Showing titles in Women

Rough Beast is Máiría Cahill's harrowing story of her life and of what she went through at the hands of what is now Ireland’s largest and richest party. That story is told here for the first time in full detail and with unsparing honesty. It is a story of unimaginable trauma and political corruption. It brings to life a world of paramilitary secrecy and parallel laws, but above all it is the story of one young woman’s defiance of the power wielded by ex-gunmen inspiring fear and silence, and their influence over elected politicians.

Boldly original, dramatic story of Catherine de’ Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and Mary, Queen of Scots – three queens exercising power in a world dominated by men – Young Queens weaves the personal stories of these three queens into one, revealing their hopes, dreams, desires and regrets in a time when even the most powerful women lived at the mercy of the state.

As the only child of the Prince Regent and Caroline of Brunswick, Princess Charlotte of Wales (1796-1817) was the heiress presumptive to the throne. Her parents' marriage had already broken up by the time she was born. She had a difficult childhood and a turbulent adolescence, but she was popular with the public, who looked to her to restore the good name of the monarchy.

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. Historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Becoming Ella Fitzgerald clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer's difficult childhood, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls' reformatory school—where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer.

"In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen. For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation. On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I dont think of myself as a victim. I survived...."

In her 20s Rachel Kushner went to Mexico in pursuit of her first love - motorbikes - to compete in the notorious and deadly race, Cabo 1000. As fellow racers died on the roadside, bikes were stolen and friends abandoned one another in the heat of the chase, she crashed at 130mph and miraculously survived; soon after, she decided to leave her controlling boyfriend and manoeuvred her way into a freer new life.

Amanda Owen loves her traditional life on her hill farm alongside her nine children and husband Clive. And, as listeners of her previous best sellers will know, every day at Ravenseat brings surprises. In Adventures of the Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda takes us from her family’s desperate race to save a missing calf to finding her bra has been repurposed as a house martin’s nest and from wild swimming to the brutal winter of 2018 that almost brought her to her knees. As busy as she is with her family and flock though, an exciting new project soon catches her eye....

With heart-racing urgency and unflinching honesty, Jenkins takes you inside the grips of addiction and the desperate decisions it breeds. She is a born storyteller who lived an incredible story, from blackmail by an ex-boyfriend to a soul-shattering deal with a drug dealer, and her telling brims with suspense and unexpected wit. But the true surprise is her path to recovery. Tiffany breaks through the stigma and silence to offer hope and inspiration to anyone battling the disease - whether it’s a loved one or themselves.

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened. Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate-change activism.

In this book Jaycee Dugard describes the life she never thought she would live to see: from her first sight of her mother to her first time meeting her grownup sister, her first trip to the dentist to her daughters' first day of school, her first taste of champagne to her first hangover, her first time behind the wheel to her first speeding ticket, and her first dance at a friend's wedding to her first thoughts about the possibility of a future relationship.

Coleen Greenwood was overjoyed to meet James Scott, a heroic firefighter and man of her dreams. Little would she know her dreams would soon become a nightmare as his web of lies started to unravel. The astonishing true story of one man’s lies and a family’s fight for justice.

An exemplary travelogue of danger and achievement by the Frenchwoman Madame Alexandra David-Neel of her 1923 expedition to Tibet, the fifth in her series of Asian travels and her personal recounting of her journey to Lhasa, Tibet's forbidden city. In order to penetrate Tibet and reach Lhasa, she used her fluency of Tibetan dialects and culture, disguised herself as a beggar with yak hair extensions and inked skin, and tackled some of the roughest terrain and climate in the world.

A tanker steaming through the deep Northwest Providence Channel of the Bahamas comes across a shocking sight: a lone dinghy carrying Captain Julian Harvey and the body of a young girl. They are all that remain of the ketch Bluebelle, a handsome sixty-foot sailing yacht chartered by the Duperrault family of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Organized by theme-joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, awe, clarity, and power-these essays offer a rare and powerful glimpse into the mind of one of the world's most extraordinary women. Candid, moving, exhilarating, uplifting, and dynamic, the words Oprah shares in What I Know For Sure shimmer with the sort of wisdom and truth that listeners will turn to again and again.

Suzie Fletcher is the warm and friendly face on TV's The Repair Shop that viewers look forward to watching every week as the resident leather expert - a craft she has honed over four decades and was born out of her love of horses. But while she tends to be the one repairing and offering a gentle kindness to others, Suzie has also been in a process of change, reflection, and healing.In her first book Suzie looks back over her life - which moves from England to Colorado and back again - and the places, people and experiences that have shaped the person she is today.

Mary, Queen of Scots continues to intrigue both historians and the general public - but the story of her mother, Marie de Guise, is much less well known. A political power in her own right, she was born into the powerful and ambitious Lorraine family, spending her formative years at the dazzling, licentious court of François I. Although briefly courted by Henry VIII, she instead married his nephew, James V of Scotland, in 1538.

Patricia Highsmith - author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley - had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents - diaries, notebooks and letters - which detail the links between her life and her work.

Few people know the answers better than Emma Hayes. As the coach of Chelsea FC Women, she has led the club to 14 major trophies. She is a widely celebrated figure in sports media as a woman starting to get equal recognition in this space, and has been named TV pundit of the year by both Broadcast Magazine and the Sports Journalists Association. In this book, Emma shares her experience of managing a high-performance football team to draw out life lessons and techniques that listeners can apply to their own professional and personal circumstances.

English novelist Barbara Pym’s career was defined, in many senses, by rejection. Her first novel Some Tame Gazelle was turned down by every publisher she sent it out in 1935, finally published only 15 years later. Though she picked up a publisher from there and received modest praise, the publishing industry grew restless and her sales spiralled downwards. By her seventh novel, she had been dropped. This brilliant biography, brimming with Pym’s private diaries and intimate letters, offers a first full insight into Barbara Pym’s life and how it informed her writing.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.