Showing results by narrator "Joan Walker" in All Categories

Ipswich, 1923: After an unlucky start in her first role as a nursemaid, sixteen-year-old Elin Odell looks forward to seeing in the New Year at home. Little does she know, her family is changing and she has no idea what lies ahead. Having been offered the role as governess for the Lamberts in Middlesex, Elin quickly accepts, leaving her own family behind in Ipswich. But when tragedy strikes at her new home, Elin steps up to hold everyone together at the expense of her own happiness.

In The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, a little girl named Lucie has lost three pocket handkerchiefs and a pinafore. Setting out to find them, she spots some fresh clean white cloth on the hillside. As she approaches the clean linens on the hill Lucie spies a door built into the side of the hill and hears someone singing a song about laundry behind it. Could the missing hankies be inside?

'Pacy, witty and authoritative' Jonathan Freedland 'In her hands, ancient history becomes a vivid avenue of approach to a burning modern-world concern… a powerful and important book' Daily Telegraph A superb and illuminating history of Imperial Rome's most important women – dispelling the...

When the Tailor of Gloucester sends his cat to buy some food and a twist of silk for a waistcoat, he discovers a secret - the cat has imprisoned mice under some teacups. After the tailor releases the mice, the cat hides the twist of silk in anger. But how can the tailor finish the waistcoat now?

Beautifully performed poetry enhanced with music. Detailed commentary and analysis from experts. A fantastic introduction to classic poetry, allowing listeners to begin to appreciate and criticise form and content themselves.

Full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Hear "A little touch of Harry" whenever you want to! Examine and appreciate the powerful language of leadership in this guided history play, considered to be Shakespeare's greatest creative statement about war.

Louise has had to watch her husband, Andrew, start a new family in the four years since he left her. The ‘other woman’ is now his wife - but Louise isn’t ready to let Caz enjoy the life that was once hers or to let go of the man she still loves. As Louise starts to dig into Caz’s past, the two women’s pretence of civility starts to slip. But in trying to undermine each other, they discover more about the man they both married. And when Andrew is murdered at a family party, both women are found standing over the body. It’s always the wife. But which one?

For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. The Royal Art of Poison is a hugely entertaining work of popular history that traces the use of poison as a political - and cosmetic - tool in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today.

Alicia Woodman was born into a home that should have been filled with comfort and joy. Her mother Elizabeth was bright and vivacious, Humphrey Woodman was a prosperous businessman. But Alicia was not Humphrey’s child and he would have nothing to do with her, and before long Elizabeth, too, turned her back on her daughter. It was left to Polly Ford, widow of a dock labourer, to bring Alicia up, to teach her to say ‘Yes, Mama’ and to give the child the love she so desperately needed.

She is hunting for the truth, but who is hunting her? Freelance journalist and single mother Hannah Weybridge is commissioned by a national newspaper to write an investigative article on the notorious red light district in Kings Cross. There she meets prostitute Princess and a police inspector in the vice squad, Tom Jordan. When Princess later arrives on her doorstep beaten up so badly she is barely recognisable, Hannah has to make some tough decisions.

Ever since she was a child, Alice Vernon has slept strangely. From episodes of sleepwalking to hallucinations of sinister figures in her bedroom, her nights are often eventful and sometimes frightening. She's not the only one. Drawing on scientific, historical and literary sources, as well as her own experiences, sleep historian Vernon explores the history of our relationship with bad dreams and how we've tried to make sense of and treat them. Night Terrors aims to shine a light on the darkest parts of our sleeping lives.

1918. Fleeing from her past, Cathy Carmichael is new to the Sixteen Streets. She has nothing to her name, no plan and nowhere to go. Cathy thinks she's struck gold when she runs into Mrs Sturrocks, an elderly lady who offers her a room at her boarding house. Her son, Noel, might be strange and sulky, but he gives her a job at the Robin Hood pub and before long, Cathy is thriving as the new barmaid. The Sixteen Streets was only meant to be a temporary stop for Cathy...but could it become home instead?

The fourth action-packed quest in an exciting new six book character-led series for 7+ girls who love fantasy, adventure, and high-kicking heroines! On her tenth birthday, tomboy Sophie learns she is the Guardian of a magic gateway between our world and the Shadow Woods. She must keep the human...

In The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, a farmer's wife believes ducks make poor sitters and takes their eggs to give to her hens to hatch them. The duck Jemima decides to find a safe place away from the farm to lay her eggs. When a fox offers to help, Jemima must keep her guard up. The 12th of Beatrix Potter's 22 charmingly illustrated tales of animals in amusing situations, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck has children and adults alike since its release in 1907.

The fifth action-packed quest in an exciting new six book character-led series for 7+ girls who love fantasy, adventure, and high-kicking heroines! On her tenth birthday, tomboy Sophie learns she is the Guardian of a magic gateway between our world and the Shadow Woods. She must keep the human...

Ever wondered why your cat won't sit on your lap? Why she would suddenly watch the football on television, how she sees the world and what she thinks of you and your family? Prepare to enter the mind of your cat and revolutionise the way you see the world and your enigmatic pet. Bestselling cat author Celia Haddon and veterinary expert Dr Daniel Mills take you into the mind of your feline and, drawing on the latest scientific research, describe how your cat experiences the world.

Jerusalem, 1920: in an already fractured city, 11-year-old Prudence feels the tension rising as her architect father launches an ambitious and wildly eccentric plan to redesign the Holy City by importing English parks to the desert. Prue, known as the 'little witness', eavesdrops underneath the tables of tearooms and behind the curtains of the dance halls of the city's elite, watching everything but rarely being watched herself.

May of Teck, only daughter of a noble family fallen from grace, has been selected to marry the troublesome Prince Eddy, heir to the British throne. Submitting to the wishes of Queen Victoria and under pressure from her family, young May agrees. But just as a spark of love and devotion arises between the young couple, Prince Eddy dies of influenza. To her horror, May discovers she is to be married to the brother, Georgie, instead, a cold and domineering man. But what can she do? A gripping account of the life of Queen Mary, one of the most formidable queens of Britain.

Laura Horsley, in a moment of uncharacteristic recklessness, finds herself agreeing to help organise a literary festival in the English countryside. But her initial excitement is rapidly followed by a mounting sense of panic when reality sinks in and she realises just how much work is involved - especially when an innocent mistake leads the festival committee to mistakenly believe that Laura is a personal friend of the author at the top of their wish-list. Determined to rise to the challenge, she sets off to meet her literary hero.

America in the 1920s was a place of drama, tension and hedonism. It glittered and seduced: jazz, flappers, the birth of Hollywood, and a glamorous gangster- led crime scene flourishing under prohibition. But it was also punctuated by momentous events such as the political show trials and the huge Ku Klux Klan march. But it also produced a splendid array of writers, musicians and film stars, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bessie Smith and Charlie Chaplin.