Showing results by narrator "Gemma Lawrence" in All Categories

Brought to you by Penguin. As the Great War rages across Europe, twenty-one year old Ruby Archer decides to ‘do her bit’ at an East End munitions factory. The work is relentless and deafening, but the camaraderie of the other girls carries her through. As the threat of another Zeppelin...

Mia is telling me a story. It’s about a princess, who lives in a castle, on a street that bears a remarkable resemblance to ours. About a kind old lady who’s the queen. I’m distracted for a moment by her little hand softly slipping into mine. My daughter. My angel. But then she says something that pulls me from my reverie. She says that the queen doesn’t treat the princess well. She punishes her and doesn’t let her eat anything…Helen, my neighbour, has been so good to me. And more importantly, she’s so good with the children. Surely this is just another story of Mia’s, just make believe.

All it takes is one message for Gemma’s life to fall apart. A confirmation of all she’s feared these last few months. Jack was supposed to be preparing for their new start in Australia, building their home, building their life together. And now this. Gone. Without a trace. Leaving their perfect world – all that their two-year-old daughter, Poppy, knows – shattered. Crystal comes into Gemma’s life at the opportune moment. This new friend, who’s been through it before, who knows how it feels for all of your hopes and dreams to suddenly implode, who wants to help, who will do anything…

12-year-old Nancy Crumpet lives above a bakery and her life is a delightful mix of flour, salt and love. Yet her mind is brimming with questions nobody can answer. Why did her birth parents disappear? Why can she speak with the sky? And why must she keep her mysterious birthmark hidden? Everything is about to change when the Scareground returns to Greenwich. Nancy is convinced it holds the answers to her parents' disappearance. She and her best friend Arthur Green meet Skelter, the fair's spooky owner, and discover a world full of dark magic and mystery.

I’ve always walked the straight and narrow, following the rules, never straying from my chosen path. Until Mr. Sexy Bazillionaire CEO Gregory Ryans walked into my life. It was only supposed to be business, but one brush of his wicked lips against my skin changed everything. I can’t deny what this man inspires in me. I’ll do anything he asks, even help destroy the enemies from his past. But he’s hiding more than he's telling me.

There's good and bad in everyone. Except Tom. Tom used to think his life was pretty ordinary. Just another orphan, sleeping in the cellar of his uncle's pub with plenty of mice to chase. But then things started to change, both in the land of Boden-Rine and in young Tom's heart, after a stranger from a far-off land spun him a story of deadly adventure and world-ending peril.

When Princess Florizella finds a baby boy delivered by stork to her parents’ palace, she is shocked to discover that he will one day be king and inherit her kingdom! For every prince is given a permit which allows them to do whatever they like in the same way that every princess is given a set of rules that they have to live by. As soon as Princess Florizella’s brother is big enough to have adventures, she takes him all over the land. Can she prove that girls having rules and boys having permits isn’t right?

Helen Macdonald is a falconer and poet. She keeps a goshawk called Mabel. As a child she fell in love with a rare book of intense nature writing, J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, which records a winter watching wild peregrines on the Essex coast. Her new play brings her birds and his together. Baker...

North Atlantic Ocean, 1942. Fifteen-year-old Connie is leaving war-torn England for the safer shores of America, looking after a nine-year old orphan boy with sad blue eyes. But the ocean is rife with Nazi vessels. And when their boat is torpedoed, in the fear and chaos Connie can’t stop thinking about handsome Jack, who stayed behind in London. Will the orphans survive, and will Connie ever be reunited with her first love? Back in London, 16-year-old Jack desperately misses Connie, his brave, kind friend, after their tearful goodbye when her ship set sail.

When Amelia, Sophie and Charlotte arrive in the dusty outback town of Garnet Creek during their gap year, they expect nothing more than a quick stop at the campground attached to an abandoned hotel. What they don't expect is to find themselves completely charmed by a town that's barely changed in decades. Sitting around the campfire one evening, the girls dare to dream: what if they could transform the forgotten hotel into the heart of the community again - a proper pub where locals and travellers alike could gather?

Pippa Newton loves nature and being outdoors, and she's looking forward to visiting her grandfather in his cottage in the forest. If only her older brother was as enthusiastic about it as she is. But their holiday soon turns into a dark and strange adventure when Pippa realises that malevolent forces are lurking in the trees - forces that watch, wait, and mean them great harm.

Sunday morning, and the body of Reverend Villiers has been found propped up on the vigil seat in the church's lychgate. It appears that he has been poisoned. When amateur sleuth and regular churchgoer Amy Rowlings arrives she finds DI Bodkin already at the scene. Bodkin tells her about a cryptic scripture reference that has been scrawled in chalk on the stone slabs beneath the body. What the citation hints at, shocks everyone.

A spellbinding new middle grade series crackling with magic and adventure, perfect for fans of Starfell, Nevermoor and A Pinch of Magic. I am Spel. Daughter of witches. The only one who can step between worlds. The only one who can save my sister. If I can find her before the witch hunt begins...

It's that week between Christmas and New Year, and sisters Kate and Selena, and their friend Paisley, are meeting for an all-girls mini-break - no men allowed. But Affie, Carlos and Joseph have a similar idea, involving a sports channel, plenty of beer, and absolutely no women. Somehow, there's been a double booking. Can the six of them find a way to navigate nearly a week together? Can the past be left behind and a new future found?

In 1924, Alice tells a terrible lie to reinvent herself, seeking refuge in the ill-fated Western Australian Group Settlement Scheme. But the past is not so easily erased. Decades later, Jarrah begins to unravel the mystery of Alice's silence. Following a trail of buried secrets from Australia to England, she pieces together a hidden past—one that forces her to question everything she thought she knew about family and identity.

In this candid and inspiring yet highly practical book, Emma sets out the crucial roadmap for overcoming the quarter-life crisis. 72 percent of millennials want to change career completely. Every Sunday night we dread Monday morning and try to cover it up with Netflix binges and office beanbags. It doesn't have to be that way. If you're feeling trapped in your job, The Radical Sabbatical offers a way to rethink your career and figure out what is right for you.

Air hostess Lola has made her home in the skies, starting afresh after losing everything. But when her past comes calling, can she face it head on – or will it destroy everything she's worked so hard for? England, 1948. It's been ten years since Lola arrived from Germany as a scared, trembling Jewish refugee. Instead, Lola looks to the future: the new family she's found working in a job she adores as one of England's first airline stewardesses, and the butterflies she feels around handsome pilot Brian – even if the thought of opening her heart again terrifies her.

NAMED 'A BEST DEBUT NOVELIST' BY THE OBSERVER NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED NOVEL BY GOOD HOUSEKEEPING THE TIMES GQ THE GUARDIAN THE SUNDAY TIMES STYLE “I Want You to Be Happy is an irresistible novel that asks complex questions about contemporary life and refuses easy answers...

In a silverware shop, a young wife works alongside her husband. Amid growing political turmoil, Bea finds solace in the local marsh, where she is visited recurrently by a mysterious presence, logging each appearance carefully in a scarlet journal. In a time like now, Kay navigates friendship, queerness and the temporary job market, whilst contemplating the significance of her life in a world with such an uncertain future. At her grandmother’s house she finds an intriguing record of an angel’s visits.

War. Fae Princes. One Clumsy Woman. A Hidden Secret. A silly children's story had us rushing against time. The fae will come and take you away if you are in their homeland for more than three days.It was the silliest thing ever but the people back home believed it. While out hunting to provide for my family with my brother, the last thing we planned was to be out in the fae lands more than three days. However as day four crept up on us, unease settles in. After a chance encounter with one of the dreaded fae, I find myself reeling with doubt and curiosity.