Showing results by narrator " Katy Sobey" in All Categories

Our gut is almost as important to us as our brain, yet we know very little about how it works. Gut: The Inside Story is an entertaining, informative tour of the digestive system from the moment we raise a tasty morsel to our lips until the moment our body surrenders the remnants to the toilet bowl. No topic is too lowly for the author's wonder and admiration, from the careful choreography of breaking wind to the precise internal communication required for a cleansing vomit.

It is 1942 and Eva Adami has boarded a train to Auschwitz. Barely able to breathe due to the press of bodies and exhausted from standing up for two days, she can think only of her longed-for reunion with her husband Michal, who was sent there six months earlier. But when Eva arrives at Auschwitz, there is no sign of Michal and the stark reality of the camp comes crashing down upon her. As she lies heartbroken and shivering on a thin mattress, her head shaved by rough hands, she hears a whisper. Her bunkmate, Sofie, is reaching out her hand....

With the country on the brink of war, single mother Jean embraces her ten-year-old daughter, Valerie, before she puts her on a train to Somerset alongside hundreds of other evacuees. Jean’s heart breaks as she vows they’ll be together again soon, knowing it’s a promise she might not be able to keep. Wrenched away from her mother and everything familiar, Valerie arrives in Somerset and nervously waits in the village hall to find a host family.

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s too kindhearted to collect his debts. They face poverty until Miryem hardens her own heart and takes up his work in their village. Her success creates rumours she can turn silver into gold, which attract the fairy king of winter himself. He sets her an impossible challenge - and if she fails, she’ll die. Yet if she triumphs, it may mean a fate worse than death. And in her desperate efforts to succeed, Miryem unwittingly spins a web which draws in the unhappy daughter of a lord.

Ottilie Oakcroft can’t imagine living anywhere but the village of Thimblebury. Since moving there after her husband’s death, the villagers have welcomed her with open arms, and it’s been a long time since she’s felt this happy. Another reason for the sparkle in her eyes is her blossoming romance with Heath, who showed her that second chances at love can happen. But when a chance meeting with Heath’s glamorous ex-wife Mila sparks a terrible argument between the pair, and with Ottilie’s patients keeping her too busy to repair the cracks in their relationship, things begin to feel a little shaky.

Ava Thomas knew leaving was the right decision. Trapped and manipulated in her relationship, and after yet another violent beating whilst she was pregnant, Ava was helped to a women's refuge with her children. Listening to the stories of other women there, Ava began thinking back to where it all started to go wrong. Brought up by a mother who never loved her, Ava sought that missing care and warmth elsewhere. Running away to her father's home as a teenager, she thought she might finally be safe. But after being abused by her own brother, she was thrown out onto the streets.

Emily Smith was held in a prison of fear for 10 years. When she was four, her father left and a new man was brought into her life. He loved her, he kept telling her so, but the emotional and physical abuse she suffered at his hands were a daily nightmare. Until one day, after he crept into her bedroom, her life became unbearable. Emily found she was different in another way as her autism became more noticeable and punishments for her 'abnormal' behaviour more severe. Astonishingly, she managed to escape her home of hell, where she was abused right in front of her mother.

Berlin Zoo, 1943: Ten-year-old Adelaide and her newborn sister are orphaned after a devastating night of bombing. Heartbroken and frightened, Adelaide runs to her mother’s closest friend, Katharina Heinroth, and the kind zookeeper takes the two little girls under her protection. As the bombing intensifies, Adelaide tries to shut out the horrors of war by caring for her tiny sister and playing with the adorable baby monkeys. But when Katharina organizes a dangerous operation to enable children and animals to escape the battle-scarred city, something goes wrong.

Sometimes your past just won't let go.... As a heat wave grips the country, DS Jenna Morgan is called to a domestic incident at the home of a young family in Ironbridge. Pregnant Imelda Cheetham-Epstein has been found unconscious by her husband, Zak with serious head injuries. When Jenna arrives on the scene, she discovers something even more disturbing the couple's 11-month-old son, Joshua, is missing and the race against time begins to find him. Is this an accident or something more sinister?

Sophie Arundel is stranded in history, stuck in a grand house in 1925 England. Thankfully, she has her faithful dog with her. Oh, and fellow student Hugo: fit, privileged, and annoying.

Isadora Moon and the New Girl: When a new girl, Ava, joins her class, Isadora is keen to make friends. But Ava's not interested. She'd much rather be back at her old school with her old friends. Isadora's classmates are happy to leave Ava on her own since she clearly doesn't like them, but Isadora figures out that there's something more going on. Isadora Moon and the Frost Festival: Isadora and her family are visiting the Frost Festival, a huge celebration of the winter fairies! There's ice skating, fairground rides, gingerbread houses and lots of delicious fairy hot chocolate. It's magical!

This book works. It shows that that the naughty step, sticker charts and controlled crying are NOT the only solutions. Many parents struggle with getting their toddlers to sleep, picky eaters, respect, tantrums, discipline, throwing, biting, hitting, communication. All this is normal. What is important is that you don't base your whole relationship with your child on rewards and punishment.

Harriet Manners knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a “jiffy” lasts a hundredth of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. She knows that bats always turn left when exiting a cave and that peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. But she doesn’t know why nobody at school seems to like her. So when Harriet is spotted by a top model agent, she grabs the chance to reinvent herself.

Can one kiss change your life forever? When two strangers meet in a bar and share a scorching, once-in-a-lifetime kiss, they never expect to see each other again. Until days later, when Skye walks into Gemma’s Surrey vineyard. For once, Gemma is lost for words. When they start working together, they agree nothing can happen. Business comes first.

Matriarch Kitty Conlon is missing her son Patrick, proud but fearful of the fate of his Spitfire, while spinster Mavis welcomes a new lodger, WAAF Anna Carswell who is delighted by the Weaver Street welcome after a loveless childhood. At number nine, Maggie Stubbs worries nightly as her daughter Lily patrols the streets to protect the neighbours during air raids in her role as ARP Warden, and when an unexploded bomb is discovered at the allotment, danger comes terrifyingly close to Weaver Street.

She steps into the room and it’s like going back in time. Catapulting her right into the heart of the 1940s. The spindle of the record player frozen and ready to play. The flowery wallpaper faded but intact. A soldier’s uniform pressed and hung on a door, coal still in the fireplace.

Amelia is a single mother, doing her very best to look after her young son, Charlie - but money is tight and times are tough. When she first hears that she is the last descendent of the Chesterford family and that she has inherited a Real-Life Castle by the sea, Amelia can't quite believe her ears. But it's true!

Ottilie Oakcroft never thought shed live in a place like Wordsworth Cottage. Nestled close to the river, her new home in the tiny village of Thimblebury means all her patients are just a stones throw from her front door. As they drop in for cups of tea and cosy chats she ignores all the jobs on her to-do list and gets to know her new neighbours.

When 29-year-old Annie Trebarwith receives an unexpected letter from a great-aunt she’s never known, she leaves her shoebox-size flat in London and catches a train to the rugged Cornish coast. Salt Bay is beautiful, and Annie begins to kindle a bond with her great-aunt Alice. Even though there is zero phone signal and the locals - including the gorgeous but brooding Josh Pasco - can be decidedly grumpy at times, Annie starts to feel at home in Salt Bay.

Philomena McCarthy is an ambitious police officer with the elite Metropolitan Police in London, responding to a domestic violence call. Tempe Brown is a bloodied young woman and the mistress of a decorated and intimidating London detective, Darren Goodall. Philomena and Tempe strike up a tentative friendship, determined to protect each other from Goodall, but something isn’t quite right about the stories Tempe tells and the secrets she keeps.