Showing results by narrator "Rachel Atkins" in All Categories

Eleven days in the life of a mother as she tries to navigate herself and her family through the aftershocks of a scandal. Six years ago, aged 15, Rosalind's daughter, Stephanie, ran away with teacher Nathan Temperley, triggering a media frenzy and resulting in Temperley's arrest and imprisonment. Although the family - Rosalind; her husband, Dan; Stephanie; and son Freddy - don't talk about what happened, their lives have been shaped by it and everything that came after.

Charlotte Alton has put her old life behind her. The life where she bought and sold information, unearthing secrets buried too deep for anyone else to find, or fabricating new identities for people who need their histories erased. But now she has been offered one more job. To get a hit-man into an experimental new prison and take out someone who according to the records isn't there at all. It's impossible. A suicide mission. And quite possibly a set-up. So why can't she say no?

Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of 18! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe . . . or if you are a child from the wrong social class . . . or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.

Jenny and Mark have been together since they were at school. Now they are getting a divorce - largely, it would appear, because it is easier than answering difficult questions. (For example, why has it taken them 15 years to get married?) Only Jenny and Mark are determined that their carefully planned separation will lead to the world's first truly amicable divorce. But Jenny and Mark's friends and family are not so happy about their plans for a 'perfect divorce'. They find their loyalties divided.

Every July, the lucky owners of Cornish holiday homes set off for their annual break. Loading their estate cars with dogs, cats, casefuls of wine, difficult adolescents and rebellious toddlers, they close up their desirable semis in smartish London suburbs - having turned off the Aga and turned on the burglar alarm - and look forward to a carefree, restful, somehow more fulfilling summer.Clare is, this year, more than usually ready for her holiday.

After the unexpected death of his wife, Guy and his young son, Felix, deal with their grief in different ways. Touching, funny, and bittersweet, this is a story about love, loss, and loyalty. Sometimes a bit of earth can mend a broken heart.

There were six of them - three Katherines, two Annes, and a Jane. One of them was the king’s wife for 24 years, another for only a year and a half. One died, two were divorced, and two were beheaded. It was a dangerous, uncertain life.

After the King’s death in 1547, his sixth wife finds a box of old letters - one from each of the first five wives. They are sad, angry, frightened letters. They tell the story of what it was like to be the wife of Henry VIII of England.

The only woman to serve as a soldier in the First World War, the Englishwoman Flora Sandes became a hero and media sensation when she fought for the Serbian Army and pursued a distinguished career in its ranks as officer. This account charts her incredible story.

'My name is Alice. And my son is a murderer.' Deborah’s son was killed four years ago. Alice’s son is in prison for committing that crime. Deborah would give anything to have her boy back, and Alice would do anything to right her son’s wrongs. Driven by guilt and the need for redemption, Alice has started a support group for parents with troubled children. But as the network begins to grow, she soon finds out just how easy it is for one little lie to spiral out of control.... They call it mother’s intuition, but can you ever really know your own child? 

Original tales by remarkable writers. Hometown Tales is a series of books pairing exciting new voices with some of the most talented and important writers at work today. Some of the tales are fiction and some are narrative nonfiction - they are all powerful, fascinating and moving and aim to celebrate regional diversity and explore the meaning of home. 

This is a singular memoir: an excavation of mother love, a candid account of the agonies and absurdities of the cancer experience and a doggedly optimistic paean to life. When Genevieve Fox finds a lump in her throat, she turns up for the hospital diagnosis in a party frock and fancy hair. I can't have cancer, she thinks. I've done my hair. But there is another reason she can't countenance cancer. Genevieve was orphaned to it at the age of nine.

Authentic leadership is a persuasive and popular idea that continues to gain traction in terms of management thinking. Authentic leaders give people a sense of control and agency that makes them feel better about themselves, their future and their work, sparking change and transformation. But authentic leadership can never be static if it is to be truly successful.

Chris Beckett's thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of contemporary short stories is a joy to listen to, rich in detail and texture. From stories about first love, to a man who discovers a labyrinth beneath his house, to an angel left alone at the end of the universe, Beckett displays both incredible range and extraordinary subtlety as a writer. Every story is a world unto itself - each one beautifully realized and brilliantly imagined.

Mary lives a contented life as wife to a wealthy merchant in Elizabethan London. But there's a part of her past she can't forget.... As a small girl she was cursed for causing the death of a vagrant child, a curse that predicts that she will hang. Sometimes the happiest households are not what they seem, and Mary's carefully curated world begins to falter. Mary's whole life is based on a lie. Is she the woman her husband believes her to be?

The Letter: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home. Whilst going through the pockets of a second-hand suit, she comes across an old letter, the envelope firmly sealed and unfranked. Tina opens the letter and reads it - a decision that will alter the course of her life for ever....

A man lies half-drowned on a Cornish beach at dawn in the furthest days of this century. The old woman who discovers him, once a famous concert violinist, is close to death herself--or perhaps a new kind of life she can barely contemplate. Does death still exist at all, or has it finally been obliterated? And who is this strange man she's found? Is he a figure returned from her past, a new Messiah, or an empty vessel? God or the Devil?

It's been a hard couple of years, but things finally seem to be looking up for Danielle. Her boyfriend Matteo has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in Tuscany, complete with olive groves, vineyards and a pool. It couldn't be more perfect. When she gets there, Danielle finds it's not quite as idyllic as she thought. There's a lot of work to be done, but first she turns her attention to making the concrete swamp into the infinity pool of her dreams. As she digs up the old foundations, Danielle brings to light buried secrets that will shatter the tranquillity of her Tuscan dream.

Two women. An open road. The trip of a lifetime. Thea is confident, sorted, determined to have fun, but there are sorrows beneath the surface of her life. Denise is struggling under the weight of her many commitments and in desperate need of some excitement. When these polar opposites meet, and unexpectedly become friends, they realise they're both looking to escape.

From his tiny room at Hampton Court, the royal chronicler records the comings and goings of the King of England, his six Queens—and his six mothers-in-law. Introducing us to these redoubtable ladies, he relates the surprising part they played in the destiny of Henry VIII and his unfortunate wives. We meet Catherine of Aragon's duenna, Dona Elvira; Lady Boleyn, whose gentleman admirer threatens danger for her daughter Anne; and Lady Margaret, whose attempt to overturn hundreds of years of tradition leads to a dramatic confrontation.

1851, Angel Meadow Asylum. Dr. Rutherford, principal physician to the insane, is found dead, his head bashed in, his ears cut off, his lips and eyes stitched closed. The police direct their attention towards Angel Meadow's inmates, but to Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain the crime is an act of calculated retribution, rather than of madness. To discover the truth Jem and Will must pursue the story through the darkest corners of the city.