Showing results by narrator "Helen Lloyd" in All Categories

It seemed perfect for me and my five-year-old daughter, Lily— a pretty little cottage on a quiet country farm. Then came the rule. No male visitors. But soon there are red flags. Mrs Skinner's son watches me a little too closely. My lipstick disappears. Lily wakes screaming that there's a stranger in her room. And when I ask about the last tenant – the one who vanished, leaving all her furniture behind – Mrs Skinner just smiles, and says she only wants to protect us. But what happens when I break her rules?

When octogenarian Olive Turner is persuaded by her son to move into a retirement home, she congratulates herself on finding the secret to an easy life: no washing up, cooking or cleaning. But Olive isn't one for mindless bingo with her fellow residents, and before the first day is over she's already hatching a plan to escape back to her beloved beach hut and indulge in her secret passion for a very good gin & tonic. Before long Olive's secret is out and turning into something wonderful and new. 

When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zigzagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men. Drawing on declassified files and eye-witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9’s wartime role.

For years, Abigail Linton devoted herself to caring for her parents and her siblings’ children. Now, eager to create a life of her own, Abby seizes upon a position as a governess on a neighboring estate. Unfortunately, her absentee employer is Maxwell Bryce, the Duke of Rothwell, the notorious rake who once broke her youthful heart. But since he hasn’t set foot on his estate for 15 years, Abby assumes she’ll never have to lay eyes on him ever again.

Brought to you by Penguin. 1946. Three years after a cataclysmic event which tore their lives apart, a mother and daughter flee Poland for Paris, shame, and fear at their heels, not knowing how hard it is to escape your past. Nearly eighty years later, Gretel Fernsby lives a life that is a far...

When the only place you want to be is home.... When Ella's beloved grandmother dies, she comes back to the beautiful Cornish coast to heal her heart. There she finds her home again and discovers a new life and new love...but she also opens a treasure trove of secrets.

It's been years since Zoe Fairchild has been to the small Devon village of her birth, but the wounds she suffered there still ache. When she learns that her old friend and grandmother's caretaker has gone missing, Zoe and her fifteen-year-old daughter return to England to help. Zoe dreads seeing her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world. As the four generations of women reunite, the emotional pain of the past is awakened. And to complicate matters further, Zoe must also confront the ex-boyfriend she betrayed many years before.

Rosa has arrived in London from Poland to look for her younger brother, Mikhail. He is supposed to be staying with their English father, but when she visits the house she finds it's locked up, and there's no sign of either of them. Stef is running away from her boyfriend, Oliver. Frightened, friendless and far from her family, she needs somewhere to hide. All three find refuge at 11 Bellevue Gardens. Here its owner, Leonie, once herself found sanctuary and now opens her house to others in need.

A riotous peek into the off-beat world of one of football’s most recognisable characters, Jon Parkin. The much-travelled journeyman striker played for more than 20 clubs during a career that stretched over two decades, and he has since become a co-host of the hugely popular Undr The Cosh...

Set in the town of Travnik, Bosnian Chronicle presents the struggle for supremacy in a region that stubbornly refuses to submit to any outsider. The era is Napoleonic and the novel, both in its historical scope and psychological subtlety, Tolstoyan. In its portrayal of conflict and fierce ethnic loyalties, the story is also eerily relevant. Ottoman viziers, French consuls, and Austrian plenipotentiaries are consumed by an endless game of diplomacy and double-dealing.

Few authors can claim to have marked a genre so thoroughly and personally that their words have leaked into every aspect of modern pop culture. Clive Barker is such an author, and the Books of Blood marked his debut - his coming out to the world - in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. Crossroad Press is proud to present Clive Barker's Books of Blood in audiobook format for the first time. The Books of Blood combine the ordinary with the extraordinary while radiating the eroticism that has become Barker's signature.

In love and war, who can you trust? Hampshire, 1944. Her face still bearing the scars from the explosion at the factory, Rita Brown is nonetheless back on her feet. She's caught the eye of local wide boy Blackie Bristow, who's sweeping her around the country in a life of shady glamour. But there's a war on, and life is not all fun and games. Some of the local men are taking advantage of the topsy-turvy world to break more than just hearts, and standing up to them comes with its own costs.

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late. When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

February 2022 marked 80 years since the Fall of Singapore and Olga is now ready to tell the story of her years as a child prisoner of war. It's a story of great fear and deprivation; of a childhood utterly lost to conflict. It's also a story of class prejudice and unkindness that didn't end when Olga was freed from the camp and returned to England as a refugee.

Brought to you by Penguin. The heartwarming and joyful Wartime Midwives story of three fascinating mothers. Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn, Nancy Revell and Call the Midwife Three mothers. Three very different backgrounds, and a bond they will never forget The Lake District, 1944, and spring is...

Annie, Rose, Pearl and Millie carry on making matches for the British Army, with bombs raining down around them. Inspired by the Dig for Victory campaign, Annie persuades the owners to start Bryant & May allotment in the factory grounds. With plenty of sweat and toil, the girls eventually carve out a corner of the yard into a green plot full of life and colour. In the darkest of times, the girls find their allotment a tranquil, happy escape.

Emmeline Lucas, known to all as "Lucia", and her husband, Peppino, acquire a second home in fashionable Brompton Square in London from a deceased Aunt. When they move there for the season, Lucia's 'subjects' in Riseholme seethe with envy and outrage that she has deserted them for more illustrious circles, where her snobbism and blatant ambition reach new heights.

Brought to you by Penguin. The heartwarming and moving story of three fascinating women finding their strength in World War II, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn, Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey It is June 1940, and as the bombs fall, the women at home must dig deep . . . Tucked on the edge of...

In 1960s Glasgow, anti-nuclear activists Judith and Jimmy fall in love. But their future hopes are dashed when their protestors’ squat is raided and many, including Jimmy, are sent to prison. Pregnant and with no word from Jimmy, Judith is forced to enter an unmarried mothers’ home, give up their baby and learn to live with her grief.

On a wet Monday in January, Jess Mount receives the devastating news that she hasn't got long left to live. She doesn't hear it from a doctor, though. She discovers it when her Facebook timeline skips forward 18 months and family and friends start posting tributes to her - following her death.