Showing results by narrator "Penelope Freeman" in All Categories

Forced into retirement, history professor Ellen Kershaw finds herself at a loose end. So when she is contacted by a reclusive billionaire, with an unusual proposition, her interest is piqued. Theodore Shepherd is funding a museum for diaries, and he wants Ellen to curate it. A live-in position at a Gothic stately home in the middle of Dartmoor, it's just the escape she needs whilst she works out what to do with the rest of her life. Ellen soon finds herself immersed in the stories and diaries that await her.

At 17, Renee Rushmore lives at home with her father Ivan—a cruel man who rules the house with an iron fist and keeps Renee isolated and alone. She is desperate to escape him, but with no friends to help her, what hope does she have? Then war breaks out. With factories and farms looking to take on female workers, Renee dares to hope that her freedom might be within grasp. And when she hears through a kindly local farmhand named Jimmy that Oak Valley Farm is in need of help, she might just have found her chance.

After a bomb destroys Esme's London home and kills her son, she moves to Woodicombe, her old house in Devon, to begin the impossible task of recuperating. Soon she is drawn back into the world of espionage and as her marriage to Richard starts to crumble, a local airman pulls her closer. Meanwhile, Lou awaits confirmation that she can relocate to Canada to be with her husband. Biding her time back home, she notices her father behaving strangely and disappearing at odd hours to wander the nearby cliffs. With rumours of spies afoot, she needs to learn the truth before anyone else does.

It's 1964. England has shaken off its post-war gloom and the world is full of possibilities. Best friends Sandra and Linda live on a housing estate in Essex. They are aspiring mods: they have the music, the coffee bar and Ready Steady Go! on a Friday night. Having landed their first jobs, Linda and Sandra look set. But the world is changing rapidly, and both girls have difficult choices to make. As Sandra blindly pursues a proposal, Linda finds herself drawn to causes she knows are worth fighting for.

The year is 1850, and Susannah Charlesworth loves the estate and open air life of the North Lincolnshire Wolds. She stands to become a very rich woman too - inheriting the estate, as well as her father's and uncle's wealth, one day. But then she meets the dashing Daniel Bullen and Susannah's life is about to change forever. As the eldest son, Daniel will take over his father's mill.

In 1930s Birmingham, in the impoverished district of Nechells, a young girl bravely endeavours to hold her family together in trying times. A Hopscotch Summer is an emotional journey of determination and resilience from Annie Murray. Read by Penelope Freeman (My Daughter, My Mother) Emma Brown...

Soundings and Choc Lit present the audiobook edition of A Christmas Secret. When Hugo McCreadie steps into Isla Brodie’s pet portrait studio to get a 'Festive Furball Photo Shoot' for his sister’s cat Schubert, he does question his sanity. But he knows the photographs will be the perfect Christmas present for his eccentric sister, Nessa - and he finds himself quite taken with ditzy, animal-loving Isla Brodie, too. Will a Christmas secret from long ago prevent Hugo and Isla’s new friendship from going any further? Or will a certain big, black cat take matters into his own paws?

When a new feature on Pete Newbury’s popular TV programme shows his adult image digitally transformed to that of a young child, Beth is shocked to realise that he’s her baby brother, who disappeared without a trace thirty-eight years ago. He vanished at the age of three and her family has grieved for him ever since, believing him to be dead. But the path to reunion and happiness is fraught with complications, not least Beth’s feelings towards a close friend of her long-lost brother and then the reappearance of her runaway daughter, complete with child.

As ‘one of those girls’, she was expected to hide her shame with secrecy. No one should ever find out she’d had a child. But she never forgot the son who was taken from her. In the years that followed she struggled with PTSD, traumatic memory loss, agoraphobia and anxiety—impacting every area of her life. This is Michelle’s story of love, loss and hope; of how over 50 years she has managed the consequences of living with her secret, survived the emotional pain, and finally, after being reunited with her son, the journey to rebuild their lives together.

1910. Anna Garvey arrives in Caernoweth, Cornwall, with her daughter and a secret. Having come from Ireland to take up an inheritance of the local pub, she and her 18-year-old daughter, Mairead, are initially viewed with suspicion by the close-knit community. Anna soon becomes acquainted with Freya Penhaligon, a vulnerable girl struggling to keep her family business afloat in the wake of her grandmother's death, and starts to gain the trust of the locals.

There were four of the Thorpe family in the Anderson shelter the night of the raid on Coventry. Mum and Dad, Florrie and little May. Jack was missing... he was one of those who did not return from Dunkirk. When Daisy and Marcus, sixth formers in Coventry, are given a project on the bombing of the city in 1940, they go to talk to May, now living in sheltered accommodation but full of memories of the war. The two youngsters both have their problems and as their lives unfold they strike up an unlikely friendship....

Primavera Blackstone has found contentment in a small Spanish village by the sea. A fiercely protective single mother, she doesn’t appreciate an offer of marriage. Nor does she welcome the arrival of a blast from her past, retired cop Ricky Ross, now a private detective and working for Jack Weighley, millionaire owner of a budget airline. Primavera teams up with Ricky to investigate a series of mystery assaults on Jack’s aircraft. Are they mere acts of vandalism, or the sinister work of Catalan extremists?

Cornwall, 1798. Eighteen months have passed since midshipman Edmund Melville was declared missing, presumed dead, and Amelia Carew has fallen in love with a young physician, Luke Bohenna. But, on her birthday, Amelia suddenly receives a letter from Edmund announcing his imminent return. When he returns, it is clear that his time away has changed him. Amelia, however, is determined to nurse him back to health and honour his heroic actions in the navy by renouncing Luke.

Educated, beautiful and the daughter of a prosperous merchant, Angelica Lilly has been invited to spend the summer in high society. Her father's wealth is opening doors and attracting marriage proposals, but Angelica still feels like an impostor among the aristocrats of Cornwall. When her brother returns home, ill and under the influence of a dangerous man, Angelica's loyalties are tested to the limit. Her one hope lies with coachman Henry Trevelyan, a soft-spoken, educated man with kind eyes.

Cornwall, 1801. In the wake of her mother's death, Pandora Woodville is desperate to escape her domineering father and finally return to Cornwall. Posing as a widow, she safely makes it across the Atlantic, bright with the dream of working at her Aunt Harriet's school for young women. But as Pandora is soon to learn, the school is facing imminent closure after a series of sinister events threatened its reputation.

Three widely separated households - one in Scotland, one in the north of England and one in the south - have known the pain of losing a loved one; losses which, over the years, have shaped the characters of those left behind. But it takes the untimely and suspicious death of Martin Petrie, a stranger from the Scottish Borders mowed down in a hit and run, to untangle the threads that will draw them together in ways they could never have imagined, with results that are far-reaching and fatal.

But the summer days seemed to go on forever – and British families were determined to make the best of their paralysed country. For evacuated children, this meant freedom that is unimaginable today: discovering wildlife, foraging from orchards and hedgerows and swimming in the streams. Elsewhere, country estates were requisitioned for the war efforts. Caroline Taggart shows us how Britons succeeded in keeping spirits up with this entertaining collection of first-hand reminiscences from people who lived through those six long years.

1930, Liverpool. Reformed con-artist Leah Marshall has long yearned for the thrills of her former life. Now she has the chance to relive it all as an exciting new 'game' beckons, but she soon discovers the rules have changed. One slip-up and she could lose everything. Back in Cornwall, the Foxes are making their own difficult decisions. An old agreement has turned sour, putting the hotel at risk once more and the children have grown and are embarking on their own, sometimes perilous, paths.

Welcome to Fox Bay Hotel, where family fortunes rise and fall. 1920, Bristol. Helen Fox is happily married to the love of her life: charming former playboy Harry. With their three children, glamorous lifestyle and extravagant parties, they have the perfect life. But after a tragic motorcycle accident, nothing will ever be the same.... Helen is forced to leave their home and move to the Fox family's hotel on the Cornish coast - where she discovers her perfect life has been based on a lie.

The war is over, but its shadows linger. When spirited Lily Brown meets Robert Linford, heir to a prosperous building dynasty, their connection is immediate and electric. But Robert's father, Joseph Linford, sees only danger in his new daughter-to-be. Convinced Lily is a gold-digger and Robert's love a fleeting fancy, Joseph will stop at nothing to protect the family name. What begins as prejudice soon turns into obsession, and Joseph's actions set in motion a lie that will haunt the Linfords for generations.