Showing results by narrator "Maggie Mash" in All Categories

A joyful and hilarious tale of some very spirited septuagenarians as they overcome innumerable obstacles to save their beloved mutt from a heartless exterminator in a land where bureaucracy reigns above all else. Picaresque at its very best. Perhaps you're not a member of the Azov House of Culture Elderly Club. Perhaps you missed the talk on the Cabbage Root Fly last week. Galina Petrovna hasn't missed one since she joined the club, when she officially became old.

In September 2011, things are going well for Carina Dymek. The intelligent, determined young woman has expertly carried out her duties as EU coordinator for the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A promotion is likely any day now. She's moved past her divorce and found true love in the arms of Jamal Badawi, an Egyptian-Swedish national. And she's been chosen to represent Sweden at an international meeting in Brussels on joint security policy.

In the early days of the 19th-century, Whitby is a thriving port. Both the Coulson and the Campion families make a living by the sea. Sam Coulson has three sons: Martin, Ben, and Eric. He has grand plans for expanding his whaling business; and as Seaton Campion has no sons, a marriage between Martin and Campion's eldest daughter, Alicia, will aid the fortunes of both families. Ben Coulson, Sam's middle son, has turned his back on whaling to follow other pursuits.

They loved. They lost. They lived. In the small Yorkshire town of Cottenly - dominated by the steel works and surrounded by beautiful countryside - Isaac Stanford lives with his wife Emily and their three lovely daughters, known locally as the Stanford lasses. Alice, the eldest, lives only for her work as a secretary and chapel on Sunday.

It is 1956, and Lizzy is working in Soho when Peace comes to stay. Peace is a beautiful 16-year-old part-Chinese girl, the daughter - it turns out - of her employer Bandy Bunion's estranged sister. Peace has been at a boarding school in the country - but, tired of feeling lonely and of being bullied, she has run away, and does not intend to go back. Lizzy, who lives above the nightclub run by Bandy and Sugarplum Flaherty, offers to take her in; she lost her own daughter - Rosie's best friend - to leukaemia two years previously and she feels a special bond with Peace.

Sophie and Lydia Westlake have always been close, and think of each other as sisters, despite the fact that they are really cousins. Sophie has always been the prettier, more light-hearted younger sister, whilst Lydia has grown up in her shadow, and is more serious and reserved. But until dashing young architect Christian Mellor arrives in town on the day of the annual summer fete, their differences had never mattered.

Told with warmth and humour, The Ever Open Door is the story of a hard working, down-to-earth community in a small Yorkshire town during the Second World War and its aftermath.Burly steelworker Jim Butler and his wife Sally are quite content in their little house on Potters Row. Jim's only complaint is that Sally is too soft hearted for her own good, always at the beck and call of any neighbour, friend or even stranger. Sally, on the other hand, accuses Jim of being a soft touch for anyone after a drink or two at the Rising Sun.

1960. Having been friends ever since they met in a Blackpool boardinghouse five years before, Val, Cissie and Janice are all now happily married, preoccupied with their growing families. But the new decade will bring change for all. Val and Sam's son's behaviour is causing concern, and Val finds it hard at times to love him as she should. Running a thriving café in Harrogate, Janice and her husband, Phil, decide to expand into the restaurant business: have they bitten off more than they can chew? Meanwhile Cissie's life is thrown into jeopardy when she encounters an old flame....

March 1944, West London: It's been five months since Verity Clement fled home for a life on Britain's canals. Hauling cargo between London and Birmingham is tough but easier to face than the turbulence she's left behind. When Verity's sweetheart returns unexpectedly from the front line, she dreams of a brighter future. But life aboard the Marigold is never smooth sailing. New recruit Sylvia is struggling with demons from her past while crewmate Polly receives devastating news. Verity does her best to help, but a shocking discovery is about to turn her life upside down....

London, 1926. Two baby girls are born just hours and miles apart. One you know as the Queen of England, but what of the other girl - the daughter of an undertaker named in her honour? Betsy Sunshine grows up surrounded by death in war-torn London, watching her community grieve for their loved ones whilst dealing with her own teenage troubles...namely her promiscuous sister Margie. As Betsy grows older we see how the country changes through her eyes, and along the way we discover the birth of a secret that threatens to tear her family apart.

July 1942, and 23-year-old nightclub singer Kate Watson has made a home for herself in bomb-blitzed London. A motley crew of friends has replaced the family she's not spoken to in years. Until Kate's sister Sarah walks back into her life, asking her to return home to Dorset for one month to look after her daughter, Lizzie. Reluctantly Kate agrees, though it means facing the troubled past she hoped she'd escaped.

Bryony and Hannah are sisters, but they couldn't be more different, and war has brought even more of a rift between them. Bryony is happiest at Combe Lodge, the family home, while young, headstrong Hannah has fled to Jersey. At Combe Lodge, everyone else is pitching in with the war effort. The family home fills with evacuees, and Bryony is doing her bit, flying planes at the nearby Combe Lodge Airlines. But Bryony knows that she needs to reach out to Hannah. Only she will be able to keep her flighty younger sister's feet on the ground. But is Bryony too late to help her? Will Hannah ever come home?

Born into hardship in a Northumbrian mining village, Annie Manon needs all her strength to survive the bleak years following the First World War. As her family fractures around her, she longs to make something of her life. Through hard work and determination Annie eventually leaves the poverty and despair of her childhood behind her. But then war breaks out once more, taking her further away from her dreams and those she loves most. And it is all Annie can do to keep hope alive....

October 1943. Nineteen-year-old Polly Holmes is leaving poor bombed London behind to join the war effort on Britain's canals. Stepping aboard the Marigold amid pouring rain, there's lots for Polly to get to grips with. Not least her fellow crew: strong and impetuous Verity, whose bark is worse than her bite, and seasoned skipper Bet. With her sweetheart away fighting in the RAF and her beloved brother killed in action, there's plenty of heartache to be healed on the waterway.

June 1940, and newly qualified teacher Phyllis Saunders is evacuated with her school to Dorset. Here she encounters prejudice and suspicion, but she is determined to make the best of life for herself and the children in her care. All the while her fiancé, submariner Sammy, is facing danger out at sea. On a visit to London, Phyllis gets caught up in the Blitz but manages to escape. Shaken but alive, she returns to the relative peace of the countryside - but soon she is nursing a secret she can tell no-one about.

In his heyday, during the 1960s and early 1970s, B. S. Johnson was one of the best-known novelists in Britain. House Mother Normal: A Geriatric Comedy is Johnson's most richly characterised, humane and sympathetic work. Eight residents in a home for the elderly sit down to dinner, along with the House Mother herself, and each takes it in turn to relay the proceedings of the evening from their own, individual perspective.

In June 2014, Julia White - a beautiful and intelligent young woman - blows up a coffee shop in central London, killing 24 people before turning herself in to the police. Apart from publishing a potentially ironic manifesto, she refuses to explain the reasons for her actions.... Clare Hardenberg, an investigative journalist, has been commissioned to write a biography of Julia, but at the start of the novel she is on her way to prison herself. What has brought her to this point?

God was everywhere once. Prayer was part of public life; places of worship marked our landscape. Equality is the new deity now, and much of Europe is already becoming a no-God area. In this short essay, Christina Odone explores whether God is no longer welcome in the West and whether religious followers have been silenced in our newly secular society.

Louise’s mother is missing in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. The only trace Louise can find is her mother’s distinctive bag. Inside it is a beautiful atlas belonging to a writer named Claire. But what is the connection between Claire and Louise’s missing mum, and can the atlas help Louise find her? Louise explores the mementos slipped between the pages of the atlas and uncovers a life-changing revelation, a passionate love affair and a tragedy.

Phyllis Kimber's entire future is called into question after her father is killed in Earl Redfern's employ. But the earl knows something about Phyllis that means she will always be looked after. As lady's maid to Martha, Phyllis is the American heiress's only confidant in England: she knows Martha doesn't love the recently widowed Lord Melton, the man Martha's socially ambitious father is determined she marries, but there's another secret - a secret that makes Phyllis give up everything to protect her friend.