Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Genre Fiction

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. She’ll do it later, she always says. She has time. Until, on the night of Halloween, Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder. She suffers a catastrophic brain injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, she’ll suffer a deadly aneurysm. Jet never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her ex-best friend turned sister-in-law, her former boyfriend.

Francis O'Neill is an IRA terrorist - and he will kill for the cause. Gentleman Joe is his boss - and he wants power. Liam is his brother - and he wants money. Richard is the British intelligence officer - and he wants to recruit him. Bridget is his wife - and she wants to get out. A Traitor in the Family is the story of a man who remains devoted to a cause while everyone around him gives in to temptation....

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows she becomes a celebrity, revered by titans of business and recognized by U.S. Presidents. Eleanor Roosevelt herself is awestruck and eager to make her acquaintance.

Set against an eventful decade that included the soap opera of five Prime Ministers plus Brexit and Covid, Consider Yourself Kissed puts the subjects of love and family on a grand stage, showing how the intimate dramas in our homes inescapably compete for energy and attention with the shared public dramas of our times. Told over ten years of one woman’s life, Consider Yourself Kissed is an unforgettable literary love story which effortlessly balances sweetness with bite, the public with the personal, and humour with heart.

If it hadn't been for the child then none of this might have happened. She saw me kissing her father. She saw her father kissing me. The fact that a child got mixed up in it all made us feel that it mattered, that there was no going back.

Some stories are universal. They play out across human history. And time is the river which will flow through them. It starts with a family, a family which will mutate. For now, it is a father, mother and two sons. One with his father’s violence in his blood. One who lives his mother’s artistry. One leaves. One stays. They will be joined by others whose deeds will change their fate. It is a beginning. Their stories will intertwine and evolve over the course of 2,000 years.

Christmas 1860: Polly, living in grinding poverty, loses her mother in childbirth and finds herself alone on the streets of Hull. Rosalie, brought up in affluence and comfort on the other side of town, loses her own mother in similar circumstances and on the same day. Polly takes a job as scullery maid in Rosalie's lonely house, and the two girls form an unlikely friendship. Travelling to the North Yorkshire Moors they discover a new kind of life and find unexpected joy and fulfilment.

Mark Renton has it all: He's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s.Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone. When his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in Edinburgh's grimmer areas.

Have you ever loved someone so much that you'd do anything for them? When Dr Luke Findley turns up to his hospital shift in the small town of St Andrews, Maine, he's expecting just another evening of minor injuries and domestic disputes. But instead, Lanore McIlvrae walks into his life - and changes it forever. For Lanny is a woman with a past...Lanny McIlvrae is unlike anyone Luke has ever met.

When disgraced spy Solomon Vine's friend and rival Gabriel Wilde vanishes without trace, it's only Vine who might be able to discover what has happened to him. A single missing file holds the key. That, too, is gone. But its contents, Vine is told, are incendiary. There were few Wilde could trust. And being one of them appears to have fatal consequences. But as Vine's off-the-books investigation begins to reveal the shocking truth, he realizes there's much more at stake than one man's life.

Despite her privileged upbringing, Daisy Lennox has always longed to make something of her life. She is drawn to the suffragette movement, but when her father faces ruin they are forced to move to the country and Daisy’s first duty is to her family. Here she becomes engaged to her childhood friend – a union both families have dreamed of. But, on the eve of their wedding, war is declared, and Daisy knows her life will never be the same again...

Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives to the unprecedented experience of the war itself.

When Sarah meets dark, brooding Alex,she grasps his offer of a new life miles away from her own. They’ve both recently escaped broken relationships, and need to start again. Why not do it together? But when Sarah gets to the tiny village of Burrington Stoke, something doesn’t add up. Alex’s beautiful wife Genevieve was charming, talented, and adored by all who knew her. And apparently, she and Alex had a successful marriage complete with a gorgeous son, Jamie. Why would Genevieve walk out on her perfect life? And why has no one heard from her since she did so?

Can she find her recipe for happiness? Del and her husband, Ollie, moved to a beautiful village in Provence for a fresh start after years of infertility struggles. But six weeks after they arrive, they’re packing the removal van once more. As Del watches the van leave for England, she suddenly realises exactly what will make her happier...a new life in France - without Ollie. Now alone, all Del has is a crumbling farmhouse, a mortgage to pay and a few lavender plants. What on earth is she going to do?

Englishman Paul West is living the Parisian dream, and doing his best not to annoy the French. But recently things have been going très wrong: His apartment is so small that he has to cut his baguettes in two to fit them in the kitchen. His research into authentic French cuisine is about to cause a national strike. His Parisian business partner is determined to close their tea-room. And thinks that sexually harassing his female employees is a basic human right.

At 17, Renee Rushmore lives at home with her father Ivan—a cruel man who rules the house with an iron fist and keeps Renee isolated and alone. She is desperate to escape him, but with no friends to help her, what hope does she have? Then war breaks out. With factories and farms looking to take on female workers, Renee dares to hope that her freedom might be within grasp. And when she hears through a kindly local farmhand named Jimmy that Oak Valley Farm is in need of help, she might just have found her chance.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever - a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma.

Following the untimely death of her husband, Beatrix and her three children are finally free. While Ambrose has already determined his path in life, eldest son Laurie's future is less certain. Meanwhile, headstrong and independent Alicia is defying expectation and excelling at school. There, she befriends the enigmatic Olivia Snowdon and they quickly become inseparable. But Olivia's family past is shrouded in mystery and as she begins to dig deeper secrets come tumbling out.

Twenty-three-year-old Katy Speed is fascinated by the house across the street. The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, other times they have children. Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders if these mysterious visitors have just been released from prison. Is Gloria secretly bringing criminals, or worse, into the heart of the community?

Summer, 1936. Newly trained midwife Hazel Price returns to the Yorkshire streets of her childhood, only to find that her modern methods and 'stuck-up' ways bring her into conflict with her family and other formidable residents of Raglan Road. Determined, Hazel battles on, assisting with home deliveries and supporting the local GP. The days are long and hard, but Hazel brings knowledge and compassion to the work she loves.