Showing results by narrator "Fenella Woolgar" in All Categories

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.

Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) thought motherhood would be a breeze and that having a daughter was a dream come true – a shopping friend for life! But it’s trickier than she thought – two-year-old Minnie has a quite different approach to shopping. She can create havoc everywhere from Harrods to Harvey Nicks to her own christening. She hires taxis at random, her favourite word is ‘Mine‘, and she’s even started bidding for designer bags on ebay.

Upon inheriting the Moonstone, a huge and priceless diamond, Rachel Verinder's delight turns to dismay when the gem suddenly disappears. But this is no ordinary theft. Sergeant Cuff of Scotland Yard is called in and immediately suspects an intricate plot. However, not even his powers of detection can penetrate fully the mysteries surrounding the diamond.

Every year, on the winter solstice, the small town of Melcombe observes an annual custom, the roots and meaning of which are lost in the mists of time. A torchlit procession to the ancient tomb of Cairndale Knapp, overlooking the town, puts the old sun to bed and greets the new sun in the morning, restoring balance to the year. This year, however, Mr Sam Notice has bought the Knapp and has set about landscaping it.

Written as a "report into the circumstances surrounding the decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen", this is a novel that is made up of e-mails, letters, diary extracts, records of the prime minister's Question Time, interviews, and chapters from the memoirs of a fantastically weaselly Peter Mandelson-type figure.

Single mum Kate Wilde has escaped an abusive marriage and hasn't had a holiday in years, so when she wins a five-day trip to Paris to learn about perfume – in a competition she can't remember entering – it's a dream come true. Or is it? Almost as soon as she arrives, Kate's ex texts with evidence that he's in Paris too. Kate can feel she's being watched, and she's sure someone has been in her apartment. Then she discovers that there's a killer in the city focusing on red headed women like her. And his kill count is rising.

On the day Juliet Lansdown reports to work for the first time at Bethnal Green Library, it isn't the bustling hub she's been expecting. But in the face of German attacks, she's determined to make it a place where all of their neighbours feel safe and welcome. Katie Upwood is thrilled to be working at the library too, though she's only there until she heads off to university in the fall. Sofie Baumann, a Jewish refugee without any family to lean on, finds comfort and friendship in Bethnal Green's quickly growing literary community and escapes to the library every chance she gets.

Not the End of the World is Kate Atkinson's first collection of short stories. Playful and profound, they explore the world we think we know whilst offering a vision of another world which lurks just beneath the surface of our consciousness, a world where the myths we have banished from our lives are startlingly present and where imagination has the power to transform reality.

This carefully curated anthology brings together the most iconic romantic tales of all time—each filled with complex characters, sweeping emotions, and timeless narratives that will captivate your heart. From the fiery romance of Wuthering Heights to the quiet yearning of A Room with a View, these stories are a perfect blend of forbidden love, tragic endings, and tender moments of connection.

The Essential Classics: Volume 4 brings together 5 of the greatest classics ever written, perfectly read by an esteemed cast including Fenella Woolgar, Jonathan Keeble, Lucy Scott, David Rintoul, and Aidan Kelly. Spanning British, Russian, and Irish literature, this collection includes stories of modern Irish life in Dubliners, love and loss on an epic scale in War & Peace, as well as Dickens' tale of heroism in Nichols Nickleby, and many more.

Rachel has always loved being at the centre of her large family. She has fiercely devoted herself to her three sons all their lives,and continues to do so even now they are all grown up. They are, of course, devoted to her – she and Anthony, their father, hold the family together at their big, beautiful, ramshackle house near the wide, bird-haunted coast of Suffolk. But when Luke, her youngest, gets married, Rachel finds that control is slipping away.

Across the sea in England, Thomas Peach lives in quiet retirement. Some call him a magician, others a madman. But when his friend the poetess Arabella Farthingay falls prey to a sinister seducer, Mr Peach's fading powers are called on once more. He follows her to France - and into a world where reason contends with terror, brotherhood with bloodshed, and the last remnants of faith with the oldest enemy of them all...

I’m a Coroner. I spend my life laying things to rest . . . When lawyer, Jenny Cooper, is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she’s hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce, but the office she inherits from the recently deceased Harry Marshall contains neglected files hiding dark secrets and a trail of buried evidence. Could the tragic death in custody of a young boy be linked to the apparent suicide of a teenage prostitute and the fate of Marshall himself? Jenny’s curiosity is aroused.

What if punk heroes The Adverts had played a gig in Camberley in 1977, to an audience of 27 people? And what if, three decades later, someone tried to bring that audience back together for a reunion? That’s the premise of these five linked plays by award-winning screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce, telling the stories of some of those audience members as they look back on that life-changing night. Among the star casts are Doon Mackichan, Pauline Quirke, Siân Reeves, Rosie Cavaliero, Richard Ridings, Danny Webb and Manjinder Virk.

The year is 1785, and Thomas Peach, a gentleman of modest means, moves to a small village in the West Country, bringing with him a steamer chest of clothes, some books - and, apparently, his wife, Mrs Peach, who quickly becomes a source of fascination and suspicion to the villagers. Why is she never seen abroad? Why does Mr Peach refuse entry to her bedroom to their maidservant, who is unable to detect even a whisper of breath at Mrs Peach's door, try as she might? Does Mrs Peach even exist? And if so, is she the victim of her husband's cruelty?

Chrissie knew that Richie had loved her for all the twenty-three years they’d been together, loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, chaotic existence. Richie gave her everything, except the one thing that would have made her life perfect. She even had a sparkling ring - but it was not a wedding ring, and did not bring with it the security of marriage. That belonged to Margaret, back in Newcastle where Richie had started off as a musician, before he became famous.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. Sitting in front of a fire, Hastings listens as Poirot recounts his greatest failure. When a wealthy French deputy dies, everyone believes it is from natural causes. Poirot is on vacation from the Belgian police when a young lady comes to him convinced the man was poisoned. She creates a guise for him to enter the house as a journalist to investigate....

I know what my husband would say: that I have too much time on my hands; that I need to keep myself busy. That I need to take my medication. Empty nest syndrome, he tells his friends at the pub, his mother. He's always said I have a vivid imagination. Marta and Hector have been married for a long time – so long that she finds it difficult to remember her life before him. He has always taken care of her, and she has always done everything she can to be a good wife.

The Kennedys were the most famous family in England when Joseph became American Ambassador in London. But daughter Rosemary's behaviour began to cause the family increasing concern. Award winning writer Charlotte Jones' play is inspired by the lives of two of JFK's sisters, 'Rosemary' Kennedy, who died in 2005, but underwent a prefrontal lobotomy aged 23 and Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy who married the heir to the Duke of Devonshire.

At just ten years old, Fanny Price is sent from her poor Portsmouth home to live with the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the vast grandeur of Mansfield Park. Timid and fragile, Fanny is neglected by the indolent Lady Bertram, belittled by her conceited cousins Maria and Julia, and constantly reminded of her lowly status by her ever-critical Aunt Norris. Her only comfort is the kindness and attention shown by her cousin Edmund, and her sole strength the sense of her own moral integrity. But this strength is tested when the alluring Henry and Mary Crawford arrive.