Showing results by narrator "Helen Lloyd" in All Categories

Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This audiobook is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. It's also a wise, engaging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice in Wonderland.

The sisters of Gwenafwy Abbey have cherished their contemplative life - days spent in prayer, reflection, tending the convent's vegetable gardens and making their award-winning organic cheese, Heavenly Gouda. Life seems perfect, except for Sister Agatha, a die-hard mystery fan who despairs of ever finding any real life inspiration for her own novel. That is, until the abbey's sexton is found dead under an avalanche of gouda. Despite the reservations of the local constable, Sister Agatha is convinced it's murder and the game is afoot.

Beautiful Stella, the head-turning cook of a munitions factory, has been swept off her feet by a handsome GI. He proposes when she falls pregnant, but soon his letters stop arriving . . . Then there is Lillian, who is deeply unimpressed when she is conscripted as a Land Girl miles from her home, but then she meets a charming, married vet . . . Meanwhile, midwife Ada is getting used to being back at work after the birth of her own beautiful baby girl. But she faces the biggest challenge of her life when the home is engulfed in an outbreak of whooping cough.

Dan Ranscombe is clever and good-looking, but he resents the wealth and easy savoir faire of fellow guest Paul Latimer. Surely a shrewd girl like Meg Slater would see through that, wouldn't she? And what about Diana, Paul's beautiful sister; Charles Asher, the Jewish outsider; Madeleine, the children's nanny; and artist Henry Haddon? As these guests gather at a country house party, none has any inkling that the choices they make will have fateful consequences lasting through the war and beyond.

This classic introduction to the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung is important because it is the only English original text he sanctioned in his lifetime. In his personal foreword, he wrote: 'Mrs Frieda Fordham has undertaken the by no means easy task of producing a readable resumé of all my various attempts at a better and more comprehensive understanding of the human psyche. She has delivered a fair and simple account of the main aspects of my psychological work. I am indebted to her for this admirable piece of work.'

It is June 1940, and as the bombs fall the women at home must dig deep. Tucked on the edge of the Lake District lies Mary Vale, a Mother and Baby Home open to unmarried women and their children. But tensions arise when three very different women walk through the doors.

The festive season is approaching, and the Bomb Girls are determined to make this a year to remember. With Myrtle's health in decline, Edna's love life beginning to take flight and a shy new arrival in their midst, life is never quiet in Pendle. But Gladys, back from performing for the troops, is sullen and sad, and her friends are sure she is hiding something.

When Nicola's husband, Dominic, retires they decide not to spend their days finding hobbies to fill the time until Countdown is on. Instead, they fulfil their life-long fantasy of buying a country house and filling it with their dearest friends. Reliving their youth and spending their children's inheritance. Joined by seven of their friends they club together to invest in a château in Normandy. Group dinners, fine wine, beautiful scenery - they're living the dream!

Mary Vale, a grand and imposing Mother and Baby Home, sits on the remote Fylde coast in Lancashire. Its doors are open to unmarried women who come to hide their condition and find sanctuary. Women from all walks of life pass through Mary Vale, from beautiful waitress Emily, whose boyfriend has vanished without trace, to young Isla, cast out by her wealthy family after her first year at university goes horribly wrong. Awaiting them is Nurse Ada and Sister Anne who work tirelessly to aid the mothers and safely deliver the babies.

In 1960s Glasgow, anti-nuclear activists Judith and Jimmy fall in love. But their future hopes are dashed when their protestors’ squat is raided and many, including Jimmy, are sent to prison. Pregnant and with no word from Jimmy, Judith is forced to enter an unmarried mothers’ home, give up their baby and learn to live with her grief.

On 28th March 1944, Italian sisters Tati (six) and Andra (four) were roused from their sleep and taken to Auschwitz, to the infamous Kinder Block, presided over by Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death. By the time Auschwitz was liberated, 230,000 children had been murdered, and Andra and Tati were among 70 child survivors. They were sent to Lingfield House in Britain, a home for children orphaned or lost at the end of the war.

Women in the War beautifully weaves together the oral histories of 10 remarkable women who dedicated their young adulthood to the war effort. From aiding codebreaking at Bletchley Park to plotting the Battle of the Atlantic and working alongside Churchill in the War Rooms below Whitehall, these are the women who helped to defend the Home Front and kept Britain going. Now with the wisdom of age, they look back at how they coped with danger, trauma and stress, and tell how their spirits were fortified by friendship, fellowship and romance.

Had Jane Austen lived to complete Sanditon, it would have been as treasured as her other novels. In the half-finished masterpiece, Austen fashions one of her classic heroines: Charlotte Heywood. The surviving fragment also sets the story well on its path as Charlotte begins an adventure to Sanditon where a full cast of characters becomes intertwined in various intrigues.

When the only place you want to be is home.... When Ella's beloved grandmother dies, she comes back to the beautiful Cornish coast to heal her heart. There she finds her home again and discovers a new life and new love...but she also opens a treasure trove of secrets.

It's1944, after D-day. Doodlebugs are the latest threat to war-battered Southern England. Local crook Samuel Golden is still finding ways to exploit people's hardship for his own gain. Heroine Em, whom we first met in The Munitions Girls, finds herself caught up in one such scheme while having to deal with her daughter's unexpected pregnancy.

The stories found in this collection explore the sensual worlds of 13 older women, reframing their intellectual and emotional lives in intimate vignettes that will shock and comfort in equal measure. In spikey, elegant prose, Jane Campbell ignites the voices of women who are fighting to live on their own terms, energised by their desires and passions, freedoms, integrity and sense of self. Cat Brushing confronts the tragic misconceptions of aging and presents a vivid and transgressive peek into older women's lives.

Number one New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Laurens immerses you in the simple joys of a long-ago country-village Christmas, featuring a grandmother, her grandchildren, her unwed son, a determined not-so-young lady, foreign diplomats, undercover guards, and agents of Napoleon.

Rosa has arrived in London from Poland to look for her younger brother, Mikhail. He is supposed to be staying with their English father, but when she visits the house she finds it's locked up, and there's no sign of either of them. Stef is running away from her boyfriend, Oliver. Frightened, friendless and far from her family, she needs somewhere to hide. All three find refuge at 11 Bellevue Gardens. Here its owner, Leonie, once herself found sanctuary and now opens her house to others in need.

Meet Eve, who has departed from her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit, Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children, and Anastasia: defiantly independent narrow-boat-dweller, suddenly vulnerable as she awaits a life-saving operation. Inexperienced and ill-equipped, Sally and Eve embark upon a journey through the canals of England, guided by the remote and unsympathetic Anastasia.

They are England's most eligible bachelors, with the most scandalous reputations. But for the right woman, even an unrepentant rogue may mend his ways…Lady Grace Mabry's ample inheritance has made it impossible for her to tell whether a suitor is in love with her…or enamored of her riches. Who better to distinguish beau from blackguard than her notorious childhood friend, the Duke of Lovingdon? With no interest in marriage, Lovingdon has long lived only for pleasure. He sees little harm in helping Grace find a proper match.