Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

Ralph Boyd’s first glimpse of Daphne will be etched on his mind forever. Dark, teasing, slippery as mercury, she seems neither boy nor girl but sprite - something elemental. An up-and-coming composer, Ralph is visiting the writer Edmund Greenslay at his riverside home in Putney to discuss a collaboration. In its colourful rooms and unruly garden, Ralph finds an intoxicating world of sensuous ease and bohemian abandon that captures the mood of the moment. Entranced, he knows he will return.

Meet The East End Angels, the newest members of Station Seventy-Five's ambulance crew. Strong-willed Winnie loves being part of the crew at Station Seventy-Five, but her parents are less than happy. She has managed to avoid their pleas to join the WRENS so far, but when a tragedy hits too close to home she finds herself wondering if she's cut out for this life after all. Former housemaid Bella was forced to leave the place she loved when she lost it all, and it's taken her a while to find somewhere else to call home. She's finally starting to build a new life, but when the air raids begin, it seems she may have to start over once again.

1950 - Seven year old Carol Martin lies encased in an iron lung, struck down by the killer disease, polio. Distraught at her side, her mother, Violet, wonders if this is her punishment - for Carol is the love child who should not have been born . . . Family of Women is the story of three...

Nellie Welche’s life changes for ever when she’s proposed as companion to Princess Sophia, daughter of mad King George III and Queen Charlotte. Taken into the heart of the family, Nellie is privy to the innermost secrets of the wayward House of Hanover. From the first rumblings of the French Revolution to the beginnings of the railway age, Nellie charts their story as she and Princess Sofy support each other through the ups and downs of their extraordinary lives.

The Quinns are one of the most feared criminal gangs in London's East End.So the reaction of Joe Quinn to the news that his daughter Lynsey is involved with a policeman is predictable and swift, and a pregnant Lynsey finds herself out on the street, bruised and alone.At the age of 11, Lynsey's daughter Helen is returned to the clan. Hated by her grandfather, loved only by her uncle, she struggles to fit into a world she doesn't understand. As warring factions battle for control of the East End, tragedy is about to strike again.

Growing up in a small seaside town, Marcie Brooks dreams of owning a Mary Quant mini-skirt, the Beatles, and escape. Instead she's stuck in a dead-end job selling candy floss to tourists and with a crazy family. Her grandmother sees ghosts, her step-mother is unable to control her growing family...

When Angel is discovered by a model agent, her life changes for ever. Young, beautiful and sexy, she seems destined for a successful career in modelling and, very quickly, the glitzy world of celebrity, fame and riches becomes her new home. But then she meets Mickey, the lead singer of a boy band, who is as irresistible as he is dangerous, and Angel realises that a rising star can just as quickly fall....

Barbara's first chance comes in 1945. A barrister's daughter, she runs away to marry her sailor sweetheart in secret, ignoring her parent's disapproval. When the marriage falls violently apart, she returns home and tries to rebuild her life. Then a second chance of happiness comes her way.

Lettice Pegg's father is a working-class policeman and her mother is a middle-class suffragette. Stuck between them as they argue, Lettice mostly cares about trying to fit in at school and convincing her parents to let her have roller skates and go to the music hall. But, when Lettice sees her mother brutally thrown to the ground by a policeman while on a protest march, her life changes forever. Not all of the women on the march are vulnerable to attack. Some of them have a secret weapon: jiu jitsu.

1940 - Small Heath, in the heart of Birmingham, is facing the darkest days of the war. Two very different girls from this tight-knit community join up as ARP wardens to do their bit for the Home Front. Violet Simms lives with her controlling, widowed mother who runs the local pawn shop. At just...

Will the war be over by Christmas? As the war moves into 1945 the lives of the women of Woolworths continue. When store manager, Betty Billington, announces she is expecting Douglas’s baby her future life is about to change more than she expects. Freda has fallen in love with the handsome...

When the beautiful but naïve Grace Lennicker falls for Isaiah Feasey, son of a rival smuggling family and owner of a local tavern, her sisters try to intervene. But as tensions grow, there is another suitor also hoping to win her hand in marriage, the dashing and more favourable Albert Enderby, a young lieutenant in the Revenue. Grace is unwittingly drawn back into the world of smuggling that her sisters fought hard to leave behind, and as violence erupts, she finds herself unable to stand by, knowing the rival gangs will kill anyone who stands in their way.

1915, Chrisp Street Market, East London. While the man she loves is fighting on the frontline for his country, Lily Larkin is up at dawn carrying crates of apples to his market stall. Taking charge of Greg's business while he's away, she's grown from a penniless workhouse orphan into a shrewd tradeswoman. But the market is a man's world, and Lily soon starts attracting unwanted visitors, including Greg's old rival.

Liv Anderson can take care of herself, and she knows how to make money in a man's world. The daughter of a convicted murderer, she's made her way in one of the roughest parts of London by entrapping men and extorting them for money. But Liv is playing a dangerous game and soon finds herself in trouble with the city's most notorious gangster.

Molly Dawson, now a respectable married woman, lives with her husband, head gardener Charlie, on the Woodchurch Manor estate, where they have brought up three delightful daughters. Her life appears idyllic...but she has suffered the torment of a secret since she was 18 years old. When George Smith - a young stranger fresh out of the Navy - appears at the estate's annual garden party, Molly's life is set to change again....

Aggie has tasted freedom working at the local munitions factory. But the Great War is coming to an end, and the men are coming home. Aggie can't bear the idea of going back into service. She wants more from her life - and becoming a Copperette - a member of the Women's Police Service - might help her move up in the world. Mim just wants to do her bit for her country. She's prepared to work hard to help her fellow women and keep up morale. She even takes Aggie in to her house to help with her training.

Dying is easy. It’s living that’s hard....An eye for an eye. Cabhan Morton wants to leave the Russo crime family for good and live in peace with his daughter, Alice Rose. But the Russos won’t let him walk away without a fight. A tooth for a tooth...Franny Doyle would do anything for Cabhan and Alice, but helping them escape the vindictive Russo brothers won’t be easy. The only place they’ll be safe is back in Essex with Alfie Jennings. A daughter for a daughter...Franny knows she won’t be welcomed by Alfie with open arms....

It’s been five years since Ella Bancroft lost the love of her life, Harper Fortescue, and despite her friends’ encouragement, she’s still not been able to move on. The one thing keeping Ella smiling is the success of her hat shop, Ivella. As her hat shop flourishes, and the possibility of a new love appears when she least expects it, Ella finally dares to hope for a happy future. But storm clouds are gathering over the Black Country, and life might have other plans for the hat girl from Silver Street.

It's 1916, and England is at war. Desperate to help in whatever way they can, Ivy and Louisa enlist as gardeners at Kew, taking on the jobs of the men who have gone to fight. Under their care, the gardens begin to flourish - but Ivy and Louisa aren't being treated fairly, and not everyone wants them there. Without women's rights, the pair begins to struggle - but can the support of the Suffragettes help their cause? And when a tragedy overseas affects the people closest to them, can the women of Kew pull together to support themselves and their country through the darkest of times? 

Social standing is everything in Regency England—and no one knows better than Miss Caroline Morton, a lady's companion from a disgraced line. But when she has a chance to claim what's rightfully hers, the one obstacle in her way is a dangerous murder mystery....