Showing results by narrator "Anna Bentinck" in All Categories

Soho in the 1980s is electric. For Eliza, the heady pull of its nightclubs and free-spirited people leads her into the life she has craved - all glamour, late nights and excitement. But it comes at a heavy cost. Cassie is fascinated by her family's history and the abandoned Beaufont Hall. Why won't her mother talk about it? Offered the chance to restore Beaufont to its former glory, Cassie jumps at the opportunity to learn more about her past. Separated by a generation but linked by a forgotten diary, these two women have more in common than they know....

Set against the rolling backdrop of a century of British history from the First World War to today, this is a family portrait captured in snapshots. First there is William, the factory lad who loses his life in Gallipoli. Then there is his son Billy, a champion cyclist who faces the D-Day Landings on a military bicycle, followed by his crippled son Will, who becomes an Oxford academic in the 1960s. Finally there is his daughter Billie, an artist in contemporary London.

A brooding contemporary gothic love story, beautifully told with rich and sensual imagery. When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom, their whirlwind relationship leads them to purchase Les Genevriers, an abandoned house in a rural hamlet in the south of France. As the beautiful Provence summer turns to autumn, Eve finds it impossible to ignore the mysteries that haunt both her lover and the run-down old house, in particular the mysterious disappearance of his beautiful first wife, Rachel.

Since Susannah Cates's husband was sent to prison three years ago, life has been a constant struggle to provide for herself and their teenage daughter. Nothing ever seems to go right, and the most she hopes for now is that nothing more will go wrong. Worried by her mother's unhappiness, 13-year-old Neve decides to take matters into her own hands. And when Susannah's closest friend, Patsy, discovers what Neve is up to, she immediately lends her support.

In this eloquent meditation on ageing, Marie de Hennezel guides us through a true ‘art of growing old’. She recalls her encounters as a clinical psychologist with extraordinary people who 'grow old gracefully’ – and through her experience shows us how to make the most of this time in our lives, to avoid depression and to stay happy.

Summer 1939 - When war breaks out, Sylvie is marooned with her cousin Nell's family in the Chiltern hills and cannot return to her Normandy home. During the early days of rationing, blackouts, and the threat of bombers in the skies, Sylvie and Nell have to grow up quickly. Yet as the war rages around them, it's the competition and jealousy between the two that dominates their lives. When the girls fall in love with the same man, their relationship is truly tested. But the war pulls them all apart and changes the course of their lives – until their secrets are revealed.

Name: Sally Marshall Status: single mother Age: 32 Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through I like: living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread...So reads Sally’s ad, posted on a French online dating site called Rendez-Vous. Sally left Nicolas, her French boyfriend of ten years and Lila’s father, after she discovered that he was having an affair with his secretary.

The secrets of an aristocratic dynasty are about to be revealed.... London, 1949. The New Look is in, Princess Elizabeth's wedding has raised morale and the capital is filled with a new energy. The Earl of Mowbray's niece, Alicia Stanton, is making her mark in the glamorous film world. Alongside her, Victoria Brown, a wartime evacuee, is starting out as a fashion photographer. Life is full of opportunity. But at Cavendon Hall, the stately home where they both grew up, the Second World War has exacted a terrible price....

The summer of 1976 was the hottest in living memory. In the Botanical Gardens at Kew, a lost little girl, dizzied by the heat, thought she saw a woman lying dead on the ground. But when she opened her eyes, the woman had gone. Forty years later, Stella Darnell, the detective's daughter, is investigating a chilling new case. What she uncovers will draw her into the obsessive world of botany and towards an unsolved murder that has lain dormant for decades....

Maria King knows a secret London. Born blind, she knows the city by sound and touch and smell. But surgery has restored her sight - only for her to find she doesn't want it. Jonathan Dark sees the shadowy side of the city. A DI with the Metropolitan Police, he is haunted by his failure to save a woman from the hands of stalker. Now it seems the killer has set his sights on Maria and is leaving her messages in the most gruesome of ways.

Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud - and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths. But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place.

After the sudden death of David Bryant, the charismatic owner of a Derbyshire parkland, three people are left to mourn him in very different ways. Maggie, David's young widow; Louisa, who has harboured an infatuation with David since her youth; and Christopher, David'' eccentric teenage son from an earlier marriage. In the aftermath of disaster, they will each face decisions which will define them...

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.

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.

Austria, 1944. Jakob, a gypsy boy - half Roma, half Yenish - runs for his life as he has been told to do. With shoes made of sack cloth - stained with another person's blood - and a stone clutched in one hand, a small wooden box in the other, he runs blindly, full of fear and nearly drained of hope. He knows when to trust a stranger and when to be wary. He knows how to read the land and the sky - when to seek shelter, when not to. He has grown up following the wind and sticking to the shadows. They are familiar to him. It is the loneliness that is new. He has never been so alone.

In 2018 Britain will celebrate the centenary of women getting the vote; during the intervening 10 decades the lives of women in this country have been transformed. Told in their own voices, The Century Girls celebrates seven centenarians who lived that change: what they saw, how they were treated, who they loved, what they did and where they are now. With stories that are intimately knitted into the history of these islands, The Century Girls is a time-travel adventure featuring society’s oldest, most precious national treasures.

Shortly before Christmas, Chief Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen is called to the scene of multiple murders. Four people are found shot dead at the home of the wealthy Stahlberg family. Three of the dead are members of the family, and the fourth victim is an undistinguished author, seemingly out of place. As Hanne and her longtime police partner, Billy T., investigate, they unearth many motives for the murders. But Hanne doesn't believe that the full story has been revealed.

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.

Set in London in 1837, Anna Mazzola's The Unseeing is the story of Sarah Gale, a seamstress and mother sentenced to hang for her role in the murder of Hannah Brown on the eve of her wedding. Perfect for any fan of Sarah Waters or Antonia Hodgson. After Sarah petitions for mercy, Edmund Fleetwood is appointed to investigate and consider whether justice has been done. Idealistic but struggling with his own demons, Edmund is determined to seek out the truth.

When Rose's daughter, Vivien, is found dead in a suspected suicide, Rose has questions nobody can answer. Wasn't Vivien living the perfect life? A caring husband, a sweet little girl of her own. But as the police investigation develops, their findings raise new questions. Did Vivien kill herself, or was she attacked? If so, who has something to hide?