Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

Detta works as a translator for a Nazi-run labour camp for French workers. One winter morning in early 1945, Detta passes a group of exhausted British prisoners of war who are being force-marched westwards. The following day she receives an urgent message to contact the local priest. He is harbouring a group of escaped British prisoners of war in the manse: can she help? London, 1989. Miranda is a 19-year-old photography student in London, in thrall to her older boyfriend, a journalist called Quill. In November the fall of the Berlin Wall is all over the news.

Sophia Seddon and Grace Thompson are poles apart - the one a member of the notorious Seddons of Plover Street, the other the vicar's spoilt only child. But their childhood friendship is revived when they find themselves fighting a common cause: women’s rights. And the ties of friendship prove stronger and more enduring than those of background or family, even in the face of danger. Both incredibly moving and engrossing, this is period drama for fans of Dilly Court, Margaret Dickinson and Annie Murray, from an experienced and acclaimed storyteller.

Billie Challinor's mother dies during an air raid, but the child grows up confident that in her jazz musician father, Chas, she has the best dad in the world. They seek refuge from the London Blitz by moving to Leeds, where kindly landlady Liz Morris befriends them: the scarred, wisecracking man who isn't afraid to overstep the mark if the cause is a good one and his clever and resilient little girl.

Cornwall, 1960, and a whole new world for young Connie Vickers as she holidays with her brand-new fiance William. But a strange encounter with a beautiful blonde boy on the beach leads to a terrible tragedy, the consequences of which are to affect Connie and William for the rest of their lives.

Helen-Alice Dear was only 15 when she left London to visit Bulgaria on a family holiday in 1937. Just weeks after her arrival, she found herself unable to leave and struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile and terrifying environment. Her marriage to a Bulgarian man bore her four children but they were often homeless, cold and hungry. Despite these hardships, Helen refused to give up hope and bravely managed to protect and raise her family.

A story from Night in the Front Line, a collection of Second World War short stories. One of Elizabeth Bowen’s most well-known stories, The Demon Lover sees Mrs Drover return to her abandoned London home, her family having settled into evacuated life in the countryside, to find a letter waiting for her.

Maddy lives with her grandmother in a tumbledown farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales. The house has been in the family for generations, but her grandmother is struggling to cope. She is determined that no matter what happens, the two of them will not be forced into the workhouse. Though life is tough, Maddy manages to gain a scholarship to the local school. As war is declared, Maddy and her friends join up, leaving the beautiful Dales for the dangerous work of manning the Ack Ack sites.

1961. Lucia once dreamed of a man who would love her. She has lost hope because what man would, when she's responsible for so many siblings? Everything changes when Tim Murphy enters Lucia's coffee bar. She knows of Tim's troubled past, but she accepts Tim's offer of a date. But has Tim really changed his ways, and will his past catch up with him?

"I dragged my heels all the way to the mill. ‘I can’t do it!’ I sulked. Mother sighed and shook her head. My heart sank. Of course, I’d seen the mill hundreds of times before, but now it was different - now, I was going in. I’d never seen a place so depressing; I wanted to cry." With tales from hardworking Audrey and mischievous Maureen to high-spirited Doris and dedicated Marjorie, The Mill Girls is an evocative story of hardship and friendship from when cotton was still king.

After her French father and English mother are brutally murdered, bluestocking Madeleine Moreau impulsively travels to France to find the family she didn't know existed. Madeleine is in favour of the people's revolution, but her views are shaken after she arrives in Paris and witnesses Louis XVI's death by guillotine. When France declares war on England, Madeleine is trapped, but enigmatic Comte Etienne d'Aubery comes to the rescue when he offers her shelter in his home, Chateau Mirabelle.

Steal a glimpse at the past lives and loves of your favourite villagers in this captivating Burracombe short story. Autumn 1918 has brought young Alice Whiddon to the Tozer's farm to work as a maid. Alice soon falls in love with the little village and with life on the farm. But that's not all she's falling for. Youngest son, Ted Tozer is half promised to young Ivy Prowse, daughter of a neighbouring farmer, yet Alice and Ted feel a powerful bond forming.

On Easter day in 1918, Frances Kemp looked out at the little thatched village and promised that, one day, she'd come back...Long before Miss Kemp became headmistress of the village school, she had reason to know and love Burracombe. Sent to stay with family, young Frances treasured her summers there and the friends she made. But as she grows up, she admits that there is someone there who is more than just a friend.

England, 1940: Clara is forced to flee her home as the Nazis invade the beautiful island of Guernsey, leaving her mother Julia behind. She's scared and alone, but her spirits lift a little when she learns she's headed for Blackpool. Her slight hopes are crushed however when she is housed with and at the mercy of a cruel shopkeeper, Miss Brandon. Clara is worked like a dog, but the warmth of some newly made Blackpool friendships will go far to save her. Separated from her beloved daughter, Julia heads to London to try and track Clara down but she is thwarted at every turn.

January 1936. Sarah, a young executive at a Yorkshire mill, returns home to attend her grandfather's funeral, blissfully unaware of the shock that awaits her when his will is read. The twists and turns of the next few weeks see her meeting an old flame and find her striving to unravel the mystery of a long-hidden family secret. But what of Daisy, the terrified child she meets on the train?

When all is lost, can she find the strength to start again? It is 1916, and Edith Mellor is one of the few female surgeons in Britain. Compelled to use her skills for the war effort, she travels to the Somme, where she is confronted with the horrors at the front. Yet amongst the bloodshed on the battlefield, there is a ray of light in the form of the working-class Albert, a corporal from the East End of London. Despite being worlds apart, Edith and Albert can't deny their attraction to each other.

Lexi Jakes thought she could run from her past. But when her biological mother is found dead, strangled with a red silk scarf and holding a chess piece, Lexi knows that her worst nightmare has come true. Because the murder has all the hallmarks of her own serial killer father, renown strangler Peter Graves. Now with her own precious daughter’s life in danger, Lexi will do anything to keep her child safe...she is the serial killer's girl after all.

After the death of her mother during childbirth, Beth is left to care for her father and two older brothers. When she discovers that she is pregnant, she leaves the family home in a Yorkshire mill town to live with her aunt. A tragic accident leaves her in the colourful world of the Romany Gypsies, where she gives birth to her son, Joshua. She keeps his birth secret, but when he is falsely accused of murder many years later, she is forced to reveal her secrets to save him from the hangman’s noose.

Driftwood House, neglected and desolate on the edge of Dartmoor, is love at first sight for Simone. Persuading her husband to buy it is only the beginning of her battle as the dark secret hidden within its walls comes to light. Can they restore happiness and harmony to the old house? What is the ghostly presence trying to tell them?

Viv's marriage to David was not a conventional one, but when he died - in an accident for which she blamed herself - it was as if her whole world had collapsed around her. She escaped by running, mainly around the nearby lake, which was once a popular place of recreation but was now desolate and deserted. It became both her refuge and her dread.

In the year of her 100th birthday, Dame Vera Lynn's fascinating and life-affirming wartime memoir from the forces' sweetheart of her adventures entertaining the troops in far-flung Burma. "I was just 27 years old when I went to Burma. It was an experience that changed my life for ever. Up until that time I had not really travelled anywhere at all, apart from one touring visit to Holland with a band I was singing with before the war, and I had certainly never been in an aeroplane. But I wanted to make a difference, to do my bit." And she did.