Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

England, 1919. Verity Kent's grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter, suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Lured to Umbersea Island to attend the engagement party of one of Sidney's fellow officers, Verity mingles among the men her husband once fought beside, discovering dark secrets and the shattering possibility that her husband may not have been the man she thought he was....

Fran Morrison, a travelling musician, is summoned home to London after her father suffers a stroke. She finds herself in charge of the family business - a stained glass workshop. When the vicar of the local church asks Fran to restore a shattered window, her research into its origins uncovers a fascinating and moving love story from the Victorian past that resonates in her own life.

When May teams up with Sally and Harriet it is the best day's work she's ever done. Each of them needs money, badly. Which is why they are reduced to working for Quality Cleaners under the watchful eye of 'Slimeball' Slater. When they discover it is them being taken to the cleaners, they set up as an independent team. And that is when things really begin to take off. With more lucrative jobs coming in, they soon find that they are able to take the first steps towards freedom and independence.

The day after her wedding, Donella Ferguson Watson wakes up shackled to a man haunted by the past. The lonely days become weeks, months. Her husband, Hugh, a prison doctor, will offer no explanation for their sexless marriage. She comes to suspect the answer lies with a hunger-striking suffragette who was force fed and held in solitary confinement. But what really happened between Hugh and his prisoner patient?

At just 18, Lucrezia Borgia, the alluring daughter of the Pope, has already had her life touched by dishonour and tragic loss. In the decadent society of 15th-century Rome, violence is commonplace and scandal is never far from the infamous Borgia family. In the aftermath of her brother Giovanni’s brutal murder, Lucrezia knows she must build a life for herself if she is to break away from the corrupt world her family is tied to.

Agreeing to a fake betrothal should suit both society dressmaker Belle Marchmain and landowner Adam Davenant fittingly - clearing Belle's debts and keeping Adam's husband hunters at bay. Even if blue-blooded Belle, with her extravagant clothes and razor-sharp tongue, despises the very air that nouveau riche Adam breathes! If Adam wants a wife who's agreeable, he has his work cut out. Yet when his demanding mouth caresses Belle's, for the first time ever she's lost for words.

Gina's life is good. She loves her adopted home in Italy, and she is passionate about her work as a photographer. She's all wrapped up in her latest artistic project, shots of the young men who arrive in Italy as refugees, destitute and vulnerable. One day Sasha, a lonely British teenager at summer school, crosses Gina's path. Sasha's innocent romance creates complications neither of them could have imagined, leading Gina to wonder, can she come to terms with her past?

A grey dawn in 1943: on a street in Rome, two young women, complete strangers to each other, lock eyes for a single moment. One of the women, Chiara Ravello, is about to flee the occupied city for the safety of her grandparents' house in the hills. The other has been herded onto a truck with her husband and their young children and will shortly be driven off into the darkness. In that endless-seeming moment, before she has time to think about what she is doing, Chiara makes a decision that changes her life for ever.

As the snow begins to fall just days before Christmas, Grandad helps Sara build an igloo in the garden, and Sara sculpts a small polar bear to watch over it. And what could be more exciting than sleeping outside under the stars? But when Sara awakes in the middle of the night, she finds the igloo is no longer in the garden but lost in a world of ice...and her snow bear has transformed into a real live polar bear cub. Sara and the cub set out on an enchanted journey through the wilderness. Will they ever find their way home?

When Henry VI becomes king, it is soon clear that he would be more suited to a quiet life. Richard, Duke of York, is convinced that he would make a better king and has more right to the crown. But Margaret of Anjou, Henry’s new French wife, is a formidable woman who is just as determined to keep Henry on the throne. Most powerful of all is the Earl of Warwick, and with his support of Richard of York the War of the Roses begins.

On the death of Henry V, a nine-month-old baby is made King of England. Ambitious men surround the baby king, including his two uncles, the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester. In Lancastrian England and war-torn France, there are three women whose lives are to have a marked effect on the future. Katherine de Valois, haunted by an unhappy childhood, finds love in an unexpected quarter and founds the Tudor dynasty; Joan of Arc leaves her village pastures on the command of heavenly voices; and Eleanor of Gloucester is drawn into a murder plot and becomes the centre of a cause celebre.

Edward the Second has been barbarously murdered in Berkeley Castle on the orders of his wife Queen Isabella and her lover, and 15-year-old Edward the Third is now king. Young Edward has already fallen in love with Philippa of Hainault and, to prevent him enquiring into the details of his father’s death, Isabella allows the marriage to take place. While some suggest that Edward has a claim on the French throne, he is reluctant to pursue it.

A brooding contemporary gothic love story, beautifully told with rich and sensual imagery. When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom, their whirlwind relationship leads them to purchase Les Genevriers, an abandoned house in a rural hamlet in the south of France. As the beautiful Provence summer turns to autumn, Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-down old house, in particular the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful first wife, Rachel.

Watch out! The locusts are coming... A terrifying army of locusts is making its way along the edge of the Sahara desert, devastating crops in one village after another. Gidaado's village is next. When the locusts arrive, Gidaado will need all his wits about him in order to survive. He will need his friend Sophie. He will need his three-stringed guitar. And he will need an albino camel as fast as the harmattan wind.

Lizzy has always known she has been adopted. But since her family moved to Cornwall her world has turned upside down. By chance, she discovered Kes, a brother she never knew existed, and the incredible truth about her birth mother.

Sophie lives in Gorom-Gorom, with her carnivorous-plant obsessed dad. Despite living there for two years and speaking the local language, Sophie finds it difficult to make friends. So when she meets Gidaado, a young griot (story-teller), she agrees to join him and his albino camel, Chobbal, on a journey to his village.

In the grim recesses of the Tower of London, two captives begin a passionate love affair that will last years but is destined to destroy them. One is Robert Dudley, the other is the future Queen of England, Elizabeth I.

A powerful, posthumous novel from bestselling author Mario Reading. Relegated to an isolated provincial town in France after years spent fighting on the Eastern Front, German commander Maximilian von Aschau finds unexpected distraction in the form of beautiful and reserved Lucie Léré. He’s seen every horror of the human experience. She’s never left her village. Opposites in every way, Max and Lucie manage to find common ground. But love is the most dangerous element of war. It makes you vulnerable... and careless.

Married four times, Susannah Forbes had a starry career as a top model. Now, with an instinctive eye for design, she finds herself in constant demand as an interior designer. Offered a commission by a recently divorced American to make over his lavish Long Island home, Susannah accepts, bringing as her assistant young divorcee Daisy Mitchell. Taking off from Heathrow, Susannah is transported back to a time when, at the height of her modelling career, she lived in New York.

Friendship, freedom, booze and student loans: the glory days of University, the halcyon haze. For friends Liz, Cora, Mike and Stevie, students at Cardiff, that haze was shared, their circle tight, a surrogate family, bound together for three idyllic, hedonistic years in total trust. Or so it seemed. Mike and Cora marry after graduation, while Liz and Stevie look on, misty-eyed.