Showing results by narrator "Charlie Norfolk" in All Categories

Sophie has always believed her mother abandoned her, and tries not to dwell on memories of laughter and bedtime stories. Arriving at the renowned Ayredale Library deep in the English countryside, Sophie feels strangely at home among her fellow bookbinders and the endless shelves of antique books. But everything changes when a beautiful door – engraved with a leaf matching her mother’s old necklace – swings open at her touch. Sophie gasps at the impossible sight inside: a silver tree growing higher than the library itself.

A solitary child who only really found solace in nature, Tess Eagle Swan ran away from home aged 16 and, by her late 20s, had already survived violence and drug addiction. In the following decade, life spiralled further out of control, as substance abuse filled the hole meaningful relationships should have occupied. Something had to change. Tess had always loved animals, so when she saw a post on Facebook about the plight of two dogs in Romania, she was moved to take action, helping find homes for both. It was the first step on the road that led her to Kratu.

London, May 1537. As those closest to the throne are locked in a fierce fight against those desperate to save England's monasteries from destruction, young Joanna Stafford faces a far more personal battle. When Joanna learns her cousin is about to be burned at the stake for rebelling against Henry VIII, she makes a decision that will change not only her life, but quite possibly the fate of a nation. It will mean turning her back on everything she knows, for Joanna is a novice at Dartford Priory - and to save her family, she must break the sacred rule of enclosure.

England, 1538. The nation is reeling after the ruthless dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. Cast out of Dartford Priory, Joanna Stafford - feisty, courageous, but scarred by her recent encounter with rebellion at court - is trying to live a quiet life with her five-year-old charge, Arthur. But family connections draw her dangerously close to a treasonous plot and, repelled by violence and the whispered conspiracies around her, Joanna seeks a life with a man who loves her.

My precious daughter. You have no idea how dangerous the world is. No idea of the horrors I’ve shielded you from. The things I’ve endured...our past. We’ve been happy. We’ve been hidden. We’ve been safe. But our perfect life is about to come crashing down. Because they’ve found me. And they’re about to reveal my darkest secret...to you. I’ll do anything to protect you, darling, because if you knew—I’d lose you forever. You can never discover what I’ve done...or what I’m willing to do to keep you safe.

Nazi-occupied Vienna, 1940. As bombs fall over Europe, Hannah Stern is a 27-year-old nurse who is just trying to survive. When she takes a position at Vienna’s esteemed psychiatric hospital, Am Steinhof, she thinks it will take her away from the danger. Her estranged half-brother has arranged the job for her on the condition that she must take his son, Willi, there too. He insists it’s a place where Willi will be safe. And Hannah soon forms a close bond with the sweet, fragile child in her care.

Paris, 1944. “Traitor!” yells the crowd as they push me down onto a stool. “Nazi collaborator.” Tears blur my vision as the razor grazes my scalp, waves of blonde hair falling to the ground. As men paint a swastika across my face, I hold onto one small glimmer of hope. They have no idea who I am.

When Olivia's husband, Carlos, begins having violent nightmares in which he leaps, fighting, from his bed and rampages through the house, her family's idyllic life in Lisbon is shattered. Things escalate when Carlos unwittingly injures Olivia and Leo, their seven-year-old son, and they can no longer hide the purple bruises staining their skin. But what is causing the warm-hearted, gentle Carlos to have such explosive nightmares?

"Do you have a name for her?" she asked. He shook his head. "You've decided it's a girl?" She looked at the skull and thought of it washing backwards and forwards in the dirty water of the Thames until coming to rest in sight of tip of the Isle of Dogs under the gaze of the grandiose buildings of Greenwich. "We'll call her Flotsam," she said. Home truths are always the hardest. Beatrice Palmenter is 36, a successful filmmaker. And discontent. She is about to make two journeys, one back a thousand years to the world of the Anglo Saxons, the other to wartime France.

When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta. Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime.