Showing results by narrator "Lucy Scott" in All Categories

There are those who never grow old because they are taken too soon. There are those who grow old without worries, enjoying everything life has to offer. There are those who desperately try to slow down the ticking clock. And then there's Betty. Betty, who mysteriously stops growing old on her thirtieth birthday - the same age as her mother when she died. The years leave no trace on Betty's face, but as everyone around her is transformed by the relentless march of time, her once golden life begins to come apart.

Barney and Hattie Frank are 12-year-old twins who play football together on the school team. The team is trying to win the County Cup. Hattie is the better player but Barney thinks he can see where the school team is going wrong. So, when a TV talent show is looking for a new manager to help a failing Premiership team to start scoring again, Barney's sure he knows the answer. Maybe, to demonstrate his skills, he could train Hattie to be a top goal scorer.

When Alexandra discovers that her husband, Philippe, is having an affair, she can't believe he'd risk losing the love that has transformed both their lives. Still in shock, Alexandra finds herself powerfully attracted to a much younger man. Jean-Luc Malavoine is 23, intense and magnetic. He's also the son of Philippe's best friend. With every increasingly passionate liaison, Alexandra is pulled deeper into a situation that threatens everyone she holds dear.

It all starts with a young girl playing her ukulele in a dingy folk club. There is something different about the song she sings - a song called 'Life Is Beautiful'. It breaks hearts. It makes money. It might even change the world. But no story of beauty and success in our cruel modern world can be entirely innocent. Can it? Young Girl With a Ukulele is a dark and clever story of music and fame - and the sinister forces which can lie behind them.

Jane Seymour is a shy, dutiful 15-year-old when her eldest brother, Edward, brings his bride home to Wolf Hall. Katherine Filliol is the perfect match for Edward, as well as being a breath of fresh air for the Seymour family, and Jane is captivated by the older girl. Over the course of a long, hot country summer, the two become close friends and allies, while Edward is busy building alliances at court and advancing his career. However, only two years later, the family is torn apart by a dreadful allegation made by Edward against his wife.

Will Shakespeare is about to meet the girl who will change his life forever. After a mixed-up courtship with the Hathaway sisters ends badly, Will jumps at the chance to go to London, where he can pursue his dream of becoming an actor. There, Will meets the unusually tall (and strong) Meg who has earned the nickname "Long Meg" for her height. She's also fleeing her own past as an orphan turned thief. Disguised as "Mack", Meg was once a member of a band of boy thieves who betrayed her.

St. Petersburg, 1911: Inna Feldman has fled the pogroms to take refuge with relatives in Russia’s capital city. Welcomed into the flamboyant Leman family, she is apprenticed into their violin-making workshop. But revolution is in the air and, as society begins to fracture, she is forced to choose between her heart and her head. She loves her brooding cousin, Yasha, but he is wild and destructive; Horace Wallich, the Englishman who works for Fabergé, is older and promises security and respectability.

Sophie, bereft after the loss of her mother and her husband's betrayal, walks out. She seeks refuge with her friend Jill on the Isle of Wight, not suspecting she is about to be drawn into another crisis. For Jill, a psychologist, has her own complex reasons for persuading Sophie to stay.

When Jake Jellicoe signs up as a cabin boy aboard the Flounder, Captain Dreadnought promises him a share of the loot. But he soon discovers that the captain isn't all he seems. And before he knows it, Jake is caught up in a race for the dread pirate Redbeard's treasures! Har-har, me hearties!

It's Easter in the Suffolk village of Great Saxwold. Oliver Hardcastle is scraping an existence as an organic farmer. Miranda Marlow, high-earning international town-planner, is not looking forward to a weekend with her mother at a country-house hotel. But thanks to a teenage Goth, a wine-tasting at Chateau Saxwold, and an urban fox, love finds a way to change Miranda's mind.

As the Wars of the Roses draw slowly to a close, England is a place of turmoil. Edward IV is on the throne but his position is unstable and he finds himself challenged by a man who could become Henry VII. But Isabel, a silk weaver to the court and mistress to Richard III, can cut through the turmoil with her clever ways and her pretty smile. Her sister Jane is mistress to Edward IV. Could they hold the power?

Rain designs exquisite stained glass windows.But the law is clear-girls cannot be part of the glassmakers' guild.Leaving home, she travels to Magharna.When Peri witnesses Rain's capture by a gang of bandits,his fate and heart become tied to hers.They escape the outlaws,but Peri's family of falconers and untouchables,scorned by all.Can Rain and Peri's love survive the prejudices against them?And with the country on the brink of disaster will they be able to stop their world from smashing apart?

Born in 1623 as the youngest child of a wealthy Essex family, Margaret Cavendish became a Maid of Honour to Queen Henrietta Maria before going on to marry the widowed William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. She was a prolific writer whose work encompassed a range of genres. The Blazing World is part fiction and part feminist text in which a lady is shipwrecked and seeks to ensure that the Blazing World in which she finds herself is transformed into a Utopia - free of war, sexual discrimination, and religious discord.

It’s 1979 and Amanda Fernsby, nineteen and inexperienced, dreams of lasting love. She leaves London with her parents to start a new life in rural Sussex, moving into Marshywood, a charming, rustic cottage. Now, surrounded by nature, she is excited to begin her new life, but there are bumps in the road ahead.

May 1945 and at long last, Rosamund Caradon is feeling optimistic. As she returns the last few evacuees to London from her Devonshire manor, she vows to protect dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine from further peril. But a chance meeting with a Sadler's Wells ballet dancer changes everything. When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund's train carriage, it's clear her sights are set on the immediately captivated Jasmine. And Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter is not what it seems.

The Seal of Confession is the latest breathtaking espionage thriller from the author of Selling St. Christopher. Clemmie, a life-worn shadow operator for the British Secret Service, is accompanied by her team of young misfits, as they investigate the murder of a Russian Orthodox priest in London. However, their mission is anything but routine, and they are soon contending with a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

Renee Gulliver appears to have it all: a beautiful house overlooking a scenic estuary on England’s East Coast, a successful career as a relationship therapist, three grown-up children, and a beloved grandson, Xavier. But then Xavier vanishes after Renee fails to pick him up from school, and the repercussions are manifold. Renee is wracked with remorse; the local community question her priorities, clients abandon her; and, as long-held grievances surface, her daughter Mia offers her a heartbreaking ultimatum.

Kate and Bella, Bella and Kate. From childhood they were inseparable yet polar opposites: Bella sensible and cautious, Kate gregarious and just a little dangerous. Then men came into their lives and things changed: a black seed was set in in the heart of their relationship. Over decades, acts of both cruelty and love feed that seed until one shocking event leads to further tragedy. Neither will escape unscathed.

Lying in bed next to the man of her dreams, Leah is crippled with fear and unable to sleep. She knows that her husband Jacob is going to wake up to her, not the woman of his dreams. Jacob worked and served Leah’s father Laban for seven years to marry her younger sister Rachel, but on the night of their wedding, the brides were switched; the right man was married to the wrong bride.

Polish by birth, Fryderyk Chopin made his name in post-Revolutionary Paris and is often depicted as the archetypal Romantic artist–blessed with extraordinary talent but consumed by the flame of genius, tormented by intense and tempestuous relationships and doomed to an early death. But how much of this story is based on fact? This account of Chopin’s life and times separates myth and reality and, illustrated with numerous musical examples, takes us from his youthful beginnings as ‘a second Mozart’ to the darkness and light of his life and the brilliance of his work.