Showing results by narrator "Sophie Roberts" in All Categories

Claire Hendricks is a hapless 30-something true-crime fan working as a freelance medium. When she is Invited to an old university friend's country pile to provide entertainment for a family party, her best friend Sophie tags along. In fact, Sophie rarely leaves Claire's side, because she's been haunting her ever since she was murdered at the age of 17.

Agra, 1938: 18-year-old Florence Hunt has grown up riding horses past the Taj Mahal and chasing peacocks through her backyard under the critical gaze of her father. Increasingly enamoured with his work on the booming railway, Florence yearns to know more, but finds herself brushed away, encouraged only to perform the more ladylike hobbies of singing and entertaining guests. So when a dazzling young engineer walks into her life, she finds herself not only gripped by secret lessons in physics but swept entirely off her feet.

Elizabeth's parents warned her that Alexander Blackwell would not make a dependable husband, and only after eloping with him did she learn they may have been right... After their marriage, the couple finds lodgings in London. Alexander looks for work while Elizabeth learns engraving. Before long, though, Alexander is in the Marshalsea, the notorious debtors' prison, and she is left to fend for herself. Alone and penniless, she has a few things going for her: a skill, an idea, and an acquaintance.

Researching her family tree had been little more than a hobby - until Katie stepped onto Kingsley House’s sprawling, ivy-strewn drive. The house may be crumbling today, but it was once the intimidatingly opulent residence of the St Clairs, Katie’s ancestors. Arriving here 200 years later, emotion stirs in Katie: a strange nostalgia for a place she’s never seen before...and when Kingsley House comes up for sale, Katie is determined that her family must buy it.

Daisy-May Jones was four years old when she was told by her parents the family was moving halfway across the world to Australia for a better life. Leaving everything behind, including her beloved grandparents, Daisy-May spent a happy and secure few years adapting to a new life. But after the breakdown of her parent's marriage, she stepped into a nightmare as her mother introduced a new step-father to her and her disabled brother.

After renowned London fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. She arrives with nothing but the clothes she stands in, at a loss as to how to rebuild her business from a quaint country village. Before long, Cressida’s spirit and ambition galvanises the village group into action, and they find themselves mending wedding dresses not only for local brides, but for brides across the country.

Using forbidden Marrangha magic and the three stolen vapours, the evil sorcerer Zharradan Marr has created a creature....but for what purpose?

Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsy to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.

In little more than 50 years the regard with which the Royal Family are held has changed out of all recognition. Their private lives are now the stuff of soap opera and it seems any one who comes into contact with them sells their story to the magazines or to the newspapers. The Little Princesses was published in 1950 to a furore we cannot imagine today. Crawfie was demonised by the press, and the Queen Mother, who had been a great friend and who had, Crawfie maintained, given her permission to write the account, never spoke to her again.

Izzy Brown has always dreamed of being an Instagram influencer. So when her colleague and fellow Instagrammer Luke suggests they ‘fake date’ to boost their profiles, Izzy says yes – against her better judgment. Now Izzy’s profile tells the story of a confident, glamorous 30-something with the perfect boyfriend, and her follower numbers are shooting upwards.

It's not always easy to grasp the complex forces that are shaping our lives. But by following a dollar on its journey around the globe, we can start to piece it all together. From a shopping trip in suburban Texas, via China's central bank, Nigerian railroads, the oilfields of Iraq and beyond, The Almighty Dollar reveals the economic truths behind what we see on the news every day. Why is China the world's biggest manufacturer—and the USA its biggest customer? Is free trade really a good thing? Why would a nation build a bridge on the other side of the planet?

When Vale Moonwing is summoned to the Black Tower, she must prepare herself for a confrontation with the dread warlord Balthus Dire.

It was history's most successful political partnership - as sensual and fiery as it was creative and visionary. Catherine the Great was a woman of notorious passion and imperial ambition. Prince Potemkin - wildly flamboyant and sublimely talented - was the love of her life and her co-ruler. Together they seized Ukraine and Crimea, defining the Russian empire to this day. Their affair was so tumultuous that they negotiated an arrangement to share power, leaving Potemkin free to love his beautiful nieces, and Catherine her young male favourites.

Escape to the daisy-strewn windswept Dorset cliffs, to the donkey sanctuary at Sweet Briar Farm, where Hattie Rose is about to find, that in this world, the most unlikely opposites can sometimes attract... Hattie was once thrilled to call the beautiful city of Paris her home. But when her heart is broken by her boyfriend and she loses her dream job, she bids farewell to the city of love and hurries home to Gillypuddle, a sleepy village on the Dorset coast. But as she returns home she finds her parents struggling to cope with a terrible family tragedy.

Elizabeth has always suspected her mother harbours a secret from her time as a young woman in Nazi Germany. But her mother, suffering from dementia, is lost to her now. When Elizabeth stumbles across a Nazi certificate amongst her parent's paperwork, it forces her to question the very foundations of her 1950s childhood and her first love. . . Elizabeth's quest to find the truth leads her to Germany where she's met with a wall of silence.

When Maddy Shaw is told her Dear Jane column has been cancelled she has no choice but to look outside of London’s rental market. That is until she’s left an idyllic country home by the black sheep of the family, long-not-so-lost Cousin Nigel. But of course there’s a stipulation… and not only is Maddy made chair of the committee for the annual village literary festival, she also has to put up with bestselling crime author –and romance sceptic – Cameron Massey as her new neighbour.

A BBC comedy drama set in the world of a 'pile 'em high university'. Karen Poynter is the new head of the Geography Department - renamed Geographical Tourism - at Hayborough University, which is definitely not part of the elite Russell Group of top universities. Ranked 132nd in the UK academic league table; if you have a pulse, you can have a degree.

When Ros comes home after three years away, shes ready to pick up with life exactly where she left it. But her friends have moved on, her parents have rekindled their romance and her bedroom is now a garden shed. All of a sudden, she's swept up in nostalgia for the way things were. Then her phone begins to ping, with messages from her old life. Including one number she thought she'd erased for good the man who broke her heart. Is this her second chance at one big love? Sometimes we all want to see what we've been missing.

Trees are storykeepers, witnesses to magic and history. From far away, a girl tumbles like a leaf into our world. She makes a promise, discovers the secrets of an ancient oak and rescues a boy from a medieval hunt. She learns how wild apple blossom is linked to three runaway brides, and hears about the revenge of an overclipped box tree. From the underground roots to the uppermost branches, from plane trees in Persia, to tulip trees in North America and underwater kelp forests, she listens to the trees telling stories for all time. And she keeps her promise.

Sasha Fulton has it all – the glittering career, the model nuclear family, the perfect life. But behind the polished exterior is a constant battle to keep every plate spinning, while the clock ticks down on her desperate desire for a child of her own. When Sasha’s new assistant Jenna walks through the door, it’s as though all her prayers have been answered. Supremely capable and steadfastly loyal, Jenna quickly becomes indispensable as Sasha takes on the biggest challenge of her career. But with the pressure increasing on all sides, Sasha’s vulnerabilities are exposed.