Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

When Jennifer Tucker arrives in the sleepy Devonshire village of Burracombe, she's searching for more than a place to settle.... Like the rest of the nation, the Burracombe villagers are shocked when King George VI dies suddenly. But the arrival of a stranger in the village on the very same day goes almost unnoticed - they all have their own concerns. As Jennifer Tucker looks for a family she hadn't even realised existed, the village gradually becomes involved in her search, and more than one person is led to question their own ideas about families and what they mean.

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.

Diane Allen invites you into the heart of Yorkshire with her historical saga, Daughter of the Dales, the stirring conclusion to the Windfell Manor Trilogy. Upon the passing of matriarch Charlotte Atkinson, her daughter Isabelle courageously assumes the role of caretaker for the family's...

Summer 1953. Hilary Napier's life is turned upside-down when Marianne, a beautiful French woman, knocks on her door. Hilary can't help but be struck by Robert, the young boy with her. As she listens to Marianne's sad tale, she realises Robert is her brother’s son. But this is only the first revelation...As the village of Burracombe tries to make sense of the strangers in their midst, there is also much to celebrate. Hilary has her friends to turn to as she tries to find out the facts about her brother's past.

Rose McAllister is waiting for her husband, Steve, to come home. He is a seaman, often drunk and violent. Rose does her best to cope and sees that her daughters, Daisy and Petal, suffer as little as possible. Sensing that war is on the horizon, Steve tries to reform, but on his last night home, he pawns the girls' new dolls to go on a drinking binge. When war is declared, Rose finds a good job but agrees the children must be evacuated. War brings hardship and difficulty for the girls and Rose as they face the destruction of their home and cruelty at the hands of others....

A love story, a modern nightmare and an honest and incisive portrayal of a woman who honours her husband's wish to die and finds herself in the dock for murder. When Deborah reluctantly helps her beloved husband Neil end his life and conceals the truth, she is charged with murder. As the trial unfolds and her daughter Sophie testifies against her, Deborah, still reeling with grief, fights to defend her actions. Twelve jurors hold her fate in their hands, if found guilty she will serve a life sentence.

1860: Harriet Miles is trying to take care of her seriously ill mother, and just when she thinks things couldn’t get any worse she is fired from her job at the hostelry. The last thing she expects after her mother dies is a marriage proposal from a man she barely knows, but her only alternative is the workhouse. And so begins her new life with Noah Tuke. But instead of marital bliss, Harriet finds herself in the cramped farmhouse Noah calls home, and in this overcrowded and angry household she meets with hostility and bitterness. The only person who offers her friendship is Noah’s brother, Fletcher.

Lucy Bailey is not a girl to take no for an answer. When she asks her friend Billy Wellington to help her rescue a stray dog, she has no idea of the potential repercussions. A serious crime is committed while Billy is absent from the children's home where he lives and, when suspicion falls on him, the police decide that the safest thing for everybody is to lock him away in a mental institution. Lucy refuses to believe that Billy has done anything wrong, and enlists her cool-headed teenage brother Arnold to help.

For Amelia and her brothers and sisters, the grim past which their mother, Emily, had endured seemed very far away. As pretty as a picture and now learning to be a teacher in York, Amelia looked forward with pleasure to becoming acquainted with the young men clamouring to get to know her, and especially the two gentlemen who had come all the way from Australia to meet her family. Ralph Hawkins, bringing with him his friend Jack - a handsome half-aboriginal Australian who was determined to make a good living for himself - arrived in Hull looking for his roots.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. A Christmas Eve party at Clevere Hall ends in tragedy when the host is found stabbed to death. Major Ceely certainly wasn’t short of enemies, but who hated him enough to commit the crime?

When all is lost, can she find the strength to start again? It is 1916 and Edith Mellor is one of the few female surgeons in Britain. Compelled to use her skills for the war effort, she travels to the Somme, where she is confronted with the horrors at the front. Yet amongst the bloodshed on the...

Driftwood House, neglected and desolate on the edge of Dartmoor, is love at first sight for Simone. Persuading her husband to buy it is only the beginning of her battle as the dark secret hidden within its walls comes to light. Can they restore happiness and harmony to the old house? What is the ghostly presence trying to tell them?

When war broke out, 17-year-old Christie could have stayed down on the family farm in Norfolk, where she was wanted and needed. So why had she joined up? Come to that, why had Meg from Cheshire, and Sue, very much the big city girl from Liverpool, and Shanna, the life-toughened product of a broken home in Glasgow? Mixed reasons. Very mixed backgrounds. But no time to think now. Not with the sergeant shouting and the station air-raid siren beginning to wail....

Val Neyler, driving an ambulance through the blazing heart of London, is in an impossible position, for the man she loves is a fighter pilot with the Luftwaffe. And Jenny, whose husband, Simon, is flying Spitfires, finds herself working as a landgirl on a Devon farm. Cara, by contrast, develops her social life, and Maude, in the WAAF, falls in love with two men at once.... And Tina, matriarch of the family, loves them all, scolds them all, and tries to understand the new generation growing up in the troubled times of war.

As a longstanding fan of best-selling author Jivan Childering, aspiring young novelist Jessica Lord is dismayed on encountering the man himself to find him standoffish. But, some months later, many thousands of miles away in Western Australia, Jessica's path is destined to cross with Jivan's once more, and she begins to see a different side to this talented yet reserved and private man. For his part, Jivan finds himself increasingly drawn to the unpretentious Jessica and impressed by her single-minded determination to follow her dreams.

When John Mitchell inherits property from a distant relative, he and his family move from a comfortable living in Whitby to a large country estate in Cornwall. It seems an ideal place for John and his wife to raise their young daughter, Abigail. However, life in the South is not without its problems and he finds himself clashing with the Gaisfords, a powerful old Cornish family. Any problems the family encounter over the years, however, seem to be averted when Abigail marries handsome Luke Gaisford, in spite of her father's warning that still waters run deep.

Mary McGann's marriage has always been difficult, thanks to her husband Frank's drunken, jealous nature. Only because the little money he earns in the docks keeps food in the mouths of their children is Mary prepared to put up with him. But when Frank throws them all out on the street, Mary flees to her family in Dublin. There she meets Richard O'Neill, a handsome though solitary man. Despite the attraction between them, Mary's not looking for love....

There are some things which even the closest friendship cannot survive . . . Welcome Home is an enthralling and moving drama from bestselling author Margaret Dickinson, set during the Second World War. Neighbours Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for over twenty years, sharing the...

Liverpool, 1935. Kathy Kelling is coming home to Daisy Street from her first day at the High School, longing to tell her friend, Jane, all about it. The Kellings' life becomes a struggle when Kathy’s brother, Billy, has a serious accident. He needs constant attention, and Mrs Kelling must take in lodgers so that Kathy’s schooling does not suffer. When war breaks out, Kathy and Jane are forced to grow up fast. Kathy meets the handsome Alec Hewitt, but he is more attracted to blonde, bubbly Jane. But Fate has not yet finished with Kathy Kelling....

A seemingly sleepy Devonshire village, Burracombe is in fact full of intrigue and drama. Family secrets, budding romance, cruel twists of fate and amazing friendships all play out against the backdrop of the beautiful countryside. It's autumn 1953. The village is delighted when Joe Tozer – who left Burracombe as a young man in 1919 – returns to visit his family.