Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

After years working all hours as a senior practice nurse, Joy has taken a well-earned retirement. She'd been looking forward to it, to leisure and time and no alarms, but now that it's happened, she's not sure what to do with herself. Her husband Terry is buried in his business, and seems to be talking to her less and less - at home she feels, increasingly, rather in the way. But when a new neighbour, Sara, and her small son move into their remote Devon village, Joy befriends her, and inspired by Sara starts to look into the history of their beautiful Angel cove.

If you could change your life, would you? For fans of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, the story of a woman who runs a sewing shop in a small town in France, and a chance in a million... Jocelyne is 47 and runs her own dressmaking shop. She's a bit overweight, her husband is very ordinary and her best friends are the twins who run the hairdresser next door. Jocelyn has reached the point where she is examining her life and measuring it against what her teenage self had imagined.

A mysterious and frightening metamorphosis has befallen Ida MacLaird – she is slowly turning into glass, from the feet up. She returns to St Hauda’s Land, where she believes the glass first took hold, in the vain hope of finding the one man who might just be able to cure her… Midas Crook is a young loner, who has lived on the islands his entire life. When he meets Ida, something about her sad, defiant spirit pierces his emotional defences.

Grace is living through every mother’s worst nightmare. Her daughter Abi went away on a dream vacation—and was murdered. Overwhelmed by grief and fighting off old demons, Grace tries to make sense of it—who would want to kill her beautiful girl? But as she learns more about Abi’s life, she realizes she didn’t know her own daughter very well. How did Abi acquire all those designer clothes? And what was she doing on those mysterious trips to the city? Grace desperately needs to find answers. But soon it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want her digging into Abi’s past.

When Sophie Ellis is asked to house-sit at a Knightsbridge townhouse, it appears to be the offer of a lifetime. Drawn into the glittering circle of the home’s owner, she meets wealthy American businessman Nick Cooper and is swept up into a thrilling and passionate affair. But when Nick is found dead in his hotel suite, Sophie is suddenly the prime suspect for his murder, and soon realises Nick was not the man he seemed.

Julia’s fears that somebody is trying to kill Barker are confirmed when a dead body with a striking resemblance to him is found on his doorstep the very next day, just as their romance is deepening. Barker might be on temporary suspension from his role as Detective Inspector at the village police station, but that doesn’t mean he’s short of enemies in Peridale, especially when a dark face from his past arrives in the small village to stir up painful memories.

Married four times, Susannah Forbes had a starry career as a top model. Now, with an instinctive eye for design, she finds herself in constant demand as an interior designer. Offered a commission by a recently divorced American to make over his lavish Long Island home, Susannah accepts, bringing as her assistant young divorcee Daisy Mitchell. Taking off from Heathrow, Susannah is transported back to a time when, at the height of her modelling career, she lived in New York.

Peacetime has brought little respite for Verity Kent. Intrigue still abounds, even within her own family. As a favour to her father, Verity agrees to visit his sister in Wiltshire. Her once prosperous aunt has fallen on difficult times and is considering selling their estate. But there are strange goings-on at the manor, including missing servants, possible heirloom forgeries and suspicious rumors - all leading to the discovery of a dead body on the grounds.

In the nursery, only the toys that are old and wise truly understand what it means to be Real. The Velveteen Rabbit, a newcomer to the nursery, asks one of the most knowledgeable toys, the Skin Horse, what being real means. "Real isn't how you’re made," says the Skin Horse. "It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become real. It doesn't happen all at once."

Meredith’s daughter, Anna, comes across a prayer book that is inscribed by three generations of mothers to their daughters. These are the women of Meredith’s family, who have all had lives full of love and also hardship. But the youngest in the line, Meredith, has never found true love. She has a beautiful teenage daughter to come home to, a fabulous career in television, but no one special to share it all with. Behind the tirelessly successful façade lies the story of a woman who could not keep love in her life.

“We want you to lay a ghost,” Frances Fitzgibbon is told as she is ordered to investigate the past of her superior, Colonel Jack Butler, at a decisive moment in his career. But why? For as Colonel Butler pursues an elusive IRA/KGB assassin, Frances finds herself confronting dangerous questions, as more than one spectre is raised from the dark past.

The profound emotion felt around the world upon seeing images of Notre-Dame in flames opens up a series of questions: Why was everyone so deeply moved? Why does Notre-Dame so clearly crystallise what our civilisation is about? What makes ‘Our Lady of Paris’ the soul of a nation and a symbol of human achievement? What is it that speaks so directly to us today?

Like a princess in a fairytale, Grace Hamilton has been showered with blessings: professional success, a happy marriage, and she even lives in a beautiful castle. But the only thing she really wants – her heart’s desire – is the one thing she can never have. Her sister, the beautiful Susannah, has made a mess of her life. Like a reverse Midas, everything she touches turns sour. But fate puts Grace’s future in Susannah’s hands, changing the balance of power between the sisters forever.

Married to Ferdinand after numerous fears and disappointments, Isabella triumphs over every danger, convinced of her own destiny. With the might of Portugal humbled, the court of the Sovereigns sees the rise of Torquemada and the establishment of the dreaded Inquisition. It also witnesses the coming of Columbus, who leaves the woman he loves to make a dream reality.

In this beautifully nostalgic memoir, eminent author Angela Thirkell recalls in rich detail the three houses in which she grew up. Focusing first on 'The Grange', where her grandfather, the celebrated painted Sir Edward Burne-Jones, set the cultivated tone, Thirkell also reminisces about her parents' home in Kensington Square and the Burne-Jones' seaside retreat, where Angela's cousin, Rudyard Kipling, lived across the green.

From the day she was born, Charlotte won the hearts of her subjects and yet behind the scenes she was used, abused and victimized by rivalries-between her parents; between her Father (the Prince Regent, later George IV) and (Mad King) George III: between her tutors, governesses and other members of her discordant household; and ultimately between the Whigs and the Tories. Her death in childbirth-the result of medical incompetence-was followed by an unseemly scramble to produce a substitute heir.

The death of the King’s son aboard the doomed White Ship, left the ageing Henry I again without an heir. Henry’s daughter, the Empress Matilda, could not succeed her father while her own German husband still lived – but she could hope. Henry’s nephew, the affable, charming Stephen was also looking towards the English throne.

Russia, 1910. Young Valentina Ivanova charms St Petersburg's aristocracy with her classic Russian beauty and her talent as a pianist. But she scandalises society when she begins a romance with Jens Friis, a Danish engineer. He brings to her life a passion and an intimacy she has never known. Unbending in their opposition, her parents push her into a loveless engagement with a Russian count.

Anna Fehrback is not yet 21, the picture of innocent beauty-and a deadly assassin with seven kills to her name. Recruited by the Nazis under threats of reprisals against her family, she has served as a double agent in the war, secretly spying for the British. Now, as France falls to Germany, she faces a new mission: go to Russia and assassinate Stalin.

Ruby, Tizz and Sam are sisters. At 12, Ruby is the oldest but with all the stuff she has to worry about right now, sometimes she feels more like the mum of the family. And speaking of mums, the sisters do have one, and she loves her three girls to the moon and back, but she suffers from something called bipolar disorder which can sometimes make life very difficult…