Showing results by narrator "Rachel Bavidge" in All Categories

Nicole and André, a retired French couple, take a summer holiday to Russia. It is the 1960s and Russia is a beautiful, complicated place. Their guide is Macha, André's daughter from a previous relationship - a woman they both love. Adventure, inspiration, good food and good vodka are promised. Once thrilled by their romance, Nicole and André have now become too used to each other. Both harbour a growing feeling of not being fully understood - of being alone.

Celia Paul has felt a lifelong connection to the artist Gwen John. There are extraordinary parallels in their lives and work. Both have always made art on their own terms. Both were involved with older male artists. Both worked hard to keep themselves and the sacred flame of their creativity from being extinguished by others. Letters to Gwen John is Paul's imagined correspondence with Gwen John, whose life and work have loomed so large in hers.

Understand the menopause with all its changes and challenges - and choose practices and treatments to make this next stage in your wellness journey healthy, positive, and joyful.Your menopause is unique to you - a milestone on your personal wellbeing journey. A lucky few will breeze through it, but for most women this time of hormonal upheavals throws up a variety of challenging symptoms. Understand the menopause better and find the right combination of resources for you - to stay physically, mentally and spiritually well throughout.

What was mothering like in the past? When acclaimed historian Sarah Knott became pregnant, she asked herself this question. But accounts of motherhood are hard to find. For centuries, historians have concerned themselves with wars, politics and revolutions, not the everyday details of carrying and caring for a baby. These details matter: they shape our feelings and give structure to our hours. But they leave little historical trace. Much to do with becoming a mother, past or present, is lost or forgotten.

June, 1877: the petite 29-year-old Annie Besant stands motionless before the 75-year-old Judge towering over her in the Palace of Westminster. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn is presiding over the scandalous 'trial of the century' where Annie Besant and her confidante Charles Bradlaugh have been charged with the unforgiveable crime of publishing and selling a guide to birth control. Charged with obscenity, she argued—controversially and outrageously, for the time—that it was a woman's right to be able to choose to have children.

It is the early 1930s, and Europe is holding its breath. As Hitler's grip on power tightens, preparations are being made for the Berlin Olympics.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) and Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) were both regarded as the female poet laureates of their time, and between them their writings spanned almost the entire Victorian age, from the end of Romanticism to the beginnings of Modernism. This selection of their shorter works contains all the major themes that animated them - social justice, faith, love and mortality - and some of the best-loved poetry in English, including "In The Deep Midwinter" and "How Do I Love Thee?"

Romy and Michael have it all. Over 30 years of marriage, two grown-up sons, a beautiful London home, as well as a weekend bolthole by the sea. If Romy's had to sacrifice some of her dreams along the way to support Michael's high-flying legal career, then it's been a price worth paying. Until the arrival of a letter changes everything. At first Romy can't believe what it is saying. That Michael, an upholder of the law, with an unwavering sense of right and wrong, could do something so terrible. But then other lies start to emerge, and she starts to wonder who the man really is.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee, read by Rachel Bavidge. Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her still, one wants only to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all.

Classic Poems for Boys comprises a delightfully varied set of over 20 poems for 5- to 10-year olds. From rousing favorites like Felicia Dorothea Hemans’ "Casabianca" and John Keats’ "A Song About Myself", to dreamy, thoughtful poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Rudyard Kipling, this is a collection to be treasured.

Nina Todd keeps her head down and tries to live a quiet life: dull job, dependable boyfriend, no disruptions. If there are questions about Nina that remain unanswered, they are questions that even those closest to her don't dare to ask.

A dark and humid night on a London highway… a ghostly woman asking directions… and the reader is away on a tale of deceit, murder, madness, stolen identities and scheming cads, elaborate plots and outrageous coincidences, in the company of some of the most extraordinary characters in fiction. Hailed as a classic the moment it was written in 1859, The Woman in White uses a dozen different narrators to tell the tale of a man’s determination to save the woman he loves....

A complete collection of 'Goodnight' stories for your little one. Includes brand-new readings of 'Goodnight Santa', 'Goodnight Digger', 'Goodnight Pirate', 'Goodnight Princess' and 'Goodnight Tractor'. Also includes a special recording of 'Goodnight Spaceman' by astronaut Tim Peake - recorded live from the International Space Station!

Anna grew up in a house that was loving, even if her mum was ‘a little eccentric’. They knew to keep things clean, to stay quiet, and to look the other way when things started to get ‘a bit much for your mum’. It’s only when her mother reaches her 70s and Anna has a family of her own, that the cracks really start to appear. More manic. More irrational. More detached from the world. And when her father, the man who has calmed and cajoled her mother through her entire life is diagnosed with cancer, the whole world turns upside down.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan, read by Eve Webster, Rachel Bavidge, Andy Secombe, Roy Mcmillan, Helen Fraser, Daniel Weyman and Steven France. Nineteen twenty-two. Grace has been sent to the stately and crumbling Fenix House to follow in her grandmother's footsteps as a governess.

In an empty car park, Ryan James sits in his car contemplating death. He has set up a hose pipe that is pouring carbon monoxide into the car, and his deciding whether or not to close the last window and end it all. Finally, he gets a text and decides to end his life. Detective Martin is called to the scene the next day. At first she is convinced it is a simple suicide but as she looks deeper into the boy's life and his relationships she begins to wonder if someone else was involved.

Prayer and ingenuity have kept the remote English convent of St Winifreda in the Fen going for centuries, but now the roof leaks, the bell tower is crumbling, and rats have moved in. The Bishop’s accountant wants to send the retired sisters to a home, disperse the working nuns, pull down the buildings, and sell the land off as a car park. But he has reckoned without the unstoppable force that is Reverend Mother Elizabeth.

A week before Christmas Debbie Stansfield's life falls apart. Her son - her funny, cheeky, kind Richard - has been found hanging from a tree at the Seven Sisters. The police think its suicide but Debbie won't - can't - accept it. Her son would never kill himself. Not her Richard. No way. Richard's four friends know something about his death. Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt can feel it. The teenagers are clearly terrified about something - something that scares them more than the police. But they're not about to tell....

He watches them from afar. He knows who they are and where they are. He is waiting in the dark.... A stranger stalks the streets of Houghton le Spring and he is getting too close for comfort for Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt. Selina, the daughter of Lorraine's partner, DS Luke Daniels, is a beautiful and wilful 16-year-old with a dark past. Just as it seems she's finally getting back on her feet, she's attacked. Is Selina's past catching up with her? Or is there an even more sinister motive to the assault?

There's the lost. There's the missing. And there's the taken. She asked me once if we had any secrets, and I shook my head. 'No secrets between us', she said. 'No' I answered. 'Never ever.' In a Durham hotel at dawn, celebrated preacher Tristan Snow is murdered as he prays. None of the other guests - not even his daughter, his wife, or her sister - saw or heard anything. But then again, they each had a motive for murder.