Showing results by narrator "Billie Brown" in All Categories

Oxford, 1836. The city of dreaming spires. It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world. And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows. Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift. Until it became a prison. But can a student stand against an empire?

In 1581, Emilia Bassano is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress she has access to the theatre, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at a great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history. In modern day New York, playwright Melina Green is determined to see one of her shows make the stage. After years of struggle to be recognised she has finally written again, inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other.

The invitation to her school reunion couldn’t have come at a better time for Chloe Flynn. Divorced, broke and bored at work, she’s living a life her teenage self would hate. Turning the clock back fifteen years might be just what she needs to wipe the slate clean and start again. And then there’s the chance she’ll bump into Nathan Blake, the one she still regrets letting get away…

Out of the blue, Susie Jones is contacted on social media by Anna, the girl she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. But when they meet, Anna's home life sounds distinctly strange to Susie and her husband Gabe. And when Anna's adoptive parents seem to overreact to the fact she contacted them at all, Susie becomes convinced that Anna needs her help. But is Anna's own behaviour simply what you'd expect from someone recovering from a traumatic childhood? Or are there other secrets at play here - secrets Susie has also been hiding for the last 15 years?

It's back to a new school term for the kids. Their mums - Gemma and Becky - are breathing a huge sigh of relief and reaching for the gin bottle. Except for the fact that Becky appears to be accidentally a little bit pregnant.... But that's not the first shock for the parents in the playground. Over the summer, part of their beloved Redcoats Primary has burned down. The school needs to raise thousands of pounds to stay open - and Gemma and Becky have been forced on to the fund-raising committee (just to add to the millions of messages from their online parent groups).

Lauren and her family—lucky bastards—have been granted the use of a spectacular brownstone, teeming with history and dizzyingly unattractive '70s wallpaper. Adding to the home’s bohemian, grungy splendor is the bar occupying the basement, a (mostly) beloved dive called The Sweet Spot. Within days of moving in, Lauren discovers that she has already made an enemy in the neighborhood by inadvertently sparking the divorce of a couple she has never actually met.

In 1960s Glasgow, anti-nuclear activists Judith and Jimmy fall in love. But their future hopes are dashed when their protestors’ squat is raided and many, including Jimmy, are sent to prison. Pregnant and with no word from Jimmy, Judith is forced to enter an unmarried mothers’ home, give up their baby and learn to live with her grief.

You know what's best for your child. Don't you? Riley Pieterson is an adventurous girl with lots of questions. There's plenty she doesn't know yet: What a human brain looks like. All the constellations in the night sky. Why others can't see her the way she sees herself. When Riley confides in her parents - Sally and Theo - that she feels uncomfortable in her own skin, a chain of events begins that changes their lives forever. Sally wants to support her daughter by helping her be who she dreams of being. Theo resists; he thinks Riley is a seven-year-old child pushing boundaries.

Released from the hospital with her memory still blurred, the only survivor of a horrific car crash meets the brother of one of the victims. They soon suspect that someone will do anything to hide the truth of what happened on the road that night—and why. A serial killer calls up a late-night radio DJ with a gruesome request. Ellie and Ash have moved into a beautiful old house—but it has a mysterious past, and their life in the countryside is about to take a dark turn. A woman is haunted by an event in her past—and tormented by a mysterious killer who won’t let her forget it.

Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer. But with her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly dating mother, and the nagging worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt. Then, as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens—both personally and professionally. Can she move on from past events and rebuild her future?

When Eve returns to her family home Fox House, the tension with her mother, Agatha, is palpable. But when Eve’s daughter, Lyra, and her granddaughter, Skye, arrive unexpectedly, four generations of women under one roof set the stage for explosive revelations. Lyra seems troubled, but refuses to explain why. And when she lays claim to the crumbling cottage on the estate, Agatha drops a bombshell – she’s already promised it to a mysterious man named Dylan.

1940. Guernsey is first bombed, then occupied, by the Germans. A year earlier, young, naive and recently married Helene waves good-bye to her husband, who has enlisted in the British army. Protected only by her father and Nanna, Helene must carve out a life on the island for the length of the war. Forty years later, her daughter Roz begins a search for the truth about her father and stumbles into the secret history of her mother's life.

Since the day she married her husband, Lo Harper has watched her happy ever after slip away before her eyes. Feeling lost and alone, she’s stumbling through life, each day getting longer, harder, and more hopeless. She doesn’t know how much longer she can hold on. Until she meets a stranger who ironically becomes a lifeline after he nearly runs her down. He’s charming, kind, and he doesn’t pry. He’s just there, making Lo smile, distracting her, if only briefly. Because she will always return to the pain. To the heartbreak. To the unshakable guilt.

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict - but how? - and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war, he also faces personal battles back home, where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father's newspaper business. Through their letters Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears - and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

The forests of home lie far behind. Nyriaana is now the captive of Khalvir, the Wove raider she mistakenly trusted with her life. Gripped by the agony of betrayal and the dire consequences her naïvety wrought, the thirst for revenge alone keeps Nyriaana breathing. Surrounded by predators, both human and animal alike, not everything is as it seems in this vast and perilous world beyond her homeland. Nyriaana must learn who to trust and learn fast if she is to survive the journey through enemy territory.

Nyriaana and Juaan are no longer protected by the might of the Hunting Bear Clan. Alone and on the run, they need to choose their allies and enemies wisely if they are to evade the vengeful clutches of their former chief, Eldrax. But with nowhere to hide, can they truly run forever? Tormented by visions of the fabled Last Kamaali, Nyriaana must now decide if she is ready to sacrifice everything in order to fulfil her ultimate destiny. In doing so, she may not only lose those she loves most, but unwittingly awaken ancient powers that will jeopardise the very existence of humanity.

The suspenseful sequel to The Murder of Mr. Wickham, which sees Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney reunited, and with another mystery to solve: the dreadful poisoning of the scoundrel Willoughby's new wife.

Gemma is only just holding it together - she's a single parent, she's turning 40 and her seven-year-old daughter has drawn a cruelly accurate picture which locates Gemma's boobs somewhere around her knees. So when her new next-door neighbour, Becky, suggests that Gemma should start dating again, it takes a lot of self-control not to laugh in her face. But Becky is very persuasive and before long Gemma finds herself juggling a full-time job, the increasingly insane demands of the school mums' Facebook group and the tricky etiquette of a new dating world.

Vicky Beeching began writing songs for the church in her teens. By the time she reached her early 30s, Vicky was a household name in churches on both sides of the pond. Recording multiple albums and singing in America's largest megachurches, her music was used weekly around the globe and translated into numerous languages. But this poster girl for evangelical Christianity lived with a debilitating inner battle: she was gay.