Showing results by narrator "Penelope Rawlin" in All Categories

A rowdy family comes to stay at the holiday cottages where Laura's mum works. Laura notices that they are always leaving their puppy behind, and so she offers to take it for walks. But when the family is forced to leave, Laura finds herself having to say good-bye to the little dog much sooner than she thought....

Every Season the beaux mondes of the Regency would hire a house in the heart of London's fashionable West End at a disproportionately high rent for often inferior accommodation and yet No.67 Clarges Street, a town house complete with staff, remains vacant from year to year.

Catherine the Fashion Princess Fairy helps make sure princesses everywhere have the perfect outfits for their royal functions. But when Jack Frost and his goblins steal her magical objects, all sorts of things start to go wrong! Can Kirsty and Rachel help get them back before fashion disasters strike the human and fairy worlds?

Meet the mother whose children were taken away, and the father who fought for his son. Listen to the radical social worker, the judge, the lawyer. See inside the homes of foster carers, adoptive parents and children in care. Because behind closed doors, a scandal is ongoing.

The brand new summer bestseller from the immensely popular Lindsey KelkTess Brookes has always been a girl with a Plan. But when the Plan goes belly up, she’s forced to reconsider.After accidently answering her flatmate Vanessa’s phone, she decides that since being Tess isn’t going so well, she might try being Vanessa. With nothing left to lose, she accepts Vanessa’s photography assignment to Hawaii - she used to be an amateur snapper, how hard can it be? Right? But Tess is soon in big trouble.

Secrets, rivalry, glamour - it's time for the party of the year... Delilah has lived out her tempestuous marriage to hell-raiser Raf in the glare of the media spotlight. Now planning a milestone birthday, she has more on her mind than invitations. Raf has been offered a part in a movie he can't refuse. But will he succumb to the temptations he's struggled to resist for the last ten years? Delilah's three daughters are building careers of their own, only too aware that the press are waiting for them to slip up.

With her four older sisters now married, it's Patience Shackleford's turn to take charge of her younger siblings' education. But given that Patience's most prodigious skill is lock picking, any abilities she passes on to her younger sisters are unlikely to provide any assistance in the drawing rooms of the genteel, especially as she has no interest in either high society, or horror of horrors… marriage. Indeed, her father the Reverend Augustus Shackleford is firmly of the opinion that the less society knows about his fifth daughter the better…

With her signature blend of 'lose yourself' love stories and buried secrets, Sunday Times top ten best seller Tasmina Perry is back with this gorgeously romantic read, perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore and Rachel Hore. From Paris to St Petersburg, this spellbinding tale of love, loss and long-buried secrets is guaranteed to break your heart.... Everyone remembers their first kiss. You never forget the last.... It's 1961. Bright-eyed young journalist Rosamund Bailey is determined to change the world.

When Ellen Carr abandons grey, dreary London to become housekeeper at an experimental school in Austria, she soon knows she's found her calling. Swept into an idyllic world of mountains, music, eccentric teachers and wayward children, Ellen brings order and joy to all around her. But it's the handsome, mysterious gardener, Marek, who intrigues her - Marek, who has a dangerous secret. As Hitler's troops march across Europe, Ellen finds she has promises to keep, even if it means sacrificing her future happiness.

Schoolteacher Sophie Lawson has fled to the Cotswold countryside after a tragic break-up and is throwing herself into dating and organising Cranswell's annual Christmas concert. The festive fun is marred by the arrival of a handsome but surly musical director, tricky pupils and concert preparations falling into disarray. Disaster strikes, but the show must go on. Will the concert bring Christmas harmony to Cranswell and will Sophie end the year on a high note?

Lord Guy Carlton, late of His Majesty's Regiment and weary from the war in France, has only wine, women and song in mind when he rents No. 67 Clarges Street for the season. He certainly has no desire for a serious attachment - and as for marriage: never!

Vicky Seagrave is blessed: three beautiful children, a successful, doting husband, great friends and a job she loves. She should be perfectly happy. When she makes a split-second decision that risks everything she holds dear, there's only person she trusts enough to turn to. But Vicky is about to learn that one mistake is all it takes - that if you're careless with those you love, you don't deserve to keep them....

It's up to the servants of No. 67 Clarges Street to hatch a scheme... and arrange a match! "Oh, to be as beautiful as Euphemia!" sighs plain Jane Hart when she joins her sister at No.67 for the Season, as then Lord Tregarthan might notice her... as she has noticed him and forever lost her heart. And while it is Euphemia's fate to flit her way through balls and into the arms of a marquis, Jane's is to stay at home... until the Downstairs staff transform the plain Miss into the Season's sensation and send her waltzing into a daring liaison with the man of her dreams!

A cosy murder mystery from best-selling author MB Shaw....

Dimpson McCabe - Dimpsie - has invited his closest friends of the theatre world to join him for Christmas at his castle on a private island some hours' drive from Edinburgh. The festivities have barely begun when Dimpsie is found draped atop the Christmas tree, electrocuted by the lights. It's labelled Accidental Death, but in the swirling snow suspicion is dancing among the flakes. The dogged Inspector Smith begins to circle, seeking to find the leading man or prima donna responsible.

A reclusive ex-film star living in the wilds of Ireland, Claudette Wells is a woman whose first instinct, when a stranger approaches her home, is to reach for her shotgun. Why is she so fiercely protective of her family, and what made her walk out of her cinematic career when she had the whole world at her feet? Her husband Daniel, reeling from a discovery about a woman he last saw twenty years ago, is about to make an exit of his own. It is a journey that will send him off-course, far away from the life he and Claudette have made together.

Princess Ellie is pony-mad! She loves helping out at the stables and riding her ponies. It's so long since she learned to ride on Shadow, her Shetland pony, that now her feet touch the ground when she's riding him. The King thinks she looks silly and decides to sell Shadow. But Ellie can't bear to lose him. Can she invent a plan to save Shadow?

When Hollywood wants to do a remake of the film that made Tode Hall famous, India and Egbert are delighted. They envisage a summer of free money and star-studded dinner parties ahead. But the Hall is soon overrun by wardrobe trucks and catering tents and lusty, insecure actors squabbling about nudity clauses. When the movie's producers threaten to sue over the exact colour of Tode Hall's rolling lawns, India and Egbert realise that having a film crew on their doorstep isn't such a breeze after all.

When newlywed Penny begins some casual wedding planning, she only wants to help women afford the big day of their dreams. But taming bridezillas turns out to be a full-time occupation, and what began as a hobby becomes a nightmare. Soon Penny is struggling to keep her day job and prevent her own marriage from collapsing: Tired, stressed, and knee-deep in ivory satin, is Penny's life and livelihood hanging by a thread?

1962, Cornwall: Tara Jupp - vicar’s daughter, occasional thief, expert horse-rider and second fiddle to her sister ‘the beauty’ Lucy - sings at a wedding and is spotted by a record producer. With the spotlight suddenly, thrillingly shining on her alone, the roots of Tara’s country existence are shaken free and she is propelled to swinging-'60s London. Plunged into a dazzling new world of fashion, music and heartache, in a city where skirts are being hitched up as fast as the past is being pulled down, can Tara hold the limelight and hold on to who she really is?