Showing results by narrator "Ruth Redman" in All Categories

It’s 1938, and hard-working Lily Baker’s life turns upside down when she and her family move to a new town. Two jobs leave little free time, yet she becomes involved in a struggle to improve her area. Pushed by the group leader, she undertakes tasks she previously thought impossible and meets the man of her dreams. Amidst homesickness, looming war, and an aggressive father, can she find the strength to win through?

Everyone has a friend like Carl. The friend you can't say no to. The friend you have to say no to. I'm finally in a good place. A lovely home. A steady job. And Jason. Reliable, honest, kind Jason—my boyfriend. My best friend. I trust him implicitly. But if anyone can lead Jason astray, it's Carl. His best friend. And now Carl's on our doorstep. Begging for help.

In 1537, amidst England's religious turmoil, fifteen-year-old Anne Askew is forced to take her dead sister’s place in an arranged marriage. The witty, well-educated daughter of a Lincolnshire knight, Anne is determined to free herself from her abusive husband, harsh in-laws, and the cruel strictures of her married life. But this is the England of Henry VIII, where religion and politics are dangerously entangled. 

Ireland, 2010. Gilly Townsend's beloved landscaping business doesn't survive the financial crash. Just when she thinks she'll have to move back home, a profitable project to restore an inspirational walled garden lands in her lap. But she never expected her wealthy boss from London to inspire her as well.

Ireland, 1891. Happy at first to have given her husband the son he longed for, Rosalind Thornton begins to worry about his increasingly erratic spending and volatile moods. When his body turns up in the woods, her guilt remains in question for 130 years. 2019. Fiona Foley needs to put her husband's betrayal behind her. The disillusioned history teacher travels to the sweeping Wexford coast to assist an eccentric descendant of the Thornton family. Can Fiona figure out what really happened on the fateful night Rosalind disappeared forever?

Lady Penelope Rich is one of the most beautiful and sought-after women in Elizabethan England. The daughter of the Earl of Essex, she is married to the wealthy Baron Robert Rich. Penelope's life is full of love and scandal. The inspiration for Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet "Astrophel and Stella", she is involved in the Essex Rebellion. A complex and fascinating woman, her life is a story of love, betrayal, and tragedy.

Frances Walsingham is the only surviving child of Queen Elizabeth’s ‘spymaster’ Sir Francis Walsingham. Better educated than most men, her father arranges her marriage to warrior poet Sir Philip Sidney. After Philip Sidney is killed in battle, Frances becomes Countess of Essex, and is banished from court after her husband Sir Robert Devereaux’s rebellion against the queen.

What if the key to a happier, more balanced life was already inside your head? As a professor of financial economics and recognised expert in international finance, Neeltje van Horen excelled in a demanding career—but constant self-doubt and stress left her feeling stuck. Seeking a way out, she turned to neuroscience and psychology and discovered how retraining her brain—one small habit at a time—transformed her life. In Ignite, van Horen shares her journey and her discoveries.

Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses - both grand and small - of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.

Abigail Accused steps into life in a small New England colony and reveals the callous truth of what has become one of many landmark cases against injustice during the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail Dane Faulkner, daughter of the town’s respected minister, was convicted of witchcraft in 1692 and condemned to die. Her story is based on eyewitness accounts and 17th-century documents. How did the people of Massachusetts Bay Colony become victims of the fear and religious fanaticism that led to the arrests of nearly 200 citizens and the executions of countless innocents?

What causes a woman to murder her family? Jo's idyllic life would make most people jealous. Until one day her daughter is abducted, and the only way to find her is to unravel her dark past. Ellie is a devoted wife...until she discovers the pain of betrayal. Now vengeance is all she can think about. Party girl Shayla knows how to hide her demons. But when she's confronted with a life-shattering choice, it will cost her everything. June knows suffering intimately, though the smile she wears keeps it hidden. Soon, the lives of these four women intersect, and one of them is about to snap.

Newly escaped from a loathsome engagement of convenience, Charlotte has no interest in romance. More than ever, she is convinced that no man would—or could—love her. As companion to an aging aunt, Charlotte’s new life is as predictable as it is circumspect. But on Christmas Eve she is rescued from a robbery by her uncle’s heir, a masterful man who is disastrously handsome. Why has he remained as a guest in the house? Why is he so determined to draw Charlotte out and make her talk? It isn't as if he likes her!

Ireland, 1895. Polly Brady hopes to escape her oppressive past by accepting the position of governess at Colgrannagh, an old house in the Wicklow mountains. But when she learns her employer’s botanist husband died in unusual circumstances, she is drawn into a poisonous deception that threatens her future.

Evie Perry was a high-class escort whose way of life was abruptly and cruelly shattered by two drunken men. Stella Kendrick's husband committed suicide and left her with a legal battle and a debt of £6m, but he leaves her a message with the names of three men on it. Daniella Maddox is a world-class barrister, assigned to an indefensible case for a corrupt client, but one she must win to save her own life. Unbeknownst to them, fate has woven their lives into a twisted web.

Talking to your teenager shouldn't be hard, but sometimes it's the most difficult thing in the world. Healthy, open, non-judgemental conversations with young people can be - literally - life-saving. From minor matters (tidiness, homework, sleep) to big and important ones (relationships, mental ill health, drugs and alcohol), teenagers and their parents often struggle to talk to each other. A well-timed conversation, a listening ear, a non-judgemental and receptive attitude - all these can make an enormous and lasting impact on how safely and happily a teenager navigates this crucial stage.

Life couldn't be happier for Nicholas Lyon, a divorce lawyer and the adoring husband of Mal, a successful cookery writer who combines working from a comfortable home in Wiltshire with being mother to their three gorgeous daughters. And then Sara Kaplan, a bright, vivacious young lawyer, explodes into his life like a sexual hand grenade. Nicholas is stunned and horrified by the extent of his attraction to her. But whilst the chemistry between them is palpable, it takes catastrophic events to force him to recognize his own mortality and throw caution to the wind.

Adam Ferranti was drinking away his waking hours, getting by in a regional newspaper in the North of England. A talented American journalist, he moved to England to escape the media glare that followed his spectacular fall from grace at the Washington Post, only to be thrust back in it when a mysterious serial killer decides to make him his confidante.

No matter how challenging the case, psychologist Katherine Fleming never shirks from helping a patient confront a painful issue. Her keen powers of observation and compassionate nature have eased many troubled souls, but a homicide detective with a buried secret of his own stirs more than just clinical interest. The first time Detective Jake Sumner spied the old house, he sensed the good bones. Little did he know the purchase of the property included an unusual tenant far from resting in peace. Can the new psychologist in town help him treat a ghostly trauma case?

As I stare at the girl, I feel my heart pound inside my chest. There she is, my daughter, right in front of me after all this time. I have to reach her, to hold her, before I lose her all over again. I have experienced what no mother should: I have lost my child. Many years ago, after my divorce, my daughter moved in with her father, and then went missing. For years, I searched everywhere for my darling girl, but she had vanished without a trace. But even on my darkest days, when my heart felt truly broken, I kept a hope alive inside—a hope that my little girl would find her way back to me.

In The People's Victory, historian Lucy Noakes mines the Mass Observation archive to present a groundbreaking history of how Britons at home celebrated and experienced the end of World War II. Alongside street celebrations and tea parties, we find bonfires and bell ringing, water fights and wagon rides, solitary and shared walks—and copious amounts of alcohol.