Showing results by narrator "Sophie Roberts" in All Categories

Who was the real Diana? What was it like to be so privileged yet so anguished, so beloved yet so self-loathing, so spoiled yet so despairing? The Princess of Wales was all these things--far more complicated, conflicted, and intriguing a person than the wildly disparate saint or lunatic she is frequently portrayed to be.

To the outside world, Electra D’Aplièse seems to be the woman with everything: as one of the world’s top models, she is beautiful, rich and famous. Yet beneath the veneer, Electra’s already tenuous control over her state of mind has been rocked by the death of her father, Pa Salt, the elusive billionaire who adopted his six daughters from across the globe. Struggling to cope, she turns to alcohol and drugs. As those around her fear for her health, Electra receives a letter from a complete stranger who claims to be her grandmother.

Claire arrives at her new job as researcher at a grand English country house, nursing a broken heart. But tucked into the back of a long-forgotten drawer she finds a letter written in an elegant hand. It tells of a wartime secret about the beautiful Lady Violet – whose passionate affair with an Italian prisoner of war scandalised the village and ended in tragedy. Captivated, Claire promises to find Violet’s daughter, Tabitha, and reunite her with a priceless piece of her mother’s jewellery. With only the name of an Italian bakery, Pasticceria Mancini, to guide her, and the help of her handsome neighbour Jim, Claire travels to Tabitha’s last known location – Florence.

In the third book in Alice Bell’s Grave Expectations series, Alex has managed to convince Claire, Sophie and Basher that they should incorporate as a private investigation company. They investigate a suspicious death at a pro-wrestling company, with help from the ghost of the deceased.

Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin. They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online. At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored.

With a broken heart and a broken spirit, Hattie is in need of a summer escape. So when an opportunity comes up to work at a beautiful, stately chateau in the Champagne region of France she books her flights quicker than the pop of a cork. Romance is the last thing Hattie is looking for but then she wasn’t expecting gorgeous Luc to stroll into her life. With picnics in the warm French sun and delicious foodie trips to the local market, Hattie starts to wonder if a holiday fling – or maybe even something more – might be just what she needs.

Why do people with addiction use drugs self-destructively? Why don’t they quit out of self-concern? Why does the rat in the experiment, alone in a cage, press the lever again and again for cocaine—to the point of death? In this pathbreaking book, Hanna Pickard proposes a new paradigm for understanding the puzzle of addiction.

A dinner party is held in the penthouse of a multimillion-pound development. All the guests are strangers - even to their host, the billionaire owner of the building. None of them know why they were selected to receive his invitation. Besides a postcode, they share only one thing in common - they've all experienced an unsettling occurrence within the building's walls. By the end of the night, their host is dead, and none of the guests will say what happened. His death remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries - until now.

It’s been fifteen years since Gem’s eight-year-old daughter Sara-Jane went missing, snatched with her best friend Abby right outside their school. A frantic search united the community at first, but after Abby was found and brought home, single mother Gem’s dogged persistence only led to accusations that she was stirring up class tensions. Even that she was somehow involved.

Seventeen-year-old noble Will Arrex and her classmate Paige Tarrant were destined to be bitter rivals. Where Will is ice cold and painfully poised—everything an Arrex should be—Tarrant is a firecracker, unafraid to speak her mind. Every twenty-five years, students aboard the Eden Space Station are chosen by lottery to pilot the Laikas—a fleet of ships sent on exploratory missions, humanity's last hope to find a habitable world. As the only daughter of a powerful politician, Will was not supposed to be one of them.

In this book, Katie Brindle teaches listeners how to harness this powerful natural healing system to improve every aspect of their life. Yang Sheng fits and works brilliantly in modern life. Some of the techniques may seem unusual, but they are all simple, quick and effective. Even more appealing, a key principle of Chinese medicine is balance; that means not being perfect or excluding foods or having too many rules or pushing yourself to exhaustion with overwork or over-exercise.

In three generations, the D’Oyly Carte family and London’s Savoy Hotel pioneered the idea of the luxury hotel and the modern theater, propelled Gilbert and Sullivan to lasting stardom, made Oscar Wilde a transatlantic celebrity, inspired a P. G. Wodehouse series, and popularized early jazz, electric lights, and Art Deco. Following the history of the iconic Savoy Hotel through three generations of the D’Oyly Carte family, The Secret Life of the Savoy brings to life the extraordinary cultural legacy of the most famous hotel in the world.

When Harriet White rebuffs the advances of her boss at the Baker Street building society where she works, she finds herself demoted to a new position… a very unusual position. Deep in the postal department beneath the bank, she is tasked with working her way through a mountain of correspondence addressed to Baker Street’s most famous resident: Mr Sherlock Holmes.

Amateur baker and part-time sleuth Claire Walker is looking forward to a vacation with her boyfriend, Jonathan Ainsley. The happy couple boards the famed Scottish train, the Mallaig Steam Express—temporarily renamed “The Marzipan Express” in honor of chef Alan Gables, who is hosting an exclusive culinary experience for his most devoted fans.

After the death of her parents, young Andrina Maldon has selflessly carried the responsibility of running a household impoverished by her father’s profligacy and also for the future happiness of her two sisters. Despite their striking looks, there is no hope of her sisters finding a suitable suitor without someone to introduce them into high society. So Andrina travels unchaperoned to London to seek the assistance of the Duke of Broxbourne, her father’s friend and the Godfather she has never met.

England's unique republican experiment ­- imposed on Scotland and Ireland, too - may have been shortlived, but it has had a lasting impact on British monarchy, politics, religion and culture, and on the story the British continue to tell about themselves. It is a period that, for a long time, history chose to forget, or recalled as a failure. Here, in thrilling detail, Alice Hunt brings the republic and its extraordinary cast of characters, from politicians to poets and prophets, back to life.

Join elven hero Vale Moonwing and adventurer Cassius Stormblade on their quest through the depths of Firetop Mountain. Can they survive the deadly traps and evade Zagor's army of the undead? Can they stay alive long enough to confront the dark warlock himself?

A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art and earthly desire. At the centre of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s cathedral.

Harriet White is settling into life in the post room of the Baker Street building society. Until she discovers a letter in The Times challenging Sherlock Holmes to prove his status as the world’s greatest detective by solving an impossible mystery. The letter, signed Professor James Moriarty, advises Holmes that the crime will be committed within the next seven days. Holmes himself must deduce which crime is the correct one to investigate. Dismissing the letter as a prank – after all, Sherlock Holmes isn't real – Harry goes about her business.

Using forbidden Marrangha magic and the three stolen vapours, the evil sorcerer Zharradan Marr has created a creature....but for what purpose?