Showing results by narrator "Laurel Lefkow"

Babe, Grace, and Millie have been best friends since kindergarten. Despite their differences, they’ve played together, grown up together, and shared each other’s secrets. And when World War Two becomes a reality for America, each quickly marries her first true love. With the men away, life is difficult for these women. But when no fewer than 16 telegrams arrive on a single morning in 1944 - all bearing news of the worst kind from the War Department - the girls know that nothing will ever be the same again.

Two species lived in peaceful coexistence on the planet Demoth until a deadly plague wiped out millions of the winged Ooloms while leaving humans untouched, helpless to do more than ease the suffering of their alien friends and neighbors. Faye Smallwood saw the horror firsthand, caring for the plague victims in her fahter's hospital. She was there when he discovered the cure that made him famous. She was also there when a freak accident killed him.

GET UP. KISS YOUR FAMILY GOODBYE. GOT TO WORK. DIE... They say bad luck comes in threes. But for Karen Friedman's family, bad luck is just the beginning. It starts with her husband Charlie's investments going wrong and the sudden death of a family pet. Then one morning Charlie takes the train to work - straight into a lethal terrorist blast. For his widow Karen and their children, all that remains of Charlie is a shared past.

The Grelliers and the Schapens: two families who have been farming in the Kaw River Valley for over 150 years, their lives connected through the generations by history and geography. Then Gina Haring, bringing with her the liberal air of the big city, moves into a dilapidated house near both farms. Gina has secrets, her own reasons for being in the Kansas countryside, and they're not necessarily what the people around her imagine.

Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation... and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers. When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with the gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers. But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?

Just as Lois Maynard is about to sell the family's summer home, her domineering and troubled older sister, Judith, returns and a mysterious murder disrupts the household.

A brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of a classic Raymond Chandler mystery featuring private eye, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is now married, living in the resort town of Poodle Springs. Once again, he sets himself up as an investigator and soon finds himself in the middle of blackmail and murder....

For 200 years, painters, poets and musicians have come to the Catskill Mountain village of Arcadia Falls to escape the pressures of modern life and pursue their artistic visions, and Arcadia College was founded with a mission to nurture young artists and writers. When Meg Rosenthal gets an offer to teach at Arcadia College, it seems a godsend - an escape from a life that's fallen apart.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation on the writer and poet Dylan Thomas. Based on a true story, Rob Gittins's play draws on archive material.When 'Time' magazine printed a warts-and-all article about Dylan Thomas in 1953, the poet sued them for libel. Needing to gather more evidence, the magazine hired a private detective to shadow Thomas in New York.

Wry, smart, tough private eye Janelle Watkins swore off investigating child abductions four years ago, when she left the San Francisco PD. But when two clients beg for her help, one to find her missing 11-year-old son and the other to find a toddler who's vanished, Janelle can't say no. Even though it means returning to the scene of her nightmares - her hometown of Greenville.

The dowdy Bernice becomes a 'society vampire' after guidance from her popular cousin Marjorie. But when the new party girl Bernice begins to threaten her cousin's own popularity, Marjorie lays a fiendish trap for her gullible cousin.

Savannah wants to prove herself to her powerful father, Michael Hudson. Lois, an ex-cop, is now running the gambling business of Michael's greatest rival, Roberto Enzo - and torn between the glamour of the casinos and the needs of her daughter. Both women have to confront their pasts and find out the really important things in life before greed and corruption consume them.

The women of the Weller family - matriarch Lolly, cousins Kat, June, and Isabel - have not had the easiest of relationships over the years. The cousins have gone their separate ways, but now, just as each faces a crossroads in her life, they are summoned home by Lolly for some earth-shattering news. As the women spend their first summer together in years, home truths and buried secrets begin to emerge. To ease the tension, Lolly proposes a series of movie nights dedicated to her favourite actress, Meryl Streep, and as the four women sit and discuss the parallels between films and real life, they gradually help one another.

Love was the furthest thing from Patricia Abbott's mind when she met Tony Wainwright. Though he was heir to the Wainwright fortune and the magnificent family mansion known as the Cloisters, the rumors of his private revels hinted at a dark and sinister decadence. And there was something else - a woman Tony never spoke about, hidden away in the shadows... a woman who was his wife. But it was already too late. As Tony drew her into a dangerous liaison, Patricia became enmeshed in an inescapable web of lies, secrets, and cold-blooded murder.

Last Christmas, Callie Aspen left her tour-guide job and settled in Heart's Harbor, Maine. Now, she helps out at Book Tea, her great aunt’s vintage tearoom, where each treat has a bookish clue. Although she’s excited to start her new life, Callie worries she may regret having burned her bridges behind her. Fortunately, she finds immediate distraction in the preparations for a spectacular Fourth of July tea party, which will recreate key moments from the town's rich history. 

This Christmas, Callie Aspen returns to her childhood hideout Heart's Harbor, Maine, where her great aunt runs Book Tea, a vintage tearoom where every sweet treat contains a bookish clue. Upon arrival in the fairy-tale snowy town, Callie is drawn into the preparations for a special tea party at Haywood Hall, the rambling house of Heart's Harbor's oldest resident, rich but lonely widow Dorothea Finster, who invited her estranged relatives, old friends, and the elite of the town to make a mysterious announcement about her will. 

Set near San Francisco, this warm, funny novel about love and marriage follows the fortunes and failures of Jack and Milly for 60 years. They marry in 1952 and, typical of postwar couples, shift up a class. Optimistic and full of plans, they see themselves living the American dream. Through the years they cling to each other despite having little in common.

Callie Aspen can't think of a more appropriate place to spend Valentine's Day than her adopted hometown of Heart's Harbor, Maine. When she's not helping out at Book Tea, her great-aunt Iphy's vintage tearoom, Callie's adorning Haywood Hall with hearts and roses for the big Valentine's event, where townspeople will fall in love with sweet treats, heartwarming music, and delightful books. But when a dead body is discovered, the stirring spoon of suspicion points at the many people who had reasons to want the victim dead.

A mother moves to Geneva with her husband and their two young children. In their beautiful new rented apartment, surrounded by their rented furniture, and several Swiss instructions to maintain quiet, she finds herself totally isolated. Her husband’s job means he is almost never present, and her entire world is caring for her children - making sure they are happy, and fed and comfortable, and that they can be seen as the happy, well-fed, comfortable family they should be. Everything is perfect. But, of course, it’s not....

Leah Garcés has dedicated her career to fighting for the rights of the animals that end up on our plates. As the former US Executive Director of Compassion in World Farming and the current President of the nonprofit group Mercy for Animals, she has led the fight against the sprawling chicken industry that raises billions of birds in cruel conditions - all to satisfy our appetite for meat.