Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

In 1921, Françoise Frenkel - a Jewish woman from Poland - fulfills a dream. She opens La Maison du Livre, Berlin’s first French bookshop, attracting artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. The shop becomes a haven for intellectual exchange as Nazi ideology begins to poison the culturally rich city. In 1935, the scene continues to darken. First come the new bureaucratic hurdles, followed by frequent police visits and book confiscations. Françoise’s dream finally shatters on Kristallnacht in November 1938, as hundreds of Jewish shops and businesses are destroyed.

In More than Happiness, Antonia Macaro delves into both philosophies, focusing on the elements that fit with our sceptical age and those which have the potential to make the biggest impact on how we live. From accepting that some things are beyond our control, to monitoring our emotions for unhealthy reactions, to shedding attachment to material things, there is much, she argues, that we can take and much that we’d do better to leave behind.

The Welsh Marches, 1301. Strong-willed heiress Johane de Geneville is married to Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, at just fifteen years old. Soon Johane finds herself swept up in a world of treacherous court politics and dangerous secrets as her husband deposes Edward II and rules England alongside Queen Isabella. Yet when Roger is accused of treason, she is robbed of her freedom and must survive catastrophic events in her fight for justice - with her life, and her children's, hanging in the balance.

Meet the women in love with the very different Jones brothers: Izzy is determined to escape her troubled past, but flirtatious Charlie is causing complications. Alicia’s been happily married to loyal Hugh for years but secretly craves excitement. Emma’s relationship with David was once fun and romantic but trying for a baby has taken its toll. As the future of the family’s B&B becomes uncertain, Izzy, Alicia and Emma are thrown together unexpectedly.…

A powerful, posthumous novel from bestselling author Mario Reading. Relegated to an isolated provincial town in France after years spent fighting on the Eastern Front, German commander Maximilian von Aschau finds unexpected distraction in the form of beautiful and reserved Lucie Léré. He’s seen every horror of the human experience. She’s never left her village. Opposites in every way, Max and Lucie manage to find common ground. But love is the most dangerous element of war. It makes you vulnerable... and careless.

Hetty Longden's mother thinks that looking after Great Uncle Samuel's crumbling stately home will be just the thing for Hetty's broken heart. Hetty doesn't mind; at least she can be miserable in private. But 'private' is a relative term in a village which revolves around the big house. Particularly when you are expected to thwart Great Uncle Samuel's awful heir and his nefarious plans for his inheritance. Pitchforked into the community's fight to save the manor, Hetty has no time to wallow.

The murder of aspiring crime writer Victoria Denby created a sensation at the time. The public's imagination was hooked by the detail of a paper dahlia placed beside the body, just like in one of Dahlia Lively's fictional cases. Was there a copycat killer at large in the peaceful town of Market Foxleigh? Despite the tabloids' fearmongering, the police quickly arrested Victoria's friend and fellow writer, Scott Baker, and when it emerged that he had also been accused of stalking Dahlia actress Caro Hooper, it seemed like an open and shut case.

Elise is a true daughter of the chateau. She’d die before anything happened to Sainte Madeleine–even if it means betraying her own family. Alexandre, Elise’s brother, is destined to inherit–yet a dangerous rift with their father puts his future, and the chateau, in jeopardy. And for distant cousin Laurent, his life-long love for Elise will always call him back to Sainte Madeleine. But the peace of Europe rests on a knife-edge, and history has bigger plans than them all.

Set over the course of one rainy day in an ordinary English suburb, Arlington Park is a viciously funny portrait of a group of young mothers, each bound to their families, each straining for some kind of independence: Juliet, enraged at the victory of men over women in family life; Amanda, warding off thoughts of death with obsessive housework; Solly, about to give birth to her fourth child; Maisie, struggling to accept provincial life; and Christine, the optimist and host of a dinner party where the neighbors come together.

As a child Jude suffered a recurrent nightmare; now her six-year-old niece is having the same dream. A successful auctioneer, Jude is asked to value a collection items belonging to Anthony Wickham, a lonely 18th century astronomer, and she leaps at the chance to escape to the untamed beauty of Norfolk. With the help of Euan, a local naturalist, Jude begins to untangle Wickham's tragic story, but she discovers threatening links to the present.

Jason Warwycke, Marquess of Wyckeham, has vowed never to wed again after his disastrous first marriage, which left him with nothing but a tarnished reputation. That is, until he sets eyes on Ianthe Templeton... But can Wyckeham and Ianthe overcome the malicious schemes of spiteful siblings and evil stepmothers to find wedded bliss? Or will Wyckeham discover that the past has come back to bite him for a second time?

When May teams up with Sally and Harriet it is the best day's work she's ever done. Each of them needs money, badly. Which is why they are reduced to working for Quality Cleaners under the watchful eye of 'Slimeball' Slater. When they discover it is them being taken to the cleaners, they set up as an independent team. And that is when things really begin to take off. With more lucrative jobs coming in, they soon find that they are able to take the first steps towards freedom and independence.

Four orphaned siblings, determined to stay together as a family, decide to inhabit an abandoned boxcar and turn it into their new home in the woods. When one of the siblings falls ill, the others go out to seek a doctor to save their sister. Meanwhile, their wealthy grandfather has offered a sizable reward to anyone who has information about his grandchildren, hoping that they can all be reunited once more. As the children continue to evade being found out, will they ever know peace?

Emily is happy with her life just as it is. She has a career as a midwife that she loves . She enjoys living on her own as a single woman. But she also feels it's time for a change and a spot of some sea air. So when her best friend, Rebecca, asks whether she'd like to spend the summer cooking on a 'puffer' boat just off the Scottish coast, she jumps at the chance. But she barely has time to get to grips with the galley before she finds herself with a lot on her plate.

She’s a deliciously scandalous woman who is no man’s bride.... He’s a black sheep, forced to return home. Together, they enter a make-believe betrothal that shocks London society....

From the UK best-selling author of Abbot's Keep comes a new dimension in terror. Spanning four decades, the dark history of Church Farm House is explored within four interlinking horror stories. Welcome to the nightmare... Benedict Ashforth is the author of the UK best-selling Kindle ghost story, Abbot's Keep.

For Victoria, image is everything, and on the surface, she has it all: a big house, a successful husband, and two beautiful children. But behind the scenes, things are very different. Victoria and her husband have a dark secret, and she lives in terror of it being discovered—of her perfect façade being shattered forever. Under massive stress, but still desperately trying to keep up appearances, her family is falling apart. Victoria has to ask herself how far she's willing to go and how much she's willing to do to preserve her perfect family.

Tess and Simon Sparrow may have a few more grey hairs than they used to, but that doesn’t stop them from being swept up in a whirlwind romance and starting over. Swapping their city lives for an escape to the Cornish countryside, they fall in love with a crumbling hotel and impulsively buy it to renovate as their forever home. But soon the newlyweds have had their first fight (and their second and third...) and building costs are spiralling out of control. Their families think they’re mad and Tess is starting to agree – she just wants to escape back to civilisation.

Sophie Apperly has spent her whole life pleasing others - but when she realises her family see her less as indispensable treasure and more as general dogsbody, she decides she's had enough. So when an old friend offers her the chance of a lifetime, she decides to swap Little England for the Big Apple, and heads off to the land of opportunity.

From the moment Sophie hits the bright lights of Manhattan she's determined to enjoy every minute of her big adventure.

“We want you to lay a ghost,” Frances Fitzgibbon is told as she is ordered to investigate the past of her superior, Colonel Jack Butler, at a decisive moment in his career. But why? For as Colonel Butler pursues an elusive IRA/KGB assassin, Frances finds herself confronting dangerous questions, as more than one spectre is raised from the dark past.