Showing results by narrator "Lucy Paterson" in All Categories

Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland tells a history of Britain and the politics of its people through medieval eyes. Grounded in research, related as fiction, it begins before the Great Flood, with a troop of African giants quarrying stones. Later, the first migrants enter the Atlantic, calling themselves the Scoti and Britons, followed by the English and the Normans, crossing the North Sea.

The story follows Peter's relationship with Wendy, where he eventually persuades her to join him in the fairy tale world of Neverland to be a mother to him and his friends, The Lost Boys. But not all is safe in Neverland, as the Peter's evil adversary Captain Hook tries to thwart Peter and his friends' fun on multiple occasions. Ending in the climatic final duel between Peter and Captain Hook, this story is filled with action, adventure, family bonds, and an infamous ticking crocodile.

Glamorous Margot Jones is the fashion editor at glossy magazine Haute. Pregnant with her first child, Margot's carefully curated life is the object of other women's envy - who wouldn't want her successful career, loving husband, beautiful house, and stylish wardrobe? Maggie, a freelance journalist, certainly knows she doesn't measure up. But when she gets the temp job covering Margot's maternity leave, Maggie seizes the chance to live a flashier life - even if it's only for a few months.

In a hotel room in Venice, where she's just completed a routine assassination, Villanelle receives a late-night call. Eve Polastri has discovered that a senior MI5 officer is in the pay of the Twelve and is about to debrief him. As Eve interrogates her subject, desperately trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, Villanelle moves in for the kill. The duel between the two women intensifies, as does their mutual obsession, and when the action moves from the high passes of the Tyrol to the heart of Russia, Eve finally begins to unwrap the enigma of her adversary's true identity.

Anna and Zoe are twins. Identical in appearance, utterly different in personality, they share a bond so close that nothing - or no one - can rip them apart. Until Anna meets charismatic Nick. Anna is trusting, romantic and hopeful; she thinks Nick is perfect. Zoe is daring, dangerous and extreme; she thinks Nick is a liar. Zoe has seen Anna betrayed by men before. She'll stop at nothing to discover if Nick is as good as he seems. The problem is, lies may hurt. But honesty can kill.

On a cold day in Reykjavik, a baby goes missing from her pram. When the child's blanket washes up on the beach, and the mother is found dead, everyone's worst fears seem to have been realised. Eleven years later, and detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja are now working in the same police building, on the same team. Freyja believes that personal and professional relationships must remain separate, however hard that may be.

1921. Survivors of the Great War are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. Francis is presumed to have been killed in action, but Edie believes he might still be alive. Harry, Francis’s brother, was there the day Francis was wounded. He was certain it was a fatal wound, but Harry begins questioning his memory of what happened. Hired by grieving families, Harry returns to the Western Front to photograph gravesites. He searches for evidence of Francis.

It was meant to be a quiet family fishing trip, a chance for mother and daughter to talk. But it changes the course of their lives forever. They catch nothing except a broken doll that gets tangled in the net. After years in the ocean, the doll a terrifying sight and the mother's first instinct is to throw it back, but she relents when her daughter pleads to keep it. This simple act of kindness proves fatal. That evening, the mother posts a picture of the doll on social media. By the morning, she is dead and the doll has disappeared.

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard. Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey - to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres's childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father.

Gem Golding only has two choices. A stranger holds a knife to her skin, his demands terrifying in the deserted parking garage. Should she surrender? Or should she fight back? This attacker is no ordinary criminal. This night, like so many of them, is all a game to him. He makes the rules - rules that determine whether his victims live or die, rules that will set Gem's fate in motion. He's waiting for her to decide. But how can you win the game when you don't know how to play?

There are worse things than being spectacularly jilted. Losing a leg, for instance, or getting shot - well, perhaps not: The bullet Alistair took fighting in the peninsula never landed him in London's scandal sheets. Captain Alistair Beaumaris never dreamed he'd be tossed over by Lord Fairchild's bastard daughter, losing both her and her fortune - a singular humiliation that should have taught him a lesson. But when your luck is out, you do foolish things, like quarrel with your oldest friend. Or mistake a perfectly respectable widow for a lady of easy virtue.

Heiða is a solitary farmer with a flock of 500 sheep in a remorseless area bordering Iceland's highlands. It's known as the End of the World. One of her nearest neighbours is Iceland's most notorious volcano, Katla, which has periodically driven away the inhabitants of Ljótarstaðir ever since people first started farming there in the 12th century.

In Leading on the Edge, successful business speaker and consultant Rachael Robertson shares the lessons she learned as leader of a year-long expedition to the wilds of Antarctica.

The Empire of the Wolf simmers with unrest. Rebels, heretics and powerful patricians all challenge the power of the imperial throne. Only the Order of Justices stands in the way of chaos. Sir Konrad Vonvalt is the most feared Justice of all, upholding the law by way of his sharp mind, arcane powers and skill as a swordsman. At his side stands Helena Sedanka, his clerk and protégé, orphaned by the wars that forged the empire.

Laura Edwards, a French émigré fallen on hard times, took to the stage to support her brother's medical career. Now that he's established, he wants her to turn respectable, landing her in the country hiding in plain sight from one of her biggest admirers, Jasper Rushford, the care-for-nothing son of the local viscount. He just might have recognized her...

Flora and Rose are identical twins who do not know of each other's existence. Rose has been raised by her frivolous mother with the glossy international jet set. Flora has spent her childhood in the beauty and quiet of her father's Cornish cottage. And then, by chance, they meet. The encounter seems heaven-sent to Rose, who longs to escape from a man she no longer desires. Flora can free her, and, in taking her sister's place, her uneventful life is changed forever.

Mary has raised a family in this house. Watched her children play and laugh and bicker in this house. Today she is getting married in this house, with all her family in attendance. The wedding celebrations have brought fractured family together for the first time in years: there's Phoebe and her husband Michael, children in tow. The young and sensitive Rosie, with her new partner. Irene, Mary's ex-mother-in-law. Even Emma, Mary's eldest, is back for the wedding - despite being at odds with everyone else.

First, there were the flamingos. And then there were two families. Sherry and Leslie and their daughters, Rae and Pauline - and Eve and her son, Daniel. Sherry loves her husband, Leslie. She also loves Eve. It couldn't have been a happier summer. But then Eve left, and everything went grey. Now Daniel is all grown up and broken. And when he turns up at Sherry's door, it's almost as if they've all come home again. But there's still one missing. Where is Eve? And what, exactly, is her story?

As Villanelle returns to face her childhood demons and the Russian winter, Eve finds herself on the run from the Twelve, who want her dead. As the action moves between London and St Petersburg, and Eve and Villanelle finally admit their mutual erotic obsession, the chess game approaches its lethal, unforgettable conclusion.

Best-selling author and historian Lucy Worsley tracks a new course through Queen Victoria's life, examining how she transformed from dancing princess to the Widow of Windsor and became one of Britain's greatest monarchs along the way. Taking 24 significant days from Victoria's life, from her birth, her wedding and her coronation to her husband's death, and many more in between, allows us to see Victoria up close and personal, examining how she lived hour to hour.