Showing results by narrator "Laurence Bouvard" in All Categories

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old Jewish girl, is arrested by the French police in the middle of the night, along with her mother and father. Desperate to protect her younger brother, she locks him in a cupboard and promises to come back for him as soon as she can. Paris, May 2002: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked to write about the 60th anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv'--the infamous day in 1942 when French police rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children.

Imagine you are a hunter-gatherer some 12,000 years ago. You've got a choice - carry on foraging or plant a few seeds and move to one of those new-fangled settlements down the valley. What you won't know is that urban life is short and riddled with dozens of new diseases; your children will be shorter and sicklier than you are; they'll be plagued with gum disease and stand a decent chance of violent death at the point of a spear. Why would anyone choose this? But choose they did.

A gripping gothic page-turner told in a startlingly different and wonderfully captivating voice. In a remote and crumbling New England mansion, 12-year-old orphan Florence is neglected by her guardian uncle and banned from reading. Left to her own devices she devours books in secret and talks to herself in a unique language of her own invention. By night, she sleepwalks the corridors and is troubled by a recurrent dream in which a mysterious woman appears to threaten her younger brother Giles.

Some people think I’m jealous of my sister, but it isn’t true. I love her confidence; her free spirit. She’s the reckless one in the family, always wearing skimpy clothes and posting her life on social media. I prefer reading, walking my rescue dog and early nights in my New York apartment. It’s not that I meant to keep her a secret from my boyfriend, Bradley, but she just didn’t come up in conversation.

1946, Berlin. War correspondent Kate Mancini is in Germany, reporting on the aftermath of the devastating war. For her readers back home in New York, she tells the stories of innocent families, trying to rebuild the wreckage of their lives now the soldiers have left at last. But in the Russian-held sector of Berlin on an icy winter’s day, Kate breaks all the rules, rescuing Mia Stein, a silent orphan who she fears will otherwise perish.

Tarifa, Spain. A man's body washes up on the beach. No-one seems to care. Patrick Cornwall is a highly acclaimed investigative journalist. His latest project: to uncover the plight of migrants trying to start new lives in Europe. Patrick's wife, Ally, is used to him being out of contact. But she's just discovered she's pregnant. Unable to reach him and starting to worry, she flies across the ocean to get answers. Unable to find him, Ally delves into the secrets Patrick was determined to expose and is drawn into an ever-deadlier web.

Irene Steele's life is idyllic, until it is rocked by a late-night phone call that brings news of her husband's sudden death. Even in the midst of her crippling grief, Irene cannot get one question out of her head: why was his body found on St. John, a tropical Caribbean paradise far removed from their suburban life? Leaving the cold Nantucket winter behind, Irene flies hundreds of miles to get to the island - only to learn that her husband had a secret second family.

Every civilization has its myths. Only one is true. When 18-year-old Keiko Yamada's father dies unexpectedly, he leaves behind a one way ticket to Japan, an unintelligible death poem about powerful Japanese spirits and their gigantic, beast-like Guardians, and the cryptic words: Go to Japan in my place. Find the Gate. My camera will show you the way. Alone and afraid, Keiko travels to Tokyo, determined to fulfill her father's dying wish.

As a teenager in Chicago, May always dreamed of travelling the world. So when she falls in love with George Turner, she can’t wait to return to London as his wife. Two beautiful daughters follow, but George isn’t the husband he promised to be. Ten years on, May is wondering if she’s made a terrible mistake. The Great War has been declared in Europe, and all around, brave young men are being called up to serve. George, banned from conscription himself, has taken to the bottle, and May suspects he’s seeing other women, too.

"All you need to do is…pretend to love me." The task should be easy for Laura Parker - after all, Gabriel Santos is outrageously good-looking, it’s for one night only, and he is offering her a million dollars….

You think you know how the world works? Think again. From best-selling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller that questions the very foundations of the modern world. Magic has faded from the minds of mankind, until an encounter between Melisande Stokes, linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy agent of government, leads to the uncovering of a distant past.

The Awakened Life: The Law of Attraction teaches you how to take back control and live the abundant life you were meant to have. In this enlightening guide, you'll discover how to start thinking about your life in a new way. You'll learn how to translate your thoughts into positive energy that can change the direction of your life and bring great things into your world! Whether it's your health, relationships, or career that you're struggling with, you'll get concrete, practical strategies for applying the Law of Attraction to transform your life in ways you never thought possible.

In Good Bones and Simple Murders, Margaret Atwood displays, in condensed and crystallized form, the trademark wit and virtuosity of her best-selling novels. In The Tent, Margaret Atwood has penned a collection of smart and entertaining fictional essays.

On the planet of Higo, without the guidance of the Great Spirits, its people are descending into religious civil war. Baiyren Tallaenaq, Prince of Higo, is exiled after causing the death of his mother. Freed from his responsibilities and the looming war, he steals their greatest weapon - a giant, sentient armoured suit - and uses it to open a portal to a world he never knew existed. A world called Earth...home of a magical young woman called Keiko.

I first start worrying about my beautiful daughter Lennie when she claims her imaginary friend told her not to trust me or her father, Nathan. And as she retreats further into her own world and pushes us away, it feels like we are losing our little girl. Then one evening I see a shadowy figure in Lennie’s bedroom window, and I begin to worry her friend isn’t imaginary at all…

Allergic to group activities of any kind, all her life Serenata has run, swum and cycled on her lonesome. But now that she's hit 60, all that physical activity has destroyed her knees. As she contemplates surgery with dread, her previously sedentary husband, Remington, recently and ignominiously redundant, chooses this precise moment to discover exercise. Which should be good for his health, right? Yet as he joins the cult of fitness that seems increasingly to consume the whole of the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist.

Explore the human mind and understand the science behind how you and other people in your life think and act in a wide range of everyday situations with this brand new guide to applied psychology. Using straightforward definitions and clear text, The Psychology Handbook makes the workings of the brain easy to understand and shows what happens when things go wrong, with information on disorders such as anxiety and paranoia, as well as explanations of the different therapies that are used to treat them, from CBT to psychoanalysis, group therapy to art therapy.

As Agent Nadine Finch rushes to investigate the murder of newlywed Nikki Darnell in Ocala National Forest, Florida, fear floods her body. She swore she’d never set foot there again, not since the case 15 years ago which tore her life apart. But taking in the triangular cuts scarring Nikki’s perfect pale skin, she knows she must put her own traumatic past aside to find justice for Nikki and her inconsolable husband.

Hollywood, 1978: Tragedy sends troubled film star Vivien Lockhart into the arms of Giovanni Moretti - and it seems her fortunes have finally changed. Until she meets his sister and learns that her new husband's past holds dark secrets. Tuscany, present day: Lucy Whittaker needs to disappear. But her new home, the crumbling Castillo Barbarossa, is far from the secluded paradise it seemed. Strange sounds come from the attic. The owner of the house will never meet her in person. The fountain in the courtyard is silent - but has never run dry.

Lily was abducted from outside her high school gates. For eight long years, she's been locked away from the outside world. During that time she's changed from a girl into a woman. She's had a baby. And now she has seized her chance and escaped. Running for her life, with her daughter in her arms, she returns to her family and the life she used to know - to her much-loved twin sister, Abby; her mum; her high school boyfriend - and her freedom. But is it possible to go back?