Showing results by narrator "Patience Tomlinson" in All Categories

On 6 June, 1944, Britain woke up to a profound silence. Overnight, 160,000 Allied troops had vanished and an eerie emptiness settled over the country. The majority of those men would never return. This is the story of that extraordinary 24 hours. Using a wealth of first-person testimonies, renowned historian Max Arthur recounts a remarkable new oral history of D-Day, beginning with the two years leading up to the silent day that saw the UK transformed by the arrival of thousands of American and Canadian troops.

1944. With deadly doodlebugs terrorising London, Bessie Rushbrook agrees to give shelter to eight-year-old evacuee Marigold in her home. But, the little girl is no stranger, and Bessie must honour the promise she gave to Marigold's mother and not reveal her connection to the child. Marigold's arrival stirs up Bessie's memories from the past when the world was at war the first time. She is forced to face her actions from those days and question the secret that she's long kept hidden. When Grace is injured in London, Bessie makes the heart-wrenching decision to confess her secret.

When her father remarries, the honest, innocent Molly Gibson suddenly finds herself with a new stepsister, Cynthia, who is beautiful, worldly and impetuous. This would be more than enough to deal with, but the new wife is the deeply snobbish (and darkly secretive) Hyacinth. Thwarted love, scheming ambition and small-town gossip underlie the warmth, irony and brilliant social observation which link the relationships and the inevitable conflicts as profound change comes to rural England.

Having sent his last wife to the block, the tyrannical Henry VIII sets his lustful sights upon an innocent and unworldly gentlewoman, the recently widowed, Katherine Parr. In mourning for her late husband, and yet desperately in love with another, Katherine is forced to choose between the man she loves and a crown of despair. In the years that follow, as Henry's terrified sixth wife and queen, she battles to contain her fear and revulsion of her bloated and monstrous new husband.

The 13th book in Lesley Cookman's best-selling Libby Sarjeant murder mystery series follows Libby and the gang as they visit the Isle of Wight for the funeral of an old friend. For once there is nothing suspicious about the death, but their invitation to the funeral comes from elderly cousins who do have an unexplained death in the family. As her best friend, Harry, seems to be involved somehow, Libby is determined to ignore the growing reluctance of the cousins to help as she investigates.

When they met at a motorcycle club in 1912, Elsie Knocker was a 30-year-old motorcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, and Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant 18-year old mechanic, living at home and borrowing tools from her brother. Little did they know that theirs was to become one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War.

In this definitive guide, Dr. Rosemary Leonard debunks some of the myths surrounding the menopause, including why perimenopause is a layman's term, and the pros and cons of HRT. Rosemary discusses the best approaches to the menopause and whether drugs, holistic remedies or other forms of treatment will work best for the individual. Covering everything from hot flushes, changes to your menstrual bleeding pattern, and how to tackle sex after menopause to advice on alternative remedies.

After travelling the world with her parents, Lisa yearned for stability, roots and tradition. Marriage to solid, dependable Henry would help her achieve this ambition, but first she had to meet his parents! Christmas in the snow-bound Yorkshire Dales should have been a joyous occasion, but Henry’s family home was as cold and chill as his mother was aloof and unbending. Rescue came in the unlikely guise of the exasperating Oliver Davenport.

P. D. James brings a lifetime of reading and writing crime fiction to bear on this personal history of the genre, from the birth of the detective story, through Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle, to the golden age of crime and the rise of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham. There is a chapter on great American crime writers such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett, and P. D. James also discusses many of her favourite detectives, from Sherlock Holmes to Kurt Wallander.

Bea Abbot's friend, Leon Holland, has asked for her help in establishing an alibi. But why would he need one? First, he tells her, he had a narrow escape from being run down in the road, and then he was lured to a car park to meet someone who didn't turn up. Matters escalate when two bodies are found in the car park stabbed to death. Then everything is thrown into chaos as a devastating virus infects the agency's systems. A hidden camera. Hate mail. A nasty practical joke.

The fake diamond in Dilys Holland's engagement ring implies that all is not well with her marriage. And Bea Abbot has already clashed with Dilys's husband, the bullying Benton, when she refuses to help him rescue his ailing company. But matters are about to turn a great deal worse when Dilys tries to commit suicide. Or does she?

Meet Siiri and Irma, best friends and the queen bees of Sunset Grove, a retirement community for those still young at heart. With a combined age of nearly 180, Siiri and Irma are still just as inquisitive and witty as when they first met decades ago. And when their comfortable world is upturned by a suspicious death at Sunset Grove, Siiri and Irma are shocked into doing something about it.

Sarah and Larch join together to discover the killer of harmless old Miss Bates. Then a gypsy girl is strangled in the woods: are the two murders connected? There are several suspects, and further attacks reveal some unsavoury goings-on and unveil further potential murderers. Ex-Scotland Yard detective Ben Marshall investigates, but Sarah continues her own research into an old scandal which finally leads to the truth. Or does it?

Wiser after her humiliating experience with one particular rogue male, Beth is not about to fall for any man’s lies again. From now on, emotion is out and playing men at their own game is in. A business trip to the beautiful city of Prague puts her in the way of seductively charming Alex Andrews. His claim to be rapidly falling in love with her is disconcerting, especially as Beth has good reason to believe that his motives are far from pure. But he’s tempting - oh, so tempting.…

Isabella of Spain was a great woman, a great Queen. Crown of Aloes is presented as a personal chronicle. Within the framework of known fact and detail drawn from hitherto unexploited contemporary Spanish sources, a novelist’s imagination and understanding have provided motives, thoughts, and private conversations, helping to build up the fascinating character Isabella must have been. Her fortunes were varied indeed: she knew acute poverty, faced anxiety and danger with high courage, gave much, suffered much, lived to the full.

No one at Gad’s Hall could admit what they knew about the room in the attic. The locked room that held the Thorley family’s most shameful secret. The terrifying room that had once been the living tomb of a beautiful young woman possessed by the darkest evil. Years had passed but the relentless diabolic force abided – waiting until it could once again possess an innocent and inflict its horror upon the living. It was a force countless centuries old. It was simply a matter of time before it would strike again.

Only a generation or two ago, illegitimacy was one of the most shameful things that could happen in a family. Today the concept of illegitimacy no longer exists in law, and babies' parents are as likely to be unmarried as married. This revolution in public opinion makes it easy to forget what it was really like to give birth or be born out of wedlock. In the Family Way tells secrets kept for entire lifetimes and rescues from the shadows an important part of all our family histories.

“The end of the old world”, people said about the long, hot summer of 1914. That summer Aunt Tilly comes to stay with her brother, the Rector, and his four lively daughters in the sleepy Sussex village of Ashden. Aunt Tilly’s visit sparks off a chain of events which threatens to split Ashden apart. Agnes Pilbeam, the Rectory palourmaid, and her sweetheart, Jamie, find themselves bewilderingly caught up. Then, in August, the lamps go out all over Europe, and war bursts open the straitjacket of rural village life.

For the Spender family, the ancient, beautifully kept house had seemed a godsend, an incredible bargain, almost a gift from its owner - a kindly man who merely wanted someone to protect the family homestead, to make Gad’s come alive again. And it did. Soon a strong-willed, sensible woman would be overtaken by irrational feelings she could not control, all because of the unspeakable secret kept by the women who had lived at Gad’s Hall more than a century ago.…

Nell Golightly is living out her widowhood in Cambridgeshire when she receives a strange request. A Tahitian woman, claiming to be the daughter of the poet Rupert Brooke, writes to ask what he was like. How did he sound, what did he smell like, how did it feel to wrap your arms around him?