Showing results by narrator "Becky Wright" in All Categories

On 7th November 1843, Harriet Monckton, 23 years old and a woman of respectable parentage and religious habits, is found murdered in the privy behind the chapel she regularly attended in Bromley, Kent. The community is appalled by her death, apparently as a result of swallowing a fatal dose of prussic acid, and even more so when the surgeon reports that Harriet was around six months pregnant. Drawing on the coroner’s reports and witness testimonies, Elizabeth Haynes builds a compelling picture of Harriet’s final hours through the eyes of those closest to her and the last people to see her alive. 

When a baby is kidnapped in broad daylight with no witnesses, an otherwise sleepy suburb is rocked by scandal and ten-year-old Flora Lanyon is terrified. Decades later, Flora takes a job as a live-in carer for elderly couple, Agnes and Abraham, moving into the decrepit watermill where they live. As strange and unexplainable occurrences start to happen, Flora grows increasingly suspicious. What dark secrets are hiding in the house? Is Flora safe there? And can she unearth the truth before the past catches up with the present?

Anax thinks she knows her history. She'd better. She's sat facing three Examiners and her gruelling four-hour examination has just begun. After the Great War in 2077, her island Republic emerged from a ruined world. Its citizens were safe - but never free. They lived in complete isolation from the outside. Until one man rescued a girl from the sea, and shook the very foundations on which the Republic was built. It was a time where ancient philosophical questions had collided dramatically with the march of technology.

Summer 1942. Despite grim reports on the wireless and rationing hitting hard, Lily Collins and her fellow shop girls from Marlow’s department store are determined to put out the bunting for a family party. But Beryl’s husband, Les, returns from North Africa a changed man, and Gladys worries for her own fiancé’s safety. The store is losing staff to the war effort, and Lily’s young man, Jim, is torn over where his duty lies. Then comes the knock on the door that everyone dreads. Lily’s family, always the heart of her world, is rocked to the core. 

It’s 1942 and as shortages of staff – and goods – begin to bite, young Lily Collins is thrilled to step up to sales junior in her job at Marlow’s department store. But bombs are still falling and Lily and fellow shop girls Gladys and Beryl need a stiff upper lip to wave boyfriends, husbands and brothers goodbye, especially with a baby on the way and grim news on the wireless. When Jim, who works with Lily at the store, seems restless, things are bad enough, but nothing can prepare Lily for the secrets that come tumbling out when her favourite brother comes home on leave.... 

Spring 1944. As the Allied forces push on towards longed-for victory, Lily Collins yearns to join up and do her bit. But where does her duty lie? Her best friend, Gladys, faces having her first baby alone, with her new husband back with the navy. And their friend, Beryl, is run off her feet building her bridal-hire business amid the bomb damage. So while wedding bells are ringing for others at Marlows Department Store, where Lily works, will they be heard for Lily herself - or does fate have another twist in store?

For Lily Collins and her fellow shop girls at Marlow’s Department Store, another Christmas with ration books, shortages of goods and staff - not to mention a store coping with war damage - will be a real challenge. But the girls rally round and put their worries aside to make this, the hardest wartime Christmas yet, one that their families and their town will never forget.

Summer 1945. After victory in Europe, best friends Lily, Gladys and Beryl are looking to the future. But even with this happy news, their lives are far from simple. Despite Lily’s joyful summer wedding, she has doubts over what her heart wants now. As she adjusts to her role as young wife, could this signal the end of her position at Marlows? The return of Gladys’s husband, Bill, raises questions of their family life, as he struggles to find work after the navy, and for Beryl, big changes at her bridal shop are afoot.