Showing results by narrator "Emma Powell" in All Categories

Devon, 1887. Life has not been kind to dairymaid Tresca Ladycott. She can’t rely on her flighty farmhand father, Emmanuel, so she relies on herself. Then comes a devastating blow. Tresca is sacked from the dairy, and the pair lose their home. She and her father seek a new life in bustling Tavistock. More hardship lies ahead. The only work to be found is hard labour on the London and South West Railway. Before long, Emmanual is out of work yet again, and Tresca is faced with keeping them both in their tiny garret home.

Libby Cooper hasn’t celebrated Christmas since the night her parents died in a terrible accident. She wants to forget that the season of goodwill even exists; but her grandmother has other ideas. It’s time for Libby to start living her life just as her parents would have wanted her to do. First stop New York! What better way to immerse herself in the celebrations, than working in her great aunt’s Christmas shop, just a few blocks from Central Park? Making new friends in the Big Apple is the easy bit, but leaving the past behind proves much harder than Libby imagined.

Dartmoor, 1875. Rose Maddiford, beautiful, vivacious and intelligent, could have her pick of men across Dartmoor. But she is in no hurry to marry unless it is for true love - and certainly not while she can help her father manage the Cherrybrook Gunpowder Mills. Then tragedy strikes. Rose’s father is injured by an explosion at the mill, and the family is left teetering on the edge of poverty. Rose is left with just two options: accept arrogant, controlling Charles Chadwicks’ proposal and move to London or let her family perish. Rose must choose duty over love. 

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India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who’ll accept her–an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he’s ill.

Dartmoor, 1914. Grace Dannings is a farmer’s daughter, but she dreams of making her mark as a London Suffragette. Too bad she’s stuck in Walkhampton, the sleepy village where she was born. As a child, she could escape to the wheelwright’s mill. Spellbound, she’d watch labourers hammer iron and timber into wheels. Now she’s a woman and nothing about the village feels like home. The men are brutish, the women afraid of change. Perhaps she could have married Martin, the mill owner’s son. But society says she’s not good enough.

When Edie’s mother-in-law, Anna DeLuca, dies, she is relieved. Edie blames Anna for the accident that destroyed her family. So, when her will lures Edie to Sicily and the long-abandoned Villa della Madonna del Mare, she sees through Anna’s games. Suspecting Anna is meddling from beyond the grave to try to reunite her and her ex-husband Joe, Edie is determined to leave Italy as soon as possible.

Plymouth, 1954. The future seems rosy for Plymouth schoolgirl Anna Millington, as she prepares for teacher training college. But Anna's life is not what it seems. Her family is hiding a cruel secret that resulted from the worst night of the Plymouth Blitz. Now, the devastating consequences are about to erupt again. Fearing for her life, Anna leaves her dreams behind and flees to nearby Dartmoor. It isn't long before Anna secures a position as a serving girl at Ashcroft Hall. 

The blossom is out in the little Cornish harbour town of St Felix. But Poppy Carmichael's spirits aren't lifted by the pretty West Country spring. Inheriting her grandmother's flower shop has forced her to return to Cornwall, a place that holds too many memories. Poppy is determined to do her best for the sake of her adored grandmother, but she struggles with the responsibility of the more-shabby-than-chic shop.

August 1883. The future for Ling Southcott, a quarryman’s daughter, seems to be already mapped. Marriage to her childhood sweetheart, Barney, a cluster of children, a life contained to the hamlet of Foggintor Quarry. For Ling, with her sharp, enquiring mind and love of books, it is an accepted, if unwelcome fate. But then the new Princetown Railway opens across Dartmoor, connecting her remote hamlet to the neighbouring town of Tavistock, and even Plymouth.

1941. Maisie yearns for a family of her own. Raised as a charity orphan in a Catholic convent in Ireland, she believed she was all alone in the world. But when she is twelve, her world is turned upside down by a shocking revelation. She is uprooted from the only life she has ever known, and transplanted against her will to Plymouth, England. Family might not be all it's cracked up to be. But Maisie is resilient. She surrounds herself with a family of her own making. Then war breaks out across Europe and a horrific tragedy occurs during one of the worst nights of the Plymouth Blitz.

Dartmoor, 1952. When fifteen-year-old Lily Hayes loses her mother, she finds herself at a crossroads: go to a children's home or leave the bright lights of London to live with her estranged father in the wilds of Dartmoor. Lily moves from London to Dartmoor determined and excited to find out the truth about her family. Her dour father, Sidney, can be sullen and he has a temper on him. He seems to want nothing to do with her, but Lily vows to make the best of things. And there are some things she is grateful for—especially the handsome and charming Edwin Franfield.

It is in 1950s Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim in the shadow of the pier, and Marion is smitten - determined her love will be enough for them both. A few years later, in Brighton Museum, Patrick meets Tom. Patrick is besotted with Tom and opens his eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world. Tom is their policeman, and in this age, it is safer for him to marry Marion. The two lovers must share him until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed.

A new land has been discovered to the east. Winterkeep is a land of miracles, a democratic republic run by people who like each other, where people speak to telepathic sea creatures, adopt telepathic foxes as pets, and fly across the sky in ships attached to balloons. But when Bitterblue's envoys to Winterkeep drown under suspicious circumstances, she and Giddon and her half-sister, Hava, set off to discover the truth - putting both Bitterblue's life and Giddon's heart to the test when Bitterblue is kidnapped. 

In January 2015 renowned neuroscientist Barbara Lipska's melanoma spread to her brain. It was, in effect, a death sentence. She had surgery, radiation treatments and entered an immunotherapy clinical trial. And then her brain started to play tricks on her. The expert on mental illness - who had spent a career trying to work out how the brain operates and what happens when it fails - experienced what it is like to go mad.

In the immediate aftermath of the events of Winterkeep, Bitterblue and her entourage begin the journey back to Monsea with the only copies of the formulas for the zilphium weapon. Bitterblue must decide what she will do with her world-shaping power. But before they've even made it halfway home, storms drive their ship off course and then they wreck in the ice far north of the Royal Continent. The survivors must make a harrowing trek across the ice in order to make it back to Monsea.

India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who'll accept her - an enigmatic and mysterious man from America, a man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he's ill.

Midwife Jess knows she’ll never have a baby of her own, but she’s determined to still be a mum. So Jess decides to foster, providing love and support for children who desperately need it - something Jess never had as a child when she was in foster care. Jess loves caring for the precious babies who come into her life, but letting them go again breaks her heart every time - can she really be a mum after all?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. But for single mum and busy midwife Nadia, it’s quickly turning into her worst Christmas ever. Her marriage is over, and whilst her husband has moved on, Nadia finds herself back home, squashed into her mum’s spare room with her two small children. They might not be a perfect family anymore, but Nadia is determined to make this Christmas special for them. Dr Hamish Spencer totally understands Nadia’s pain. As a fellow single parent, he’s struggling to cope with a rebellious teen daughter and a precocious six-year-old!

Midwife Ella Mehenick can’t wait to marry the love of her life, Dan Ferguson. They have both waited so long for their perfect day, and they know their future together will be everything they’ve ever dreamed of. But when Ella suddenly and unexpectedly collapses – all plans are put on hold.