Showing results by narrator "Laurence Bouvard" in All Categories

When Michele Kirsch's father is killed in a train crash, her mother gets the vapours and Michele gets extremely nervous. By her mid-teens, she has found salvation in valium. Her favourite words on the prescription sheet are 'Take as Needed', which she interprets as Take All the Time. Later, as a wife and mother, she adds alcohol into the mix, and before long her life is spinning out of control. Leaving home 'for the sake of the family', she takes the scenic route to rehab, redemption and reinvention.

Celestial Bodies is set in the village of al-Awafi in Oman, where we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era to the crossroads of its complex present.

Brought to you by Penguin. Introducing your new favourite whodunnit. Perfect for fans of Gilmore Girls and Knives Out Two unlikely detectives. A killer cocktail of suspects. A Gibson martini garnished with three silverskin onions is 77-year-old Mimi’s favourite cocktail. It is best served with...

Car-En, a ringstation anthropologist on her first Earth field assignment, observes a Viking-like village in the Harz mountains. As Car-En secretly observes the Happdal villagers, she begins to see them as more than research subjects (especially Esper, a handsome bowhunter). When Esper’s sister is taken by an otherwordly sword-wielding white-haired man, she can no longer stand by as a passive witness. Knowing the decision might end her career, she cuts off communication with her advisor and pursues the abductor into the mountains.

A moving, eye-opening polemic about the US-Mexico border and what happens to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied Mexican and Central American children arriving in the US without papers ‘We are driving across Oklahoma in early June when we first hear about the waves of children arriving...

On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day reign inside and outside the home while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood. But before that time comes, there is an island ritual that offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps to roam wild: they run, they fight, they sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. They are free.

Bitter life lessons have taught Crown Prince Maksim Yurkovich that duty must come before desire. His country needs an heir, so when he discovers his lover can’t have children he must sever their ties. Only Maks can’t resist spending one last night in her bed… Against all odds Gillian Harris falls pregnant, and Maks’s is not above using their mutual passion to convince Gillian that she must be his queen!

Julianna Doran caught her first soul searing glimpse of sea captain Brom Vanderzee when she was a girl of fifteen playing with a Quija board. He was a vision who would haunt her dreams for years. Julianna knew the days of pirate ships were over, but where else would she find a man so enticingly handsome, so boldly dangerous, so... forbidden?

Can a fairytale ever come true? Like Cinderella at the ball, Lilley's fairytale wish is about to be granted. She'll swap her grey suits for a fabulous dress and killer heels, and dance the night away with the man every other woman wants...but only for one night. Alessandro Caetani does not do happily-ever-afters. Lilley has never taken such a risk before, but this is her night of living dangerously...

When five brothers move into the abandoned mansion next door, Sophie Gracewell's life changes forever. Irresistibly drawn to bad boy Nic, Sophie finds herself falling into an underworld governed by powerful families. When Sophie's own family skeletons come to life, she must choose between two warring dynasties - the one she was born into and the one she is falling in love with.

What if our 24-hour day grew longer, first in minutes, then in hours, until day becomes night and night becomes day? What effect would this slowing have on the world? On the birds in the sky, the whales in the sea, the astronauts in space, and on an 11-year-old girl grappling with emotional changes in her own life? One morning, Julia and her parents wake up to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth is noticeably slowing....

When a child vanishes, a city's darkest secrets rise to the surface – and in the shadows of Catalonia, justice comes at a price. Detective Elisenda Domènech is no stranger to grief. Haunted by personal loss and worn down by infighting within the force, she's already on the edge. Then a young boy disappears – the son of a powerful local politician, just days before an election. As pressure mounts to find the child, a wave of violent break-ins is terrorising the city, and Elisenda's key informant has disappeared.

Mackenzie Cooper took her eyes off the road for just a moment, but the resulting collision was enough to rob her of her life as she knew it. Forced to start again, she moved to a small town under a new name - Maggie Reid - and her only goal is to stay under the radar. She's thankful for the few friends she's made, although she can't risk telling them too much about her previous life. But Maggie isn't the only one in this peaceful town with secrets. When a friend's teenage son is thrust into the national spotlight, Maggie is torn between protecting herself and stepping into the glare.

Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country....

London-based PR consultant Rosie Denham and American IT professor Patrick Riley couldn’t be more different. She’s had a privileged English upbringing. He was raised in poverty in Missouri. Patrick has two kids, a job that means the world to him, and a wife who might decide she wants her husband back. So when Patrick and Rosie fall in love, the prospects don’t seem bright for them. But magic sometimes happens, right?

Sheikh Asad has returned to his kingdom ready to secure his legacy, and Iris Carpenter barely recognises the man standing before her. He’s even more magnificent than he was six years ago, and even more dangerous. Iris can resist all she likes, but Asad knows it’s just a matter of time before the flame-haired temptress is back in his bed – where she belongs!

Alexander Bajoran is the man who ruined Jessica Taylor’s family and drove their company out of business. So when she spots him at the resort where she’s working as a chambermaid, she and her cousin plot revenge. But the plan soon backfires when Jessica is seduced by the wealthy businessman…and becomes mother to his child!

In the year 2737, Earth is mostly depopulated in the wake of a massive supervolcano, but civilization and culture are preserved in vast orbiting ringstations. Tem, the nine-year-old son of a ringstation anthropologist and a Happdal bow-hunter, wants nothing more than to become a blacksmith like his uncle Trond. But after a rough patch as the only brown-skinned child in the village, his mother Car-En decides that the family should spend some time on the Stanford ringstation.

Norfolk, 1953. The Fens have never seen anything quite like the girls from USAF Drampton. Overpaid, overfed and over here. While their men patrol the skies keeping the Soviets at bay, some are content to live the life of the Future Homemakers of America - clipping coupons, cooking chicken pot pie - but other start to stray, looking for a little native excitement beyond the perimeter fence. Out there in the freezing fens they meet Kath Pharaoh, a tough but warm Englishwoman. Bonds are forged, uniting the women in friendship that will survive distant postings and the passage of 40 years.

Winner of the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize Auntie Mei is a live-in nanny for newborns and their mothers. She has worked for a hundred and twenty-six families and looked after a hundred and thirty-one babies, one set of clients easily replaced by the next. But the hundred and thirty-second...