Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass"

Like many women, Clare Pooley found the juggle of a stressful career and family life a struggle, so she left her successful role as a managing partner in one of the world's biggest advertising agencies to look after her family. She knew the change wouldn't be easy, but she never expected to find herself an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day and spending her evenings Googling 'am I an alcoholic?'

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Where the Light Gets In by Lucy Dillon. 'You know those cracks in your heart, Lorna, where things didn’t work out, but you picked yourself up and carried on? That’s where the fear gets out. And where the light gets in.' It was Betty, defiant to the end, who sent Lorna back to Longhampton. If Lorna’s learned one thing from Betty, it’s that courage is something you paint on like red lipstick, even when you’re panicking inside. And right now, with the keys to the town’s gallery in her hand, Lorna feels about as courageous as Betty’s anxious little dachshund trembling beside her.

The Cows is a powerful novel about three women. In all the noise of modern life, each needs to find her own voice. It's about friendship and being female. It's bold and brilliant. It's searingly perceptive. It's about never following the herd. And everyone is going to be talking about it.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season. But no sooner has Frances begun her new life than the ghosts of her old one make an unwelcome appearance....

Then - In charge of her little sister at the beach, Claire allowed Eleanor to walk to the shop alone to buy an ice cream. Placing a coin into her hand, Claire told her to be quick, knowing how much she wanted the freedom. Eleanor never came back. Now - The time has finally come to sell the family farm and Claire is organizing a reunion of her dearest friends, the same friends who were present the day her sister went missing. When another girl disappears, long-buried secrets begin to surface.

The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is...don't make any afternoon plans.  

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it's said in the wrong way.   

Sitting between her ex-husband and her new lover, Anna is coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy at the age of 40. Also at the table are her ageing grandmother, her promiscuous sister, her flamboyantly gay brother and a memory too terrible to contemplate.  

Until, that is, a letter arrives from the person Anna scarred all those years ago. Can Anna reconcile her painful past with her uncertain future?  

Juliet Ashton weaves a story of love, friendship and community that will move you to laughter and to tears. Think Cold Feet meets David Nicholls, with a dash of the joy of Jill Mansell added for good measure.

The perfect escapist listen, for all fans of Cathy Bramley and Scarlett Bailey. A Year at the Star and Sixpence is Holly Hepburn's four Star and Sixpence novellas collected together as a novel for the first time. When sisters Nessie and Sam inherit a little pub in a beautiful country village, they jump at the chance to escape their messy lives and start afresh. But when they arrive at the Star and Sixpence, it's not quite what they imagined - it's pretty much derelict, ruined by debts, and it's going to be a huge job....

Everything in Lorna’s life runs like clockwork, from her six a.m. run to the strict 60 minute counselling sessions she gives. It’s the only way she can deal with the terrible secret she carries. When a new client arrives for his first appointment, Lorna feels her perfect life unravel in a matter of seconds. It’s Andrew, the man she’s spent the last year desperately trying to forget. It seems he can’t forget her either....

With her heart in tatters, Rose Bennett swaps her hometown of London for sunny Australia, but arrives to find the Shingle Valley shrouded in winter. As the weather improves, Rose starts to unlock the secrets of the valley - from bonfire ceremonies and wine-making traditions, to eccentric locals and their histories.... And soon, Rose falls in love with the valley, the wines, the two children she’s caring for and with the handsome and brilliant Mark Cameron, owner of the troubled Kalkari Wines estate.

When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life for herself, with Innes at her side. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child.

When Lady Anne Sinclair vowed to marry anyone as long as it meant she married before her spoilt beauty of a sister, she had no idea the 'anyone' would be the Marquess of Torrance. Long the darling of the ton - and considered quite the confirmed bachelor - he succumbed to Annie's charms and, most magically, made her his wife. But Annie's lifelong battle for attention had ill prepared her for married life. In a tipsy reverie on her wedding night, she blurted out her real reason for marrying the Marquess....

Laura Hardy is recovering from a traumatic car crash. The incident proved fatal for her mother, and whilst Laura's life was spared, she is left injured, weak and grieving for her loss. Her brother, Edward, resolves that accommodating Laura at his family home, Four Winds, will provide the respite she so desperately needs. But as soon as she steps foot over the threshold, she is assailed by feelings of choking and terror, engulfed by a sense of despair.

>An invaluable guide to arrive at better business decisions. We make decisions, and these decisions make us and our organisations. And in theory, decision-making should be easy: a problem is identified, the decision-makers generate solutions, and choose the optimal one - and powerful mathematical tools are available to facilitate the task. Yet if it is all so simple why do organisations, both private and public sector, keep making mistakes - the results of which are borne by shareholders, employees, taxpayers, and ultimately society at large?

From the number one bestselling author of The One You Really Want comes a poignant romantic novel about a young woman whose time is running out. Not to be missed by readers of Jojo Moyes and Erica James. Jill Mansell's enchanting new novel will drive readers to seize life with both hands and make the most of every minute... Hallie has a secret. She's in love. He's perfect for her in every way, but he's seriously out of bounds.

In this era of mass consumption, we are all drowning in 'stuff', despite our best efforts to keep on top of the clutter that collects in our homes, our office spaces and even our cars. All this clutter causes us mental anguish. However, as we all know, throwing things away can be difficult - it clashes with the values instilled in us from an early age of not wasting things, reusing items and keeping things 'for a rainy day'. Simply put, we feel guilty about getting rid of things. Enter Nagisa Tatsumi and her bold suggestion - that it's okay to throw stuff away.

When Anna Flores' adored older sister goes missing as a teenager, Anna copes by disappearing too and eventually building a life for herself abroad. Thirty years later, the death of her mother finally forces Anna to return home. Tasked with sorting through her mother's possessions, she begins to confront not just her mother's death but also the huge hole Gabriella's disappearance left in her life - and finds herself asking a question she's not allowed herself to ask for years: what really happened to her sister?

Based on the interviews broadcast on BBC Radio 4's hugely popular series, The Life Scientific: Explorers takes science out of its box and introduces us to the men and women who make it happen. The explorers featured in this volume include: Michele Dougherty, the mathematician who persuaded the Cassini mission to Saturn to make a diversion; Richard Fortey on his love of trilobites; Monica Grady, Meteorite Lady; neurosurgeon Henry Marsh on slicing through our thoughts; the Director of the British Antarctic Survey, Jane Francis; Brian Cox on quantum mechanics; and Nobel Prize winner John Sulston on why he thought it would be a good idea to sequence the human genome.

When an old friend gets in touch, Sarah Havenant discovers that there are two Facebook profiles in her name. One is hers. The other she has never seen. But everything in it is accurate. Photos of her friends, her husband, her kids. Photos from the day before. Photos of her new kitchen. Photos taken inside her house. And this is just the beginning. Because whoever has set up the second profile has been waiting for Sarah to find it. And now that she has, her life will no longer be her own....

When young widow Lady Lovelace realised she had been swindled to near- bankruptcy by her curmudgeonly cousin, she knew she would have to marry again for money. These were the very thoughts of Lord Philip, who had nothing between him and destitution but his small army pension. And so these two attractive fortune hunters somehow found each other and, before long, popped into marriage - and into the bridal chamber - only to discover they were both virtually penniless. What a diabolical situation.

Isobel arrives in the quiet Cornish town of Fallenbay determined to find peace - and answers - after her most intimate secrets have been splashed across the Internet. Cleo thinks she's happy running a small coastal café but has no idea of the trouble her children are getting themselves mixed up in. Sarah has finally put her horrible ex behind her and found the man of her dreams. Or has she? All three women have no idea how powerful their darkest secrets can be and how they will change the town of Fallenbay forever.