Showing results by narrator "Patience Tomlinson" in All Categories

The Tudor era encompasses some of the greatest changes in our history. But while we know about the historical dramas of the times, what was life really like for a commoner? To answer this question, the renowned 'method historian' Ruth Goodman has slept, washed and cooked as the Tudors did. She is your expert guide to this fascinating era, drawing on years of practical historical study to show how our ancestors coped with everyday life, from how they slept to how they courted.

When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-driving cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course. The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?

We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Dress in whalebone and feed opium to the baby? Surviving everyday life came down to the gritty details, the small necessities and tricks of living. Drawing on Ruth's unique firsthand experience gained from living on a Victorian farm for a year, this book will teach you everything you need to know about 19th-century living.

In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about. Consider, as Ackerman does, the Clark's nutcracker, a bird that can hide as many as 30,000 seeds over dozens of square miles and remember where it put them several months later; the mockingbirds and thrashers, species that can store 200 to 2,000 different songs in a brain a thousand times smaller than ours; and the well-known pigeon, which knows where it's going, even thousands of miles from familiar territory.

It was odd that Harriet should always have been so fond of curates. They were so immature and always made the same kind of conversation. Now the Archdeacon was altogether different...'Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that elderly Italian Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year.

Less Than Angels follows the loves, works and hopes of a group of young anthropologists. Catherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love triangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant.

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules is an incredibly quirky, humorous, and warm-hearted story about growing old disgracefully - and breaking all the rules along the way! 79-year-old Martha Andersson dreams of escaping her care home and robbing a bank. She has no intention of spending the rest of her days in an armchair and is determined to fund her way to a much more exciting lifestyle. Along with her four oldest friends - otherwise known as the League of Pensioners - Martha decides to rebel against all of the rules imposed upon them.

Wiltshire in 1901: Kathleen's family are determined to force her into marriage with a violent man. In desperation she runs away and finds what consolation she can for her lost dreams. Then tragedy strikes, and Kathleen seeks refuge at Honeyfield House, where a charitable bequest has created a hiding place for families in trouble. Nathan fought in the Great War and is now using his gift for finding lost people as a detective. Taking on the job of finding Kathleen, he is shocked to discover a woman he can love, not the vicious female he was led to expect.

Armistice Day, London, 1918. Fiercely independent Georgie is tired of being told what's best for her by men. When she defies her father's wishes by going out into the peace festivities, she tries to help a woman being attacked and encounters Patrick, a gallant wounded ex-soldier looking for a new calling now that the fighting is done. But the war isn't over for everybody. Enemy forces have infiltrated the bureau and sent her father into hiding. And they are coming for her, too. Georgie knows there's only one place where she'll be safe: Honeyfield.

Lady Jane Grey was born into the most dangerous of times. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother for whom she was a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour. Growing up with the future Queen Elizabeth and her reluctant nemesis, Mary, she soon learned the truth of the values imparted to her by Henry VIII's last Queen, Katherine Parr.

When the Call The Midwife series became bestsellers Jennifer Worth received mountains of letters - not only praising her books, but also from people who remembered the world her books described; life in the east end of London during the late 1940s and early 50s. Often her books touched her readers and they felt moved to write, or they wanted to share their own memories.

After a health scare, 77-year-old Barbara goes to convalesce in the sleepy Somerset village of Winsleigh Green with her sister, Pauline, who is now a widow. The sisters are like chalk and cheese - Barbara, outspoken and aloof and Pauline, good natured and homely - so it’s not long before the tension starts to rise. But when Pauline accidentally knocks down a vagrant who goes by the name of Bisto Mulligan, the ladies find themselves with another houseguest.

1916. Bella is working as a Voluntary Aid driving ambulances in England when she gets engaged to Philip, on leave from fighting in France. His family strongly disapprove of her, but the two of them are happy together. Georgie, Philip's sister, is in trouble, having broken her engagement and fled from her bullying family. Who can she turn to for help when she needs it most? When the worst happens, Bella must manage on her own, though there are shocks and dangers ahead that she did not foresee.

A S Byatt's fairy tales and fables are among the best-loved features of her fiction. Innumerable listeners have asked for the two marvellous fairy tales in Possession - 'The Glass Coffin' and 'Gode's Tale' of the Breton Naie des Trepasses - to be published separately. Here they take their place with three other stories with medieval and oriental settings.

From the best-selling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever, a deliciously funny, poignant and wry novel, full of surprising twists and turns. James is getting on a bit and needs full-time help. So Phoebe and Robert, his middle-aged offspring, employ Mandy, who seems willing to take him off their hands. But as James regales his family with tales of Mandy's virtues, their shopping trips and the shared pleasure of their journeys to garden centres, Phoebe and Robert sense something is amiss.

After stealing some priceless Russian jewels from the Stockholm Auction House, Martha and her gang flee to the small village of Hemmavid to lie low. But what they find is a village in crisis, so they decide they want to help revive the place. But to do so, the village needs money. In steps the League of Pensioners to arrange events to attract paying tourists. Which all turns out to be a rather delicate – and dramatic – balancing act when you are wanted by the police.

Faye is 39 and single. She's terrified she may never have the one thing she always wanted: a child of her own. Then she discovers a co-parenting app: Acorns. For men and women who want to have a baby, but don't want to do it alone. When she meets Louis through it, it feels as though the fates have aligned.

Meet Siiri and Irma, best friends and the queen bees of Sunset Grove, a retirement community for those still young at heart. With a combined age of nearly 180, Siiri and Irma are still just as inquisitive and witty as when they first met decades ago. And when their comfortable world is upturned by a suspicious death at Sunset Grove, Siiri and Irma are shocked into doing something about it.