Showing results by narrator "Antonia" in All Categories

When Adrianna arrives at the small, run-down cottage, near the sea in rural Norfolk, she can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Here she can forget her life in the city, and the problems she’s left behind there, at least for a while. But – like Adrianna herself – the cottage holds secrets. And when Adrianna finds a mysterious bundle of notes hidden under a floorboard, she can’t shake the idea that they’ve been waiting for her. Especially when – in the rambling, overgrown garden – she then finds a strangely-carved stone, drawing her into a centuries-old mystery…

Zoe always knew this day would come. After all, no one can live for ever. She may not be ready, but Zoe knows the importance of goodbye. Harriet doesn't know where she fits anymore. It's not in Cornwall with the new family her mum is building, and it's certainly not in the job she hates. Ange was doing fine. Well, she was coping. Like she has been for the past fourteen years because her daughter needed her. Then, the last person any of them expects to see suddenly turns up, and soon it seems the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"

When Megan’s father gets a letter containing a secret from the past, he asks her to go to the Cornish village of St Mawgen Cove to get to the bottom of the mystery. Megan is happy to take a holiday after a challenging year but as soon as she checks into The Ship Inn something feels amiss. There are noises in the room above, the locals tell tales of smugglers and shipwrecks and she can’t escape the story of the witch who waits and watches, weeping on the top of the cliff.

English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.

Morgravia Sanctus is being hunted. Something terrible has happened to her, a profound trauma that has left behind ‘red dreams’ and a physical agony that can strike at any moment. Her life in danger and her memory fragmented, she arrives in the low-hive of Blackgheist to escape her pursuers and search for ‘the Broker’ – a trafficker in memories and psychic mind manipulation. Soon after, a plague sweeps the city, turning its citizens into blood-hungry monsters. Order collapses, death and slaughter are rampant.

Lerne, wie du Kinder mit einem narzisstischen Ex effektiv erziehst und dafür sorgst, dass deine Kinder emotional sicher, geistig stark, selbstbewusst und glücklich sind. Das ist machbar, aber du musst bestimmte Strategien anwenden.

Carmel Wakeford becomes separated from her mother at a local children's festival, and is found by a man who claims to be her estranged grandfather. He tells her that her mother has had an accident and that she is to live with him for now. As days become weeks with her new family, eight-year-old Carmel realizes that this man believes she has a special gift.... While her mother desperately tries to find her, Carmel embarks on an extraordinary journey, one that will make her question who she is - and who she might become.

Two years on from uncovering a terrifying conspiracy of rogue scientists, all Kate Maddox wants is to lead a normal life with her partner, Paul, and son, Jack. But then a face from the past turns up, bringing chilling news. A devastating new strain of the virus that killed Kate's parents is loose in LA - and when a bomb rips through a hotel, killing many top scientists, it becomes clear someone will do anything to stop a cure being found.

The recently rediscovered short story 'The Lost One', perfect for fans of Daphne du Maurier, Santa Montefiore and Anya Seton. First published in Woman's Journal in 1960, and set against the backdrop of unfenced country and dark winding valleys at night, the aptly named 'The Lost One' features The Wind off the Small Isles heroine Perdita West, who brings her characteristic pluck and courage to this classic Mary Stewart tale of suspense and intrigue....

In the winter of 2009, Rachel Cusk’s marriage of 10 years came to an end. Candid and revelatory, Aftermath chronicles the perilous journey as the author redefines herself and creates a new version of family life for her daughters. She discovers previously unknown strengths and freedoms, but also finds herself suddenly vulnerable to outsiders, unwelcome advice, social displacement, and the absence of a clear authority. The pressure to reconstruct a “normal” life for her daughters competes with the sense that nothing feels normal at all.

Casting off a northern winter and an orderly life, a family decides to sell everything and go to Italy to search for art and its meanings, for freedom from routine, for a different path into the future. The award-winning writer Rachel Cusk describes a three-month journey around the Italy of Raphael and rented villas, of the Piero della Francesca Trail and the tourist furnace of Amalfi, of soccer and the simple glories of pasta and gelato.

The London Countryside, 1820. Eleanora Coventry comes from a life of title and privilege, but even that isn’t enough to prevent her from being wed at sixteen to a controlling and dismissive husband. So when she finds herself a widow at only twenty-seven, the idea of choosing her own path forward both thrills and terrifies her. She knows how to be a daughter and a wife and mother, but she has no idea how to be Eleanora. She moves her son and daughter to her late husband’s country estate, where she meets Ridley, the young stable master.

Meet Detective Maddie Ives in this absolutely gripping, race-against-time series opener from best-selling author Charlie Gallagher. A young woman’s body is left in a metal container in a remote location. The killer is careful to position her under a camera that links to his smartphone. He likes to look back at his work. He is watching her. But she isn’t dead. So he will return to finish the job. He can barely contain his excitement at the thought of getting to do it all over again. But he must be careful. He cannot rush. Rushing makes you careless....

Lisa, a single mother, devotes herself to raising her 16-year-old daughter, Ava. She doesn’t speak of her past or Ava’s absent father. Ava is getting tired of her overprotective mother. She wants to live like a normal teenager. As her life begins to unravel, Lisa knows that the only way she can protect herself and her daughter is to face her fears. Yet courage won’t be enough. She’ll need help from the only person she can trust - her best friend, Marilyn. Between them, they have to save Ava, and to do that, they have to be honest with each other.

It’s love at first sight when Penelope Kite sees Le Chant d’Eau - The Song of Water - the stone farmhouse tucked high in the hills above the Luberon valley. For years, Penelope put her unfaithful ex-husband and her ungrateful stepchildren first. Now, she’s going to start living for herself. Though her dream house needs major renovations, Penelope impulsively buys the property and moves to St. Merlot. But Penelope’s daydreams of an adventurous life in Provence didn’t include finding a corpse floating face down in her swimming pool.

In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her 60s, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation.

Humanism is an expansive tradition of thought that places shared humanity, cultural vibrancy, and moral responsibility at the center of our lives. For centuries, this worldview has inspired people to make their choices by principles of freethinking, intellectual inquiry, fellow feeling, and optimism. In this sweeping new history, Sarah Bakewell, herself a lifelong humanist, illuminates the very personal, individual, and, well, human matter of humanism and takes listeners on a grand intellectual adventure.

It’s been years since Hanni fled her terrible past, but seeing Reiner Foss now brings back harrowing memories of the man they called "The Showman" and of the concentration camp he commanded. The last time she tried to expose him, Hanni almost died; can she dare to try again? Or should she seize the chance she sees in Tony’s sparkling eyes to leave the horrors of the war behind?

Norway, 1942. War rages, and, under cover of darkness, Rumi Orlstad and her fellow resistance fighters smuggle British agents, fugitives and supplies across the North Sea into Nazi-occupied territory. One night, when he braves a storm to complete an ill-fated mission, Rumi’s fiancé is lost to the dangerous waters. Broken-hearted, she withdraws from the clandestine group, vowing never to let her loved ones put themselves in the line of fire again.