Showing results by narrator "Sarah Durham" in All Categories

Pearl Flowers has been hiding away for so long that she has forgotten what real life is like. Her quiet routine in a woodland cottage in France is a sanctuary, far away from her past life running a beauty salon. But then an unexpected phone call throws her calm world into chaos. Back in the UK, her estranged father Francis is dying. She hasn’t seen him for decades since he pushed her away and destroyed their family. And on his deathbed, Francis leaves her a gift - a diary, written in a code that only Pearl can understand.

1914, Australia: As war is declared, the idyllic world of Blue Water Station is torn apart when Oliver, the eldest grandson and heir, shares his desire to enlist in the army. His enthusiasm ignites his brother, cousins and friends to do the same but upsets his sister, Tilly. After a tragic family incident, she is left to run the cattle station and take care of the older folk. A chance meeting with a sophisticated lieutenant opens up a friendship through letters, but it’s a rogue stockman who attracts her attention - with dire consequences....

Bloomsbury presents Clay by Melissa Harrison, read by Sarah Durham. Eight-year-old TC skips school to explore the city’s overgrown, forgotten corners. Sophia, seventy-eight, watches with concern as he slips past her window, through the little park she loves. She’s writing to her...

Seven-year-old Jake's heart is failing, and he doesn't want to leave his dad, Simon, alone. So he makes a decision: to find Simon someone to love before he goes. Beth is determined to forget the past. But even when she leaves New York to start afresh in a Lake District village, she can't shake the secrets that haunt her. Single dad Simon still holds a candle for the woman who left him years ago. Every day is a struggle to earn a living while caring for his beloved son. He has no time for finding someone new.

Heather Harris is a piano teacher and professional musician, whose quiet life revolves around music, whose memories centre on a single song that haunts her. A song she longs to perform again. A song she wrote as a child, to drown out the violence in their home. A song she played with her little sister, Harriet. But Harriet is gone...she disappeared when their parents died, and Heather never saw her again. When Heather is offered an opportunity to play piano on a cruise ship, she leaps at the chance.

I reach out, arms aching to hold my newborn baby, and catch just a glimpse of soft, dark brown hair before someone pushes me back onto the bed. "It’s alive," says the woman who delivered my child before she places something over my face. My last thought is of my baby’s first cry before my world goes dark.

Yorkshire, 1890. Having lost her father and brothers in tragic circumstances, Olwen Malkon is forced to leave her childhood home to live with her uncle's family. In his chill vicarage, however, she fears that she is also losing her mind, as strange dreams take her into the life of Ælfwyn, a woman from a distant past whose fate is overshadowed by menace and betrayal. In the grip of these afflictions, Olwen finds sympathy with the local doctor, John Osbourne, who is intrigued by her case. 

In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human. Some say that hell is other people and some say hell is loneliness . . . In the thirteen...

No Such Thing as Normal is a deeply researched, timely, essential book that will shine a light on the psychiatric industry: its genesis, its obsession with often ineffective, over-medicalised treatments, and its relationship with a pharmaceutical industry driven by profitability rather than meaningful social welfare and change.

As snow begins to fall, and word reaches their town that the Red Army are approaching, German-born mother-of-two Emma knows she has no choice: She must pack their meagre belongings and leave their home, in search of safety. Even if safety is within Nazi Germany. But as the icy grip of winter tightens around them, her four-year-old son—her blue-eyed angel—Jacob becomes ill. Desperate for him to get well enough to continue their journey, she takes him to a hospital, where she hands him to a kind nurse. Then a terrible attack separates mother and son, and their lives change forever.

Manchester, England 1965. Little Kathy Openshaw is waiting in the car, with only her toy doll for company, while her mother Connie visits close friends Myra and Ian. But when Connie returns to the car, Kathy has vanished. Instantly, she thinks of the news reports of the children who have gone missing from the area. Parents everywhere are worried sick. Connie is struck with terror: What kind of mother leaves their child alone, when a kidnapper is on the loose? Listen to this pulse-pounding, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable story.

At the local university a series of incidents is raising alarm. Someone is breaking into students bedrooms through the windows. But things get even more serious when a corpse is discovered on the outskirts of town. DI Charley Mann, dealing with her own problems, is drafted in to investigate. At first there doesn't seem to be a connection, but Charley suspects otherwise. Following the evidence draws Charley into a web of shady local characters struggling at the margins. It seems the break-ins are no random event.

When Jessica’s grandfather left for war, he promised to keep a record of each day he was apart from her grandmother. The diary was lost along with him—until now, when a mysterious, handsome Italian man named Alessandro shows up at Jessica’s door with the diary in hand. Immediately enchanted by her grandfather’s accounts of Italy’s glittering golden hours, Jess decides to spend a summer in Tuscany before she’s due to take over at her family’s farm. She hopes she can visit the places her grandfather once did—and finally find out what really happened the night he died.

Detective Hollie Turner is chasing down a suspect connected to the recent murder of Sister Sophia Brennan when she receives a call that someone has confessed to the shocking crime. Hollie should be relieved that this is the end of a grueling investigation, but her instincts tell her something isn’t right. As Hollie and her team uncover the truth behind the confession, they discover a web of dark secrets and unspeakable crimes haunting the now-abandoned Church of St Mary and the Angels mother and baby home.

Ethan gently squeezes my hand as he slides the golden ring onto my finger. But I know we aren’t worthy of happiness. As I look down at my wedding ring, in a blistering flash, I suddenly remember another piece of that pitch-black, rainy night… but I try to focus on Ethan’s gorgeous blue eyes. I know exactly what he’s thinking. We can never tell. All our family, friends and loved ones smile as they watch Ethan and I promise to be together until death us do part. But only we know what that really means…Because we have already killed someone.

Bari, Italy. 1943. Twenty-year-old Siena knocks on a stranger's door with trembling hands. Her journey from Rome has left her exhausted and afraid, but after her friends were taken away, she had no choice but to flee. Hidden within her suitcase lies the reason for her desperate flight–a tattered leather-bound ledger, its pages filled with secrets Siena will risk her life to protect.

West Yorkshire DI Charley Mann is called for what seems a routine job. Prior to demolition a deserted manor house appears to have been the target of an arson attack. But something isn't right. The house has a dark history – and a dark present. When the remains of two bodies are discovered hidden inside, it soon emerges they were murdered decades apart. Who are they? What are their connections to the house? Why were they killed? And what is the connection to the fire? Amongst the ashes, Charley is soon drawn into a web of deceit and violent plots.

We’re constantly told we should be doing work that is 100 percent fulfilling and makes us feel authentic and bursting with joy at every moment. But the perfect job doesn’t exist. What if there was another way? From running a company to becoming a freelancer and everything in between, Anniki has learnt some valuable life lessons about her relationship with work. Packed with real advice and insights, this essential guide provides you with the tools and insights you need to change your relationship with work for good.

When the body of a retired police superintendent is found murdered at Hull Fair, Detective Hollie Turner is thrust into a case that will force her to confront her own painful history. Twenty-five years ago, Hollie's university friend Moira vanished without a trace at the very same fairground. Now, as she investigates the superintendent's death, long-buried secrets from that fateful night begin to surface.

The Cold War ended 30 years ago, the Communists won in Europe and the world has settled into two blocks divided by a silicon curtain, The Partition. The tranquil backwater of the People's Republic of Britain is due to host an international sporting event and celebrate the 25th anniversary of the country becoming a republic. When the organizer of the Games dies suddenly and his office is broken into, Barrow, the retired security operative enlisted to investigate, is drawn into a conspiracy with implications for him, his team of young, inexperienced assistants, and their way of life.