Showing results by narrator "Helen Lloyd" in All Categories

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late. When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

On a wet Monday in January, Jess Mount receives the devastating news that she hasn't got long left to live. She doesn't hear it from a doctor, though. She discovers it when her Facebook timeline skips forward 18 months and family and friends start posting tributes to her - following her death.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of Christmas in Five Staves when he was 31. Now with numerous adaptations for film, television, radio, stage - and indeed in audio - it has become an essential part of Christmas for many. Raconteurs Audio has created this collection to include Dickens’ two Christmas novellas, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, as well as some of his lesser known short stories with a Christmas theme.

Cat Brushing, the provocative debut by Jane Campbell, vigorously explores the sensual worlds of 13 older women, unearthing their passions, libidinal appetites, integrity, and sense of self as they fight against prevalent misconceptions and stereotypes of the aging.

Mystery writer Lorinda Lucas tosses yet another paperback in the trash, appalled at the gruesome direction of today's crime fiction. She's even more disturbed at the half-starved state of Roscoe, the cat next door. Before Lorinda left for her latest book tour, Roscoe was as plump and pampered as her own two felines. It only takes a modicum of sleuthing to find out that in Lorinda's absence Roscoe's owner, Macho Magee, has acquired a new girlfriend-a harridan who has put the gentle Macho and his pet on a strict diet. And that's only the first disturbing news in Brimful Coffers.

Love begets madness. Viscount Locksley watched it happen to his father after his cherished wife's death. But when his sire arranges to marry flame-haired fortune hunter Portia Gadstone, Locke is compelled to take drastic measures to stop the stunning beauty from taking advantage of the marquess. A marriage of mutual pleasure could be convenient, indeed, as long as inconvenient feelings don't interfere.

The year was 1935: the twilight of the English aristocracy. It was a time of wealth and glamour; of lavish balls and evening gowns; of tiaras and a coronation. As personal maid to Lady Coventry, Hilda Newman had a unique insight into the leisured life of one of Britain's most noble families. In her fascinating memoir of life upstairs and down, Hilda takes us back to this period between the wars; a gilded era which would soon be dramatically changed by the Second World War.

Few authors can claim to have marked a genre so thoroughly and personally that their words have leaked into every aspect of modern pop culture. Clive Barker is such an author, and the Books of Blood marked his debut - his coming out to the world - in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. Crossroad Press is proud to present Clive Barker's Books of Blood in audiobook format for the first time. The Books of Blood combine the ordinary with the extraordinary while radiating the eroticism that has become Barker's signature.

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.

It's December 1810, and Lady Therese Osbaldestone is looking forward to her usual Christmas with her family at Winslow Abbey, her youngest daughter Celia's home. But then a carriage rolls up and disgorges Celia's three oldest children. Their father has contracted mumps, and their mother has sent the three - Jamie, George, and Lottie - to spend this Christmas with their grandmama in Little Moseley.

Where is Wendy? Leading a labor strike against the Lost Boys, of course. In Jane Yolen's first full collection in more than 10 years, discover new and uncollected tales of beloved characters, literary legends, and much more. A Scottish academic unearths ancient evil in a fishing village. Edgar Allan Poe's young bride is beguiled by a most unusual bird. Dorothy, lifted from Kansas, returns as a gymnastic sophisticate. Emily Dickinson dwells in possibility and sails away in a starship made of light. Winner of the 2018 World Fantasy Award.

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.

Professor Olivia Sweetman has worked hard to achieve the life of her dreams, with a high-flying career as a TV presenter and historian, three children, and a talented husband. Only one other person knows that Olivia's perfect life is in fact a desperate tangle of lies: Vivian Tester, the socially awkward, middle-aged housekeeper of a Sussex manor who found the Victorian diary of a pioneering female surgeon on which Olivia's new biography is based.

As yuletide settles upon Gwenafwy Abbey, the rural Welsh convent's peace is shattered when Tiffany Reese, president of the Village Art Society, is found dead on the floor of the parish hall. Sister Agatha, whose interests lie more with reading and writing mystery stories than with making the abbey's world-renowned organic gouda, is not shy about inserting herself into the case. With the not-entirely eager assistance of Father Selwyn, she begins her investigation.

Written in 1913, D H Lawrence's first major novel, Sons and Lovers, was the one of the earliest in the English language to explore a close-knit mining community from the inside. Lawrence's semi-autobiographical novel, set in the Nottinghamshire coal fields, is renowned for its accurate portrayal of working-class life and for its use of local dialect. It traces emotional conflicts through the protagonist, Paul Morel, and his suffocating relationships with his over possessive mother, and the women he falls in love with.

Number one New York Times best-selling author Stephanie Laurens brings you the delights of a long-ago country-village Christmas, featuring a grandmother, her grandchildren, an artifact hunter, the lady who catches his eye, and three ancient coins that draw them all together in a Christmas treasure hunt.

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.

The previous year, Therese learned the trick to keeping her unexpected guests out of mischief. She casts around and discovers that the new organist, who plays superbly, has a strange failing. He requires the written music in front of him before he can play a piece, and the church's book of Christmas carols has gone missing.

September 1939, and the worries of war follow Josephine Tey to Hollywood, where a different sort of battle is raging on the set of Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Then a shocking act of violence reawakens the shadows of the past, with consequences on both sides of the Atlantic, and Josephine and DCI Archie Penrose find themselves on a trail leading back to the house that inspired a young Daphne du Maurier—a trail that echoes Rebecca’s timeless themes of obsession, jealousy, and murder.

December 1938, and storm clouds hover once again over Europe. Josephine Tey and Archie Penrose gather with friends for a Cornish Christmas, but two strange and brutal deaths on St. Michael’s Mount - and the unexpected arrival of a world famous film star, in need of sanctuary - interrupt the festivities. Cut off by the sea and a relentless blizzard, the hunt for a murderer begins.