Showing results by narrator "Antonia Beamish" in All Categories

Nell Galilee, her husband and 12-year-old step-daughter, Maude, rent a holiday cottage by the sea, needing time and space away from home after Maude became involved in some troubling events. Nell grew up in this small wind-blown town and has mixed feelings about returning, and it isn't long before she is recognised by a neighbour, seemingly desperate to befriend her. The cottage, too, has been empty for some time, and from the start, Nell feels uncomfortable there. Something isn't quite right about this place.

Before H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and Anne Rice, Henry James wrote hair-raising stories that made horror a popular, sometimes controversial, widely-read literary form, and set the bar for all who followed. Stephen King considers James’ The Turn of The Screw one of the best horror novels ever penned.

When orphan Julie Miller is sent to Canada to keep her safe from Hitler’s bombs at the start of WWII, she hopes this will the start of a happier new life for her after years of sadness. Taken in by a schoolteacher, it seems that Julie’s dreams are coming true. But that’s before a shadow is cast over her safe refuge, and before long, she is forced to run away. This is just the start of a long journey, one with many hardships before she can find a place to call home.

Max Walker is the golden boy. He's attractive, intelligent, athletic. He's even nice to his little brother. Max is going to pass his exams with flying colours; he’s going to make his parents proud.

"It began with a spark." A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and an invalid dreaming of his anxious boyhood. Their landlord's relationship with them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their preoccupations and memories. He will also share their fate. In Night of Fire the passions and obsessions of these unquiet lives reach beyond the dying house that holds them. Ranging from an African refugee camp to the cremation-grounds of India, their memories mutate and criss-cross in a novel of lingering beauty and mystery.

Leyli Maal is a beautiful Malian woman, mother of three, living in a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Marseille. Her quiet life as a well-integrated immigrant is suddenly shaken when her beautiful eldest daughter, Bamby, becomes the main suspect in two murders linked to a lethal illegal immigration racket. Is Bamby really involved? And why is everyone desperate to get their hands on Leyli's mysterious red notebook?

Lifelong friends Claudia, Ella, Laura and Sal celebrated 60 as the new 40, determined not to let age change things. But now they are looking at the future and wondering how to make growing old more fun. Why not live together and have sunny afternoons on the lawn, helping and supporting each other when any of them need it - and still keep enjoying life? Joined by Claudia’s reluctant husband and Sal’s energetic new fiancé, they ignore the protests of their children and pool their resources in a lovely manor house in the country.

The heartbreaking story of the passionate love affair between Boris Pasternak and Olga Ivinskaya - the tragic true story that inspired Doctor Zhivago. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris Pasternak, the writer's lover, typist and literary muse Olga was sent twice to Siberian labour camps because of her association with him, miscarrying their child on her first visit. When released, she always assumed that Boris would leave his wife for her, but he failed to do so.

At Rooks Wood Farm, Rosalind Breen's twin sons grieve her death. Daniel shoulders the burdens of running the farm and caring for his brother, Caleb, who's shunned for his strange appearance. Meanwhile, Minsmere Bird Reserve is suffering a spate of vandalism and senior partners of the Anglican Detective Agency, Frank Diamond and Laurel Bowman, are enlisted to find the culprits. But shortly after taking the case, Laurel discovers the body of a young man dumped in one of the meres and the detectives are caught up in a murder enquiry.

I was taught that life is pain. That love is pain. It was unavoidable. Acceptable. I never had anything, or anyone I could count on. Not really. Not even myself. Until I met Dr Menon... To the outside world Lauren Taylor’s relationship with her boyfriend Josh is perfect. He is supportive and loving and has been there for Lauren during her darkest moments. But behind closed doors, secrets and lies can be hidden…

In the Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow, possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: she has blue eyes and blond hair. With these, and a set of false papers, she has slipped out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo.

Ralph Loman works in an unsatisfying job, for a free London newspaper, when Francine Snaith, a temporary secretary for a corporate finance firm, unexpectedly crosses his path at a party. Her beauty ignites a blaze of excitement in his troubled heart. But Francine is ravenous for attention, driven by a thirst for conquest and when Ralph tries politely to extricate himself, he finds he is bound by chains of consequence from which it seems there is no escape.

Lullaby Beach takes the listener on a journey through three generations of a complicated, close-knit clan whose joys and misfortunes track many of the most pressing conflicts and concerns of post-war Britain, from the promise and hypocrisies of 1950s London to the political divides and risky freedoms of the present day.

A scholar pursues an elusive biographer, stumbling upon buried fragments of distant lives; a woman walks out of her previous existence and encounters an ice-blond stranger from a secretive world; a schoolgirl draws a blood-filled picture of Jael; a swimming pool reveals a beauteous monster in its depths. The settings range from the heat of Provence in summer to the cold forests of Scandinavia, from chalk-strewn classrooms to herb-scented hillsides, from suburban streets to rocky wilds.

As a dark evening draws in, the lives of three women are changed forever. The worlds they have been living in, the people they thought they knew - in an instant it all changes. But when everything seems to shatter around them, could three little words be enough to help put the pieces back together again?

St Saviours children’s home in London’s East End has provided a safe refuge for local children for decades, and Sister Beatrice and her team are as busy as ever. New staff member Jinny is glad to escape the lewd advances of her drunken and slovenly mother’s rotten boyfriends, but can she prove she isn’t a chip off the old block? As ever, the staff are tested when orphaned brother and sister Andy and Beth are brought to the home - they are clearly terrified of something, and Andy refuses to be sent home, but can Sister Beatrice get to the bottom of their story before they are returned to their stepfather?

By April 1916, the fervour that accompanied war’s outbreak has faded. In its place is a grim reality. Throughout Germany, essentials are rationed. Hope, too, is in short supply. Anna Zeller, whose fiancé, Bruno, is fighting on the Western Front, works as a nurse at an overcrowded hospital in Oldenburg, trying to comfort men broken in body and spirit. But during a visit from Dr Stalling, the director of the Red Cross Ambulance Dogs Association, she witnesses a rare spark of optimism.

When the breakdown of her marriage leaves Sadie Turner a single mum, she vows that she will make it on her own. After all, why would a smart businesswoman with a PhD and the prospect of a life-changing deal on the horizon need a man? But Sadie's man-ban is tested to the limit when she travels to Monaco to meet her potential investor. There she encounters Mac, a rough and ready playboy billionaire who lives life in the fast lane. But Sadie's heart isn't the only thing on the line....

The Rule of St. Benedict (the rule) arose in an era when a great civilisation was threatened by violence, economic forces that favoured the wealthy, political leaders that lacked the trust of the public and rampant xenophobia. The events that occurred in sixth-century Rome were much those like on the nightly news. Benedict was not a priest or religious official. He was just a young man disillusioned by a corrupt society that lacked compassion. He had a vision of a society in which human values reigned supreme - a vision of compassion, harmony and hope.

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you this final instalment from their über-guide to exploring the fourth dimension. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.