Showing results by narrator "Alix Dunmore" in All Categories

Debutante of the year. Able politician. Femme fatale. Just some of the many labels attached to the irrepressible, controversial Raine Spencer: Countess, socialite and stepmother to Diana, Princess of Wales. But who was the real Raine? What was hidden behind the immaculately manicured public façade and her overwhelmingly negative tabloid image? From her childhood days as daughter of romantic novelist powerhouse, Barbara Cartland, to Westminster councillor and wife of Earl Spencer, Three Times a Countess recounts Raine's compelling and glamorous life.

It was easy for Elizabeth. She married the man she loved, bore him two children and made a home for him which was the envy of their friends. It was harder for Ruth. She married Elizabeth’s son and then found that, somehow, she could never quite measure up. Isolation, deceit and betrayal fill the gaps between the two individual women and between their different worlds. In this complex thriller, Philippa Gregory deploys all her insight into what women want and what women fear, as Ruth confronts the shifting borders of her own sanity.

Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of her more famous brother Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at thirteen to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of statecraft that would enable her to survive his early death, and to construct a powerful position in her adopted country of Scotland as she dealt with domestic issues as well as navigating international relations with England and France.

In traditional Japanese culture, people eat, sleep and wear the seasons, from kimono motifs to petal-shaped sweets, and festivals dedicated to nature’s spectacular displays. This mindful celebration of nature leads to a deep awareness of the seasons, called kisetsukan. This audiobook reveals the hidden depths of kisetsukan, and how its concepts can transform your life.

1936. Anglo-Breton translator Annie Wrenne is working in Madrid when the Spanish Civil War breaks out. Annie becomes a nurse on the front line, but after falling in love with a patient, she ends up pregnant - and abandoned - by a man she thought she knew. Annie passes the rest of the war in a haze, her only consolation her relationship with mysterious Republican fighter Carlos Ortega. Annie finds herself caught up in Ortega’s world, a web of intrigue, which leads to her recruitment into MI5.

When designer Camille Fontaine returns to the sun-drenched Spanish island of Majorca, painful memories resurface. She isn’t the only one with dark secrets to hide. Sunseeker Isobel seems to have everything. Is her perfect life a lie? Rising Hollywood star Stephanie should have the world at her feet, if only she can believe in herself. Michel has loved Camille for decades, but his search for the truth could destroy their last chance for happiness.

Jessie wakes to darkness, cold, and the rain beating down on her. She reaches out, and her hands meet hard stone. Suddenly she knows where she is. Deep in the woods, far underground, at the bottom of the well where her best friend's lifeless body was found fifteen years ago. After returning to her hometown to investigate a new murder, she now finds herself poised to become the killer's next victim. Jessie gazes up to the circle of night sky above her, the relentless raindrops landing on her face.

Watch what happens when 17-year-old Hannah disappears without a trace. See how the family rallies when a ransom note demands half a million pounds for Hannah's safe return. Now observe what happens to a family when they lose their house, their status, all their wealth. Note how they disintegrate under the pressures of guilt and poverty and are forced to confront their true selves.

Hotshot lawyer Rebecca Madison is dreading the annual family Thanksgiving break where the question on everyone’s lips will be ‘why are you still single?’. When it comes to her career, she’s the best of the best, hired for her take-no-prisoners approach and sharp instincts. But when it comes to her love life…well, she hasn’t found the loophole for happy ever after yet. So when she has a one night stand with a gorgeous stranger she meets in a bar, Becca decides to do what she does best: make a deal with Mr One Night to be her Mr Right (just for the holidays).

It’s 1916 and, as war rages in Europe, Gráinne leaves her job in a department store to join Countess Markiewicz’s revolutionary efforts. It is a decision which will change her life forever. A rebellion is brewing, and as Dublin’s streets become a battleground, Gráinne soon discovers the personal cost of fighting for what you believe in. Decades on, student Nicky is recovering from a break-up when a research project leads her to her great-grandmother’s experiences in revolutionary Ireland.

At school they called her Porky on account of the pigs her family kept outside their bungalow near Heathrow. But she felt no different – not until she realised she was losing her innocence in a way that none of her friends could possibly imagine. Only a child robbed of her childhood can know too late what it means to be loved too little and loved too much.

A new work by the author of “In Defense of Witches” that seeks to redefine heterosexual relationships and give women back their voice.

A schoolyard stabbing sends wingbeats echoing from the past. One shocking event. Two teachers risk their careers to help a boy who has nothing. Three worlds intersect and collide. The best way to avoid trouble, thinks Ayisha Emmanuelle, is to avoid confrontation. As an inner-city schoolteacher, she does a whole lot of avoidance. 14-year-old Shamayal Thomas trusts no one. Not the family, not the gang. And at school, trusting people is forbidden. Jim Stevens teaches history. Haunted by his own, he still believes everyone can learn from the past. History doesn’t always have to repeat itself.

Set in colonial New Zealand, The Aloe captures a moment of transition for the Burnell family as they move into a new home. At the heart of it all is Kezia, a perceptive young girl whose sharp eyes and quiet curiosity offer a child's view of adult tension, familial love, and the quiet dramas of everyday life. Through lush, lyrical prose, Mansfield explores the unspoken complexities of women's roles, family expectations, and inner longing—all from the inside out.

He taught her every step… except how to resist him 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

**Previously published as The Dance Deception**

Kate is astonished when she secures a place in a televised dance...

Worn out by poverty, Lettie Radley and her miner husband Tommy grasp at the offer of their very own smallholding - part of a Government scheme to put the unemployed back to work on the land. When she comes down to Essex to join him, it's not Tommy who greets her, but their new neighbours. Overbearing and unkempt, Jean and Adam Dell are everything that Lettie can't abide. But as Lettie settles in, she finds an unexpected joy in the rhythms of life. She's hopeful that her past, and the terrible secret Tommy has come to Foxash to escape, are far behind them. But the Dells have their own secrets.

Millie loves her city life, her city friends and writing her true(ish) confessions column—but she’s starting to wonder if the grass really is greener on the other side, or if her heart really belongs back in Northumberland, with her mum who is struggling after the death of Millie’s dad.

From the Siberian permafrost to balmy California, scientists across the globe are working to resurrect all kinds of extinct animals, from ones that just left us to those that have been gone for many thousands of years. Their tools in this hunt are both fossils and cutting-edge genetic technologies. Some of these scientists are driven by sheer curiosity; others view the lost species as a powerful weapon in the fight to preserve rapidly changing ecosystems. It seems certain that these animals will walk the earth again, but what world will that give us? And is any of this a good idea?

Brought to you by Penguin. ‘The first time, I'm afraid: of things falling into place, of knowing deeply that this is right. That all along I've been fighting a tide that with one wave would wipe out ordinary life.’ Sheffield. 2019. Evie and her husband wait in a shopping centre coffee shop...