Showing results by narrator "Anna Bentinck" in All Categories

Forgive me, Dorothea, for I cannot forgive you. What you do, to this child, to this child's mother, it is wrong... Roberta likes to collect the letters and postcards she finds in second-hand books. When her father gives her some of her grandmother's belongings, she finds a baffling letter from the grandfather she never knew - dated after he supposedly died in the war. Dorothy is unhappily married to Albert, who is away at war.

Within the pages of 96-year-old Doris’s red address book are the names of all those she has loved and lost, telling the story of a colourful life. Living alone in Stockholm, she is comforted by the weekly calls of her grand-niece Jenny, who is haunted by a painful childhood. Finally, Doris decides to put pen to paper, using her address book to recall the memories of a life well-lived – from 1930s Paris runways to narrow New York escapes during World War Two – and what she and Jenny discover may well change their lives forever....

In 2001, three-year-old Dina is killed in a tragic car accident. Not long thereafter Dina's mother dies under mysterious circumstances, and Dina's father, Jonas, is convicted of her murder. In 2016, the cold case ends up on the desk of Detective Henrik Holme, who tries to convince his mentor Hanne Wilhelmsen that the father might have been wrongly convicted. Holme and Wilhelmsen discover that the case could be connected to the suicide of an eccentric blogger as well as the kidnapping of the grandson of a EuroJackpot millionaire.

Winner of the Académie Française award 2010. "In a house on a suburban street in Nagasaki, meteorologist Shimura Kobo lives quietly on his own. Or so he believes. Food begins to go missing. Perturbed by this threat to his orderly life, Shimura sets up a webcam to monitor his home. But though eager to identify his intruder, is Shimura really prepared for what the camera will reveal? This prize-winning novel is a heart-rending tale of alienation in the modern world.

Stella Darnell is a cleaner. But when she isn't tackling dust and dirt and restoring order to chaos, Stella solves murders. Her latest case concerns a man convicted of killing his mistress. His daughter thinks he's innocent, and needs Stella to prove it. As Stella sifts through piles of evidence and interview suspects, she discovers a link between the recent murder and a famous case from forty years ago: the shocking death of six-year-old Sarah Ferris, killed in the shadows of an empty playground. Stella knows that dredging up the past can be dangerous.

Free yourself from the guilt trap, and move on with your life. Simple steps to free yourself from guilt. Guilt is a major underlying cause of emotional disorders such as low self-esteem, depression, OCD and other mental illnesses. This guide, written by one of the UK's most respected psychotherapists and now a best-selling author, Gael Lindenfield, explains how guilt damages our health, relationships and career prospects.

This is the diary of Sarah Shaw for the year of 1971, which she recently uncovered whilst clearing out her loft. Working as a secretary for the BBC at the time, Sarah's diary describes the life of a suburban girl who certainly wasn't 'swinging' but who was, ironically, not only working on a cutting edge BBC survey on sex education but also in the throes of an unlikely affair with middle-aged, working-class, Irish lift attendant, Frank.

Puglia, 1921. Leandro Cardetta, born into poverty, emigrated to America to make his fortune and has returned home to southern Italy a rich man, accompanied by his glamorous wife, Marcie, an ex-showgirl fighting middle age. Now Leandro has money enough to hire renowned English architect, Boyd Kinsgley, to renovate a crumbling palazzo into an Art Deco statement of wealth, and host Boyd's teenage son and his diffident young second wife, Clare, for one extraordinary summer.

It's April 1939, and, with their lives in Berlin and Vienna under threat, Esther and Kitty - two very different women - are forced to make the same brutal choice. Flee Europe, or face the ghetto, incarceration, death. Shanghai is a haven - and so they secure passage to the other side of the world. What they find is a city of extremes - wealth, poverty, decadence and disease - and of deep political instability.

In 1922, Christian, a young artist, travels to Weimar to begin his studies at the Bauhaus, where the avant-garde confronts conservative elements around it. With postwar Germany in turmoil, while the Bauhaus attempts to explore radical ways of thinking and living, Christian finds that love will change him forever. And in 1970s London Duncan uses his inheritance to establish the country's first gay bookshop in the face of opposition from the neighbours and victimisation by the police.

Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall is an Edwardian history book for younger listeners (age six to 12) that tells the story of England, concluding with the reign of Queen Victoria. Having released it unabridged in three volumes, Naxos AudioBooks now offers an attractive collection of the main stories and personalities. This skilful abridgement nevertheless maintains the narrative of British history, from the arrival of Julius Caesar to the height of the British Empire and the long reign of Queen Victoria.

Inspired by the lost voices of the Romany Holocaust, this heartbreaking and tender novel will appeal to readers who loved Sophie's Choice, Schindler's Ark, and The Book Thief. "Remarkable - brave, big-hearted and beautifully written" (Andrew Miller, author of the Costa Award-winner PURE) Austria, 1944. Jakob, a gypsy boy - half Roma, halif Yenish - runs, as he has been told to do. With shoes of sackcloth, still stained with another's blood, a stone clutched in one hand, a small wooden box in the other.

Emma is a literary classic by Jane Austen following the genteel women of Georgian-Regency England in their most cherished sport: matchmaking. Emma is spoiled, headstrong, and self-satisfied. After a couple she has introduced gets married, she greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities and, blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives, proceeds to forge ahead in her new interest despite objections.

Wish I was Here features tales of passion and jealousy, lust and romance from the award-winning author of Red Dust Road. This fierce, funny, and compassionate collection explores every facet of that most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions: love. With winning directness, Jackie Kay captures her characters' greatest joys and greatest vulnerabilities, exposing the moments of tenderness, of shock, of bravery, and of stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, love's loss.

Perhaps England’s greatest literary family. To find one brilliant novelist in a family is extremely rare. But two? Three?

The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily Jane and Anne, together with their brother Patrick, are famed throughout the world. And amongst their many talents was poetry. Of course, being Brontë’s, they were rather good at that too.

Three very different people, connected by a thread of violence...and hope. Kay, recently widowed and coming to terms with life on her own, feels she has hit rock bottom. For years she and her husband fostered difficult children - including Becca, whom trouble follows like a stray puppy. And now Becca seems to be in the worst trouble of her life. A girl has been attacked so savagely she can’t be identified. She’s alive, but only just. Becca, tossed out of university and just let go from her dead-end job, is certain she knows who the victim is. But no one will believe her.

Cool Britannia is alive and well today. British culture is at the top of its game - in fashion, popular music, art and entertainment, science and technology, new inventions, and the rediscovered skills and excellence in engineering that make it Germany's leading trading partner in Europe. As a family of nations, the British are inventive, reflective, good humored, funny, focused, and tenacious.

An old school photograph in which someone has been deliberately blacked out marks the start of a new case for Rona Parish. Who was this person and why would someone want to hide his or her identity? Rona sets out to uncover the secret and soon finds that the school in question closed down many years ago due, it was rumoured, to a long-forgotten scandal. Could this be the link that will solve the mystery? Meanwhile, a visit to a stage hypnotist results in more than Rona and her friends bargained for...

1980. On a hot summer's day five friends stumble upon an abandoned cottage hidden deep in the English countryside. Isolated and run-down, it offers a retreat, somewhere they can escape from the world. But as the seasons change, tensions begin to rise. Three decades later, Lila arrives at the remote cottage. Bruised from a tragic accident and with her marriage in crisis, she finds renovating the tumbledown house gives her a renewed sense of purpose. But why did the cottage's previous inhabitants leave their belongings behind? And why can't she shake the feeling that someone is watching her?

Jane Gardam reveals again her brilliant diversity and deep understanding of the human condition. In "Light", an evocative, lyrical piece of magic realism, a beautiful Himalayan girl defies the destiny laid out for her by her mother but in so doing destroys the village in which she was born. In "Missing the Midnight", a young woman, having failed her exams and lost the man she loves, journeys home on Christmas Eve to the family she despises.