Showing results by narrator "Daphne Kouma" in All Categories

Juliana makes a modest living as an "ethnic" TV/film extra – even though her only connections with her Spanish heritage are her cacti, intermittent Spanish classes, and some confused memories of a Spanish mother she hasn't seen since she was seven. When her beloved Uncle Arturo offers her the chance to discover her roots while house-sitting at his coastal home in a quiet corner of Andalusia, Juliana can't believe her luck. Especially when he reveals that the house will be hers if she fulfils ten life-enhancing 'Conditions' within 90 days.

Freya Scott is getting married. Her wedding to Matthew, her long-term boyfriend, is the first of eight in her calendar this year, and as someone who prides herself on being meticulously organized, Freya is intent on making it the perfect day to remember. But when Matthew calls things off hours before they walk down the aisle, Freya’s entire life plan goes up in smoke. Humiliated and heartbroken, the last thing she wants is to attend a summer of other peoples’ nuptials on her own.

My partner José and I have poured everything into opening this rustic farmhouse retreat nestled high in the Spanish mountains. Finally we’re ready to welcome our first guests. But a cold chill comes over me when I recognize Saskia. She’s part of my old life, the one I made sure to leave behind, and that José knows nothing about. Saskia knows everything about me—even the terrible secret I’ve carried for so long. She’s exposed me once before. Is she here to do it again?

Piano teacher Marina Meyer is delighted when her mother offers to help buy her own place in London, even though it means returning to Spain to sell the family holiday home. Cala Turquesa may be beautiful, but it also holds painful memories of Marina's father, who tragically died there in a boating accident. When Marina befriends turtle-saving vet Mati, it's hard to believe she could have stayed away so long. And then there's handsome property developer Agustín, who has set his sights on more than just the real estate.

You shared everything for nine months. But you don't know her at all. When Ali meets Rebecca, she feels an instant connection. Both pregnant, with babies due the same day, Ali can't wait to share the highs and lows of motherhood with her new friend. Rebecca is everything Ali wishes she could be - beautiful, confident, wealthy. But Ali senses in her the same loneliness she's been feeling since moving to the suburbs. Maybe they can help each other, and Ali won't feel so alone anymore. Then their due date comes and goes, and Ali hears nothing for weeks.

When I was young, my friend Sarah and I did a terrible thing - but it was only me who paid the price. Now, just when I thought no one from my old life would ever find me, a note slides under my door: "I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgiven. FOUND YOU." 

The idea that medicine is gender-neutral is a myth. This isn't inflammatory rhetoric; it's simply true. From the way pain is felt, to how heart attacks are diagnosed, to the very role society plays in the health of the body, the medical landscape in place today is one that was designed for, and by, men. This audiobook is about all the ways medicine is not gender-neutral, from research to treatment to diagnosis. Throughout history, flawed mindsets have paved the way for sub-par treatment, and the prevailing attitudes that exist today have had terrible repercussions for women.

When Cressida Fawcett is invited to stay at Penbeagle House on the Cornish coast for a fancy-dress ball, she is looking forward to sipping rum cocktails clad as a pirate, watching the red-sailed boats go by, and relaxing in the sea air with her good friend Dotty. But before they can raise their glasses to toast Cressida’s former flame Lord Canterbury’s engagement, he drops dead in front of the horrified guests.

The team of commercial sorcerers at Dawson, Ahriman & Dawson can help with any metaphysical engineering project, large or small (though by definition they all tend to be pretty large). They can also create massive great puddles of chaos that might one day swallow up the entire universe. Take, for example, the decision to recruit a certain bearded fellow whose previous work experience mainly involves reindeer and jingle bells. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but is he really the best person to save the world from Tiamat the Destroyer, who has literally gone ballistic?

Andie finds herself in the midst of a media scandal that threatens to end her career as a TV landscape designer and her relationship with fellow presenter Johnny. On impulse, she decides to rent her grandmother's old home in southern Spain where she stayed as a child, but is shocked to discover that the beautiful Mediterranean garden she loved is now neglected and overgrown. Worse, her booking has fallen through and ex-flamenco dancer Vicente and his little son Rafi are staying at Casa Higuera – where Vicente's wife died in an unexplained accident.

Elise Chevalier knows what it is to love…and to hate. Her fiancé, a young French soldier, was killed by the German army at the Maginot Line. Living amongst the enemy, Elise must keep her rage buried deep within. Sebastian Kleinhaus no longer recognizes himself. Forced to join the Third Reich and wear a uniform he despises, he longs for a way out. For someone, anyone, to be his salvation.

Paris, 1941: Going against her mother’s orders, spirited Maggie devotes herself to the Resistance. Her life is a whirlwind of forged passports and secret midnight runs, helping Jews escape. Much to her high-society mother’s disapproval, she has fallen in love with Emil, a Jewish Resistance fighter who is wanted by the Nazis.

When war breaks out in September 1939, Laura, Andy and Tim Clark are evacuated to the countryside. The Colonel's comfortable home in Dorset is a huge contrast to their cramped terraced house in London, where their loving parents struggle to put the next meal on the table. Though unused to having children around, the Colonel proves to be a kind and generous, if gruff, guardian until a terrible turn of events means the kids must move on.

Alice Samuel might be old and sharp-tongued, but she's no fool. Visiting her new neighbours in her Fenland village, she suspects Squire Throckmorton's household is not as God-fearing as it seems and finds the children troubled. What she cannot foresee is that all five daughters will succumb in turn to a terrifying affliction and accuse her of witchcraft—who else to blame than an ugly, black-capped woman with mysterious healing skills?

France, 1942: When Kasia is told she will be smuggled out of Poland to work as a radio operator with a French Resistance group, she plans to make the dangerous journey across the border alone. But when she meets a mute girl who she names Elodie, in a ghetto in Warsaw on the eve of her departure, she reminds Kasia so strongly of someone she loved–with one brown eye, and one green–that she knows she can’t leave her behind, no matter the risk....

They call him the Jackdaw. On each body, he leaves a chilling signature: five scratches. And each time he kills, he takes a trophy, an eerie collection that grows with every strike. No one knows what he looks like, where he'll strike next, or why. He could be your neighbour, your boss… your husband. There’s only a paralysing fear that, whoever he is, he's out there: watching, waiting.

Henrietta Maria is the most reviled consort to have worn the crown of Britain's Three Kingdoms. Condemned as that 'Popish brat of France', a 'notorious whore' and traitor, she remains in popular memory the wife who wore the breeches and turned her husband Catholic—so causing a civil war—and a cruel and bigoted mother. Leanda de Lisle's White King was hailed as 'the definitive modern biography about Charles I' (Observer). Here she considers Henrietta Maria's point of view, unpicking the myths to reveal a very different queen.

Mathematics shapes almost everything we do. But despite its reputation as the study of fundamental truths, the stories we have been told about it are wrong—warped like the sixteenth-century map that enlarged Europe at the expense of Africa, Asia and the Americas. In The Secret Lives of Numbers, renowned math historian Kate Kitagawa and journalist Timothy Revell make the case that the history of math is infinitely deeper, broader, and richer than the narrative we think we know.

On the lush green island of Corfu, Melodie's new husband, Anton, is missing. With no clues to his whereabouts, Melodie and her step daughter Gaia are broken from the fear that they may never see him again. When Anton's car is found by the side of the road, Gaia fixates on the idea that Melodie's malicious half-sister is somehow involved.

I didn’t plan to fall pregnant, but when I found out, I was overjoyed. Even though I’d be going it alone, I swore I’d give my baby everything they needed. But I didn’t know who the man I met on that sweltering summer night, the father of my child, really was. I decided to keep his secret to protect the innocent…but then my beautiful baby was born with a rare illness, desperately needing a transplant.