Showing results by narrator "Gemma Lawrence" in All Categories

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.

For the courageous Bletchley Park girls, the fourth Christmas of the war is approaching fast. It should be a happy time, yet life throws them challenges they could never have imagined. Lily's heart is torn in two when her boyfriend, Grant, is badly injured in an air raid. As he spirals into despair, she must find a way to give him hope again. Bronwyn has a new romance on the horizon. But will the widower's young daughter accept her, or will she jeopardise Bronwyn's hopes for love?

East London, 1916: The Sanctuary Lane Animal Hospital is proving a huge success. For its founder Ruby Archer, this is a dream come true – and her blossoming romance with a local boy is the icing on the cake. But in wartime things change in the blink of an eye. When a heartbreaking tragedy shatters Ruby’s world, suddenly she is at odds with everyone - her family, her friends, and even her sweetheart. And when the hospital is threatened with immediate closure, she’s not sure who to trust.

Inspired by true events across Europe. WWII story of one woman's immense courage, bravery and sacrifice in the face of fear and tragedy, and whose determination to hold on to hope in a world ripped apart by war proves that love can prevail even in the darkest of days.

Thirteen years ago, magic was banished and the witches were hunted. Sisters Spel and Egg are the daughters of witches, but they grow up in Miss Mouldheel’s School for Wicked Girls with no idea who they really are. Until the day the message arrives telling them to run. The message sends them to a funeral parlour in a far away village—and their new guardian, the Undertaker, has a secret. Beneath the funeral parlour is a portal to the Other Ways—four worlds that lie parallel to ours. When Egg vanishes through the portal, Spel knows she must try to save her sister.

Sisters Bel and Marie are poles apart. Whilst Marie is a free spirit who spurns alcohol, casual sex and material possessions, Bel needs all of those things just to make it through to lunchtime. When their mother dies suddenly, leaving them a rundown house on the Norfolk coast, they are unexpectedly thrown together. Because there's a condition: before they can inherit it, they have to live in it for one year - together.

1938, England. When Lily Baker's mother finds a way for them to leave their run down part of town, and finally esape her aggressive father, Lily is feeling positive about a fresh start at a new life. While her mother will be a housekeeper, Lily has a chance to work in a factory, though she has even bigger dreams - and the tenacity to achieve them. But Lily’s father isn’t going to let go that easily, and she lives in fear of him ruining everything – the life she is building for herself. Will Lily and her mother find the strength to begin all over again?

The Children's Book of the Future is a narrative non-fiction audiobook offering an inclusive and hopeful vision of the future, with a diverse, multicultural approach that will appeal to children of all backgrounds. Some of the diverse visions explored include: underwater cities; the solar system and space travel; green technologies and sustainability; robots and AI; the future of cities; and much more! In short, the audiobook sets out to reclaim the future for current and future generations of children.

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.

This third volume in The Princess Rules series sees the feisty princess take her baby brother and best friend, Bennett, on another round of adventures together. Can they rescue their new-found friend, the sea serpent, from a travelling circus? And hold back the pirate, Five-fathom Freida. Or will Florizella’s worst fairy godmother prove that in a fairytale world, you really do have to be careful what you wish for?

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?

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.

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...

Aspiring writer Mab has hit rock bottom. She's stuck in a dead-end job, her landlord's on the warpath and her love life is in tatters. But just as she makes a life-changing decision, fate chooses to deliver the man she's been waiting for. Leo has inherited a crumbling old shop in the heart of their sleepy market town and plans to turn it into a cosy haven of books and chocolate – and he wants Mab's help. Soon, Mab finds herself swept up by gorgeous Leo's enthusiasm for the renovation, despite his disapproving, glamorous fiancée.

Isabelle, a young university researcher, is sent to a country manor house deep in the heart of rural England to verify an ancient object that the family has discovered during the renovation of their home. While Isabelle sets to work verifying its authenticity, she becomes the obsession of the owner’s strange but beautiful daughter, and they develop a dangerous attraction.

A “beautifully written” (Hilary Mantel), “fascinating” (The Washington Post) story of love, madness, sisterly devotion, and control, about the two beloved daughters of renowned 1700s English painter Thomas Gainsborough, who struggle to live up to the perfect image the world so admired in...

For Lil, life at the Squawking Mackerel inn couldn't be more miserable. She's tasked with the sloppiest, grottiest jobs and picked on at every turn. Her only friend is Augustus Scratchy, a cantankerous crow with a habit of stealing. When the dread villain Rotten Bob Hatchet and his gang of cut-throat highwaymen begin attacking travellers on the road, things get really dire. Joining forces with a new servant boy, Ned - and armed with the contents of the inn's lost property cupboard, a pocketful of dumplings and some knicker elastic - Lil comes up with a plot to scare off Rotten Bob.

Sisters Spel and Egg grew up in Mistress Mouldheels’ School for Wicked Girls believing they were the daughters of criminals, until they discovered the truth: They are witches. And after always being in the shadow of her big sister, Spel discovered that she was a Shadowborn Witch—the only one who can step between portals to other worlds. Now in a coven with their schoolmates and part of the alliance against the Hunt, the sisters try to master their new powers. But the Hunt is rising, the witches are in danger and when a new portal opens the whole world is under threat.

Sophy Pemberton is struggling to cope with the pressures of becoming a new mother. Her nine-month-old son never settles in her arms, and the unrelenting tiredness from late night feeds is all consuming. So, when Liv Granger from the mother-and-baby group offers her services as a nanny, Sophy is overcome with relief. Now she can finally get some sleep.... She can stop failing at being a mother. But Liv has a secret. She didn’t become Sophy’s nanny by accident.

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?