their love for one another, they agree that John should return to his wife. But then, terrifyingly for Joanna alone in the arctic night, Conrad Owen appears.

Primavera Blackstone has found contentment in a small Spanish village by the sea. A fiercely protective single mother, she doesn’t appreciate an offer of marriage. Nor does she welcome the arrival of a blast from her past, retired cop Ricky Ross, now a private detective and working for Jack Weighley, millionaire owner of a budget airline. Primavera teams up with Ricky to investigate a series of mystery assaults on Jack’s aircraft. Are they mere acts of vandalism, or the sinister work of Catalan extremists?

Summer, 1939. The de Lacey family believe they are ready for the changes the war will bring. Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, is due to return home from her grandparents’ farm in France and is expected to marry Captain Max Coburn. But when Grandpère suffers a stroke, her future is changed. Instead of returning home, Elizabeth chooses to stay and help her grandparents. Max is also stationed in France – but will the war threaten to separate them for ever? Meanwhile, in the village of Nayton, Lucy Storey dutifully cares for her father the stationmaster.

Spirited Paula O'Brien wants to escape her family home and start a new life, but is scared of defying her abusive father. He had her put away in an asylum as a child and he threatens her with the same treatment if she disobeys him now. When she sees a newspaper advert for a live-in nanny, her best friend persuades her to apply. When grieving widower Jeffrey Lawson invites Paula to an interview, she doesn't realise it will change her life forever. And Jeffrey doesn't expect to meet a woman like Paula.

There were four of the Thorpe family in the Anderson shelter the night of the raid on Coventry. Mum and Dad, Florrie and little May. Jack was missing... he was one of those who did not return from Dunkirk. When Daisy and Marcus, sixth formers in Coventry, are given a project on the bombing of the city in 1940, they go to talk to May, now living in sheltered accommodation but full of memories of the war. The two youngsters both have their problems and as their lives unfold they strike up an unlikely friendship....

Janet Florin has been missing for almost a week, and family friend Trisha Marlowe, desperate for news, hires Sal Kilkenny to track her down. Ramin's brother, Berfan, is missing too. A failed asylum seeker, likely to be returned to Iran, has he disappeared to escape deportation? His brother says not. And when Sal hears that Berfan has been seen in Manchester, the chances of finding him look good.

Louise Charlton sees herself as plain and uninteresting beside her vibrant sister Sarah, a talented singer. When she falls in love with young Doctor Andrew Tate she is convinced he is not interested in her. While Sarah sails to America to pursue her musical career, Louise stays at home, duty-bound to care for her selfish manipulative stepmother.

When Amy Marsham walks into his smart Harley Street practice, therapist Patrick McIIhenny knows that this will be no ordinary session. For Amy needs answers. In the calm of Patrick's office, they begin to untangle the events of one fateful week 10 years earlier: a week of infatuation and friendships pushed to breaking point: a week in which Amy's life changed forever.

Devastated after a miscarriage, Claire has distanced herself from her own life, and from her husband, Rob. Unable to deal with her own reality, Claire becomes obsessed with Daisy, a woman from the past, and as she traces her life, month-by-month, she starts to notice intriguing parallels between their lives....

Julie Monday enjoys a rare moment of happiness when at the age of eight she visits the Essex seaside and meets eleven-year-old Harry Walker. Ten years later, they meet again. Fated to be together, they marry just before the outbreak of the Second World War. But it’s now 1939, Harry has enlisted, and Julie must face the blitz alone with their son. Travelling back from work one day, Julie is caught in the chaos of a direct hit.

When Jean Sinclair's parents are killed in an accident she travels from the US to Scotland to trace her family roots, despite the disapproval of her fiancé, Don. There she meets Adam Crawford, a handsome but arrogant landowner and, despite her initial dislike, has a tempestuous physical union with him at a glamorous highland ball.

August 1939: Thirteen-year-old Poppy Brown is evacuated to a village in Dorset. Tired and frightened, she arrives with nothing but her gas mask and a change of clothes to her name. Billeted at a grand country house, Poppy is received with cold indifference above stairs and gets little better treatment from the servants. Lonely and missing the family she left behind in London, Poppy is devastated when she hears that they have been killed in the Blitz. Circumstances soon force Poppy to move to the suburbs and into the company of strangers once more.

Ellie Tyler dreams of a life beyond that of her drunken, tyrannical father and the dangerous East London gangland. Her only refuge is in her artistic talents, which she hopes will one day help her escape. But when forced to give up her education and endure horrific abuse at the hands of her father, before finally being abandoned by the man she loved, Ellie runs away to a small Essex village. After landing a job at the silk mill, and with the encouragement of Alex, the mill owner, Ellie starts to rebuild her life.

Summer, 1938, and for the second time Britain is threatened by war with Germany. This time civilians too will be in the front line. In London, two very different families are brought together by the war. Doctors, Amy and Dan, have twins, 18-year-old Tessa and Charlie. Nora, a working-class wife and mother, has a twelve-year-old daughter, Sara, whose dream is to become a doctor, a wild idea for a working-class child. Together, and helping each other, the two families struggle to survive and endure the six years of war, and Sara fights to reach her impossible dream.

In the 1930s, Emma Pearson and her family offered a rural holiday to two orphaned children. Despite being unable to adopt John and Tommy as their own, the Pearsons stayed in touch over the years, treating them as family.

It’s the early 1920s. Julia Howard’s father is a toy manufacturer who created a paper doll in her image. However, Julia longs to cast off her goody-goody reputation, but her plans to do so are thwarted by wealthy businessman Latham Miller. When Julia marries Latham to please her father, Latham proves to be a controlling man who has no intention of giving up his outside pleasures. But when Julia is reunited with an old acquaintance, the attraction that once existed between them grows into love.

Polly always knew that Seth was a good catch - the darling of the interior design world, so cutting-edge they have to invent awards for him. With a handsome husband, a fabulous home and an exciting job in a Bond Street art gallery, Polly has everything she could possibly want - except a baby.

Midsummer Madness follows the fortunes of talented actress Sophie Gresham as she struggles with the secret she is desperate to hide from her theatre company. Sophie is shocked when she realises that Joe Harrison, their tough guest producer from New York, is in fact the penniless actor she once helped out in the days when she had more heart than sense.

When sweet-talking Mick Brogan dies, his young wife Cathleen struggles to bring up their daughters in their rented rooms in 1960s North London. She is comforted by Father Jerry, her husband's cousin, and a priest generally acknowledged by the Irish community to be both a saint and the spit of Gregory Peck.

Wealthy, glamorous and bored, she longed for something more. Now a talented artist with a small business, Helen creates crazy patchwork crafts to support her young daughter, Megan. Penniless, content and single, she is almost unrecognisable. But when her past unexpectedly collides with her new life, Helen finds herself torn. She knows what the easiest choice is, but is it what she wants?