Showing results by narrator "Katy Sobey" in All Categories

Poplar, 1890. Hester Stainsby grew up in Poplar, in London's East End. Living with her father, Fred, her younger twin siblings, Harry and Polly, and self-centred Granny Garter, Hester toils day and night in the laundry room of Poplar Hospital to help put food on the family table. But when Fred is badly injured in an accident at the East India Docks, Hester finds herself the sole breadwinner, with the weight of the world on her shoulders. So as to make a better life for herself and her family, Hester trains to be a nurse and throws herself into her work.

Liv Green loves losing herself in a good book. Her everyday reality is less romantic, cleaning houses for people who barely give her the time of day. But when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero and mega-best-selling author Essie Starling, she can't believe her luck. When Essie dies unexpectedly, Liv is left with an astonishing last wish: to complete Essie’s last ever novel. To do so, change-averse Liv will have to step away from the fictitious worlds in her head and into Essie’s shoes. 

Isadora Moon is special because she's different. Her mum is a fairy and her dad is a vampire and she's a bit of both. The fourth collection of this beautiful, charming and funny series featuring Isadora Moon - a totally unique half-vampire, half-fairy heroine with an out-of-this-world family!  

Considering herself unsuitable for any other contribution to the war effort, Monica Dickens opts for nursing, imagining herself gliding through the wards, serene in a pure white halo cap. On enrolment, however, she is promptly stripped of all illusions. Intelligent and headstrong, Monica struggles to submit to the iron rule of the Matron and toils over the mountains of menial work that are a trainee's lot. But there are friends among the staff and patients, night-time escapades to dances with dashing army men and her secret writing project to keep her going.

Alex Mullins knows she is one of the lucky ones. When a fatal coach crash at her school reunion killed several of her classmates, she was saved from a grisly fate. She is haunted by what she thinks she saw that night - a vision of a skeletal woman, known by the locals as the Bonehead - a woman who brings bad luck to all that see her. Now a police officer in Gloucestershire, Alex fights to overcome the past by helping other people. But when her path crosses with someone who was there that fateful night, her new life begins to unravel at the seams.

The First World War was the defining event of the last century. It claimed the lives of more than 16 million people across the globe and had an enormous impact on all who experienced it. No nation in Europe was left untouched and even neutral states felt its devastating impact. Yet it was the ordinary men and women who were affected the most. This gripping, revealing and poignant collection of stories tells the First World War from the perspective of those who were there, using letters, diaries and memoirs from Imperial War Museum's unparalleled archives.

Brooke is delighted when Oliver decides to rent her old family home with his three-year-old son, Finley. Finally someone to bring happiness to the run-down house across the street. They seem like the perfect tenants, but Brooke is a little unnerved when they move in with just a single bag between them. Where are their belongings?

When 27-year-old Posy arrives at picture-perfect Oleander House in the Somerset village of Astercombe, she is enchanted. Adopted when she was just a baby, Posy is excited to reconnect with her birth family and help out on the family cider farm with its old stone walls and bees buzzing in the hedgerows. There’s just one tiny problem - her new next-door neighbor. Haughty, handsome vineyard owner Lachlan.

Magical machines, wizards, witches, mysterious underworlds, a race against time - and two most magical girls. Annabel Grey has been brought up to be a very proper Victorian young lady. But being 'proper' isn't always easy - especially when you can sometimes see marvellous (as well as terrifying) things in puddles. But parlour tricks such as these are nothing compared to the world that Annabel is about to enter....

French Alps, 1998. Two young men ski into a blizzard...but only one returns. Twenty years later. Four people connected to the missing man find themselves in that same resort. Each has a secret. Two may have blood on their hands. One is a killer-in-waiting. Someone knows what really happened that day. And somebody will pay. 

Are you stuck in a rut? Do you feel plagued by negative thoughts and emotions every day? Gill Hasson, the best-selling author of Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence, is back to help you move on from those pesky negative emotions and focus on the positive instead. Gill's practical and reassuring approach to the benefits of positive thinking will have you applying it to your own life every day.

Dad's taking Holly on one of his travel-writing trips - to Malaysia! Holly can't wait to explore all the new sights, sounds and smells Asia has to offer. But Dad has other things in mind.... Instead of exploring the jungles, he's busy making the most of the free spa and sticking Holly in the dreaded Adventure Club. If Holly wants a real adventure, she's going to have to find it herself.

As chief bridesmaid, Libby knows she should be having the time of her life at her best friend’s snowy Christmas Eve wedding. But she’s at the mercy of three bossy little flower girls and she’s not looking her best in an enormous fuchsia dress. Which is a shame, as it is the first time she’s going to see her ex Rufus. The man she was supposed to marry. The man who left her alone at the altar....

Running from her past, Rachel answers an advert to be a live-in assistant to glamorous and eccentric author Dorothy Winters. But behind the closed doors of Dorothy's mansion, she quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems. When Dorothy's manuscript throws up striking similarities to events in Rachel's own life, she becomes convinced that the past she's tried to hide is catching up with her. Then the phone calls start. The parcel arrives. The blood shows up in the bathroom. And Dorothy's friend disappears....

This collection of narratives from autistic adults is structured around their decades of experience of life, covering 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60 and 70s+. These are varied and diverse, spanning different continents, genders, sexualities and ethnicities, yet the author highlights the common themes that unite them and skilfully draws out these threads. Each chapter is based on accounts from one age group and includes accounts from people of that age, giving an insight into the history of autism and signifying how gaining a diagnosis (or not) has changed people's lives over time.

Kitty and Tom Conlon arrive in Liverpool in July 1916 to claim the house Tom’s great-uncle has bequeathed him in his will. The move to England couldn’t have come at a better time. Dublin is in turmoil following the Easter Uprising and Kitty’s brother is now in prison. The house in Weaver Street is all they hoped for, and after a shaky start with her new neighbours, Kitty believes the world is her oyster. Until that is, Tom is conscripted into the navy. With Tom away, it’s up to Kitty and the women of Weaver Street to get each other through the war.

Angie Smith lives in Greenway, Chelmsford, with her elder sister, Doreen, their struggling mother and their drunk, violent father. Bored of her job and of her dull, ordinary boyfriend, Angie dreams of bigger and better things. But then she meets boutique owner Gene Battini. He is older, handsome, charming - and married. She is completely swept off her feet. But little does she know that Doreen is falling for Gene, too, and that their affair will have disastrous consequences.

When Cassie Jensen arrives on the intensive care ward in St Catherine's hospital, Alice Marlowe, the chief nurse, is fascinated by this young, beautiful woman who strikes her as familiar and yet she doesn't know why. But then Alice is astonished to discover something about Cassie that she has been keeping secret from everyone, including her devoted husband and family - a secret that changes everything.

Florence, 1943. As the bells toll in the solemn dark streets and enemy soldiers loiter by the city’s beautiful bridges, schoolgirl Gabriella is racked with guilt. She is ashamed of the crush she had on the soldier with raven-black hair, a crush that allowed a secret notebook to fall into the hands of the enemy. Faced with her brother’s haunted eyes and the prospect of never seeing her father again, Gabriella is determined to make things right. She seeks out her old schoolfriend Stefanina, an unlikely member of the Italian resistance with her beautiful curls and scarlet ribbon. 

Sean pulls me to him, and we both laugh happily, as we stroll home from our favorite wine bar. It’s our first evening out since our baby girl was born. I’ve only thought about Kitty a couple of times, wondering if she’s settled without my goodnight kiss. But our perfect night is shattered when I see the police car and the two officers on the front steps of our home....