Showing results by narrator "Sophie Roberts" in All Categories

Daisy was only four when her parents told her and her older brother that they were moving halfway across the world to Australia for a better life. Leaving everything behind, including her beloved grandparents, she stepped into an unfamiliar world. Daisy's close and unbreakable bond with her disabled brother helped her navigate her new life, until tragedy repeatedly struck the family.

Once upon a time, Ella had wished for more than her life as a lowly maid. Now forced to work hard under the unforgiving, lecherous gaze of the man she once called stepfather, Ella’s only refuge is in the books she reads by candlelight, secreted away in the library she isn’t permitted to enter. One night, among her beloved books of far-off lands, Ella’s wishes are answered. At the stroke of midnight, a fairy godmother makes her an offer that will change her life.

After the death of her parents, young Andrina Maldon has selflessly carried the responsibility of running a household impoverished by her father’s profligacy and also for the future happiness of her two sisters. Despite their striking looks, there is no hope of her sisters finding a suitable suitor without someone to introduce them into high society. So Andrina travels unchaperoned to London to seek the assistance of the Duke of Broxbourne, her father’s friend and the Godfather she has never met.

When a Navy vessel comes across a yacht in distress in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean, Captain Danial Tengku orders his ship to rush to its aid. On board the yacht is a British couple: a horribly injured man, Jake, and his traumatized wife, Virginie, who breathlessly confesses, “It’s all my fault. I killed them.” Trembling with fear, she reveals their shocking story to Danial.

In post-Communist Romania, on the border with Transylvania, the sleepy little town of B. is losing its young people to the West. A young painter returned from Paris and her eccentric great-aunt seem unconcerned with the decline of the town, until a mutilated corpse is found in the family crypt of Prince Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula. As the world's attention turns to B., the mayor and his son take advantage and turn the town into a vampire-inspired theme park. Tourists flock, but beneath the surface ancient horrors live on.

Declutter every aspect of your life - from your wardrobe, exercise schedule and food budget to your phone, bookshelves and beauty regime - with this realistic guide to getting neat and keeping things that way. Anna Newton is just trying to balance work, her friends, her family, her husband Mark, a growing handbag habit and a love for takeaway pizza. Over the past eight years of running the blog and corresponding YouTube Channel The Anna Edit, she's grown a loyal viewership who tune in for her weekly videos on everything from house renovations to the best summer foundation.

Join elven hero Vale Moonwing and adventurer Cassius Stormblade on their quest through the depths of Firetop Mountain. Can they survive the deadly traps and evade Zagor's army of the undead? Can they stay alive long enough to confront the dark warlock himself?

Is it possible for books to dream? For books to dream within books? Is there a literary subterranean that would facilitate ingress and exit points through these dreams? These are some of the questions posed by David Keenan's masterly fifth novel, Monument Maker, an epic romance of eternal summer and a descent, into history, into the horrors of the past; a novel with a sweep and range that runs from the siege of Khartoum and the conquest of Africa in the 19th century through the Second World War and up to the present day.

Bea isn't happy. Desperate for a change, she looks to her friends for inspiration. Every single one of them is paired off, perhaps that's what she needs too. So, she starts dating again. But everywhere she goes - amid the hilarious and scarring dates - there's Peter. Good old oddball Peter, her closest friend from university. He's always been firmly in the friend zone but something's happened lately - he seems taller, more handsome and suddenly making him smile is Bea's favourite thing.

A naive young woman at the mercy of her ambitious family. At just 19, Katheryn Howard is quick to trust and fall in love. She comes to court. She sings, she dances. She captures the heart of the king. Henry declares she is his rose without a thorn. But Katheryn has a past of which he knows nothing. It comes back increasingly to haunt her. For those who share her secrets are waiting in the shadows, whispering words of love...and blackmail.

Cherry has a hidden talent. She can see things other people can't, and she decided a long time ago to use this skill to help others. As far as the rest of the town is concerned, she's simply the kind-hearted young woman who runs the local bakery, but in private she uses her gift to add something special to her cakes so that after just one mouthful, the townspeople start to feel better about their lives.

The year is 1967. Thirteen-year-old Maisie is at her decaying family home, once a medieval abbey. Lucas, an artist and friend, is painting a portrait of Maisie and her sisters. Maisie embarks on a portrait of her own: telling the story of herself, her sisters and their lovers, and of her friend, Daniel Nunn. Twenty-three years later, Lucas's now-famous portrait features in a retrospective of his work. Daniel, obsessed by the sisters and determined to understand what happened that summer at the abbey, pursues answers.

Much has been written about the brutal crimes of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, and - 35 years after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 13 women - scarcely a week goes by without some mention of him in the media. In any story featuring Sutcliffe, however, his victims are incidental, often reduced to a tableau of nameless faces. But each woman was much more than the manner of her death, and in Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter, Carol Ann Lee tells, for the first time, the stories of those women who came into Sutcliffe’s murderous orbit.

From ‘The Manchester Marriage’, in which a husband, supposedly drowned at sea, returns to find his daughter, to the two sisters who are comically adrift after the death of their domineering father in ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’, and a young girl who enlists the help of a sorceress to win back her boyfriend in ‘The Goodness of Saint Rocque’, Standing Her Ground showcases nine groundbreaking women writers.

Ashley Moon is all set for a dream holiday with her daughter in the glittering French Riviera. But nothing can prepare her for the shock of discovering who’s staying in the villa next door.... Ashley got much more than a suntan on her first ever foreign holiday; one whirlwind romance and nine months later she had a daughter, Molly. Too proud to ever contact the father, Ashley made a decision to go it alone and raise her daughter herself.

After the tragic death of her parents in a carriage accident, orphaned Pandora was taken in by her uncle, the Bishop of Winchester. One day, she is horrified to overhear that he plans to marry her off to his Chaplin, the Honourable Prosper Witheridge. Certain she can't change her uncle's mind, Pandora decides to try and repulse Witheridge and drive him away. She invites herself to her stay with the decadent Earl of Chartwood. The Earl is notorious for his scandalous parties, with the kind of bohemian guests and raucous behaviour that would shock anyone from polite society.

On Easter Sunday 2015, experienced skydiver Victoria Cilliers undertook a parachute jump, a gift from her husband, British Army Sergeant Emile Cilliers. Her parachutes failed to open and she plummeted 4,000 feet to the ground, sustaining life-threatening injuries. Miraculously, she survived. Then the police arrived at her door. Someone had tampered with her parachute, and they suspected Emile.

Former Polish teenage piano prodigy Mosha Gebert is teaching when the Nazis come for her. They kill her student, but she is taken to Majdanek concentration camp. There, Commandant Josef Hanke spots her and recognises her as the pianist he fell in love with years earlier. Hanke demands that Mosha play ‘Ode to Joy’ for him, but she refuses. She will never play in such a horrific place – or for such an evil monster. So begins a battle of wills and repeated torture.

It is not an overstatement to say that numbers dictate the way we live our lives. They tell us how we're doing at school, how much we weigh, who might win an election and whether the economy is booming. But numbers aren't as objective as they may seem; behind every number is a story. Yet politicians, businesses and the media often forget this - or use it for their own gain. Sanne Blauw travels the world to unpick our relationship with numbers and demystify our misguided allegiance....

Paige might bake wedding cakes for a living but that doesn't mean she's dreaming about her own perfect day. Far from it. Trusting people is hard after she was badly let down by her family and boyfriend just when she needed them most. And to make things worse, her ex has just walked into her bakery with his new fiancée....