Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

Hull, 1874. Clara had always wondered about the beautiful, mysterious Jewel Newmarch, who was adopted as a baby and turns heads wherever she goes - her exotic looks point to her origins far away from the streets of Hull. Even at her twin sister Elizabeth’s wedding, Clara knows that Jewel is the belle of the ball. And as Jewel looks on at the happy, newly-married couple she feels a restlessness and intense longing to know her own roots.

It's December 1953. As the village prepares for the festivities, for many people, a happy Christmas is by no means certain. Recovering from a car-crash, Stella Simmons, the winter wedding that she and her sweetheart had planned seems impossible. Elsewhere in the village, Jackie Tozer is dreaming of America and Hilary Napier, who thought the war had robbed her of her chance at happiness, has to ask herself if she could ever imagine leaving her life at the big house. The darkest time of the year finds everyone asking questions with no easy answer.

Viv's marriage to David was not a conventional one, but when he died - in an accident for which she blamed herself - it was as if her whole world had collapsed around her. She escaped by running, mainly around the nearby lake, which was once a popular place of recreation but was now desolate and deserted. It became both her refuge and her dread.

Babs and Beth are identical in looks but very different by nature. Kidnapped by gypsies a decade ago as young girls, Beth has accepted their plight, but Babs has always yearned for their real mother, Tilly, and their beloved hometown of Blackpool. Convinced the best thing for them is to be reunited with Tilly, Babs tries to persuade Beth to escape. But Beth is too afraid, and Babs knows if she wants to find their mother, she'll have to do it alone.

Yorkshire, 1928. Indomitable sleuth Kate Shackleton is taking a well-deserved break from her detective work and indulging in her other passion: photography. When her local Photographic Society proposes an outing, Kate jumps at the chance to visit Haworth and Stanbury, in the heart of Brontë country, the setting for Wuthering Heights. But when an obnoxious member of their party is murdered, the group is thrown into disarray. Is the murderer amongst them, or did the loud-mouthed Tobias have more enemies than they might have imagined?

The death of the family matriarch, Charlotte Atkinson, at Windfell Manor casts a long shadow over Charlotte’s husband, Archie, and her two children, Isabelle and Danny. With big shoes to fill, Isabelle takes over the running of Atkinson’s department store, but her pride - and heart - is tested when her husband, James, brings scandal upon the family and the Atkinsons' reputation. Danny’s wife, Harriet, is still struggling to deal with the death of their first two children - a death she blames Isabelle for.

1914. Mining engineer Tommy Birch goes off to war, leaving his new wife, Rita, behind in Pontefract. On the front line, Tommy runs afoul of a German mine and is reported as missing, presumed deceased by his fellow soldiers. But Tommy isn't dead. Found behind enemy lines, wearing only a pair of boots stolen from a dead German, Tommy is picked up by the enemy, who believe him to be one of their own.

Now that her brood had left the nest, Fanny McBride, a large, cheerful and indomitable Tyneside widow, had time to sit by her window and watch the goings-on outside. There was plenty to keep her occupied: the mystery of the new woman at Mulhattan's Hall, the tenement block (here a fortnight already and not so much as a hello); the long-standing feud with Mrs Flannagan; after-school visits from her grandson Corny. But Fanny had any intention of ending her days in lonely isolation. So when her friend Mary fell sick and couldn't work, it was Fanny who took her place.

Kay Duffield's fiancé is about to leave the country, and her own duty with the WAAF is imminent when she becomes a bride. The precious few days she spends with her new husband are quickly forgotten once she starts work as a balloon operator. There she makes friends with shy Emily Bevan, who has left her parents' hill farm in Wales for the first time; down-to-earth Biddy Bachelor, fresh from the horrors of the Liverpool bombing; and spirited Jo Stewart, the rebel among them, whose disregard for authority looks set to land them all in trouble. The girls stay friends through good times and bad, through romantic encounters and, ultimately, tragedy.

After the sudden and brutal breakdown of her marriage, Jenny finds herself alone for the first time in her life when she leaves the comfortable farmhouse with her four-year-old daughter. Taking refuge in a seaside town in North Wales, Jenny finds a room in a boarding house. It's difficult at first, but as she gets to know her fellow residents, she gradually begins to see that life has much more to offer than she could ever have dreamed.

Handsome Frank Rossi took Matty Gilbie away from her working class roots in East London, promising her fame and fortune. As his wife, she would be half of a power couple. But the Wall Street Crash puts paid to all that, and as Frank becomes more violent, Matty flees in the dead of night. Once home in Bermondsey, she goes into hiding, but Frank is on the move, determined to find her and get her back.

"I dragged my heels all the way to the mill. ‘I can’t do it!’ I sulked. Mother sighed and shook her head. My heart sank. Of course, I’d seen the mill hundreds of times before, but now it was different - now, I was going in. I’d never seen a place so depressing; I wanted to cry." With tales from hardworking Audrey and mischievous Maureen to high-spirited Doris and dedicated Marjorie, The Mill Girls is an evocative story of hardship and friendship from when cotton was still king.

There's an old Cornish saying: "Save a stranger from the sea, he'll turn your enemy...." When her reclusive grandmother becomes too frail to live alone, Gabriella Blythe moves into the remote waterside cabin on Frenchman's Creek which has been her grandmother's home for decades. Once a celebrated artist, Jaunty's days are coming to a close, but she is still haunted by events in her past, particularly the sinking of Lancasteria during the war.

Hannah Francis has been forced to leave her beloved mother and the life she knows in the silk mill town of Macclesfield and is set to become an apprentice at a cotton mill in the Derbyshire dales. It is a cruel blow for such a young girl, but her three travelling companions are even younger than she is, and Hannah is determined to keep their spirits up and remain in good cheer.

It's 1945 and the war is finally over. For the Devlin family in Liverpool, the wartime years have been almost too much to bear. But at long last sisters Grace and Chrissie can return to their normal lives. Level-headed and hard-working, Grace wants nothing more than to meet a nice man and settle down. Vivacious Chrissie, though, craves fun and excitement - and there's not much of that to be had in the austere post-war years. So when Chrissie meets Pat Kilroy, a handsome Irishman, she's swept off her feet and eagerly follows Pat to Ireland. Chrissie soon realises she has made a terrible mistake, and Grace rushes to her side to help.

Rose Pritchard and her seven-year-old daughter Maddie have left everything behind to come to the village of Millthwaite, Cumbria, in search of the person who once offered Rose hope. Almost immediately Rose wonders if she's chasing a dream - but she knows in her heart that she cannot go back. She's been given a second chance - at life, and love - but will she have the courage to take it?

Born in 1800, George Hudson was raised from farmer’s son to the rich and powerful Lord Mayor of York - friend to royalty and owner of half of the railways in the kingdom. But Hudson was driven by greed as well as ambition and a dark secret lurked within his past - a youthful indiscretion…and an illegitimate child. That child, Milly, has been brought up, quietly and lovingly, by her mother, Jane, who dreams of taking revenge on her careless begetter. By a quirk of fate, both Jane and Milly work in the Hudson household. Will Jane’s revenge be sweet?

1273. Arriving in Byzantium, physician Anna Zarides resolves to prove the innocence of her brother, now in exile for conspiring to kill a nobleman. Unable to move freely in society as a woman, Anna must pose as a Eunuch and use her medical skills to manoeuvre close to the players involved in her brother’s fate. But time to find the truth is running out. A crusade to capture the Holy Land is brewing, and leaders have set their sights on Constantinople.

A love story, a modern nightmare and an honest and incisive portrayal of a woman who honours her husband's wish to die and finds herself in the dock for murder. When Deborah reluctantly helps her beloved husband Neil end his life and conceals the truth, she is charged with murder. As the trial unfolds and her daughter Sophie testifies against her, Deborah, still reeling with grief, fights to defend her actions. Twelve jurors hold her fate in their hands, if found guilty she will serve a life sentence.

1929, London. In the darkness before dawn, a London railway porter discovers a man's body as he unloads a special goods train from Yorkshire, all means of identification stripped away. Hitting a dead end, Scotland Yard call on indomitable sleuth Kate Shackleton, hoping her local Yorkshire knowledge and undoubted skills at winkling out information will produce the results they need. 1929, Yorkshire. Fears of unrest in the Yorkshire coalfields mean that Kate must conduct her investigation with the utmost secrecy.