Showing results by narrator "Sophie Ward" in All Categories

Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.

In Doctor Who and the Zarbi, the First Doctor and his companions are trapped on the remote planet Vortis. In Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon, the Third Doctor and Jo are mistaken for delegates of the Galactic Federation on a primitive world. In Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah find the living remains of a renegade Time Lord. In Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive, the Fourth Doctor and Romana find corruption lurking beneath the surface of the pleasure planet Argolis. In Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, the Seventh Doctor and Ace fight for their lives on Segonax.

This is the story of Kitty Fane, the adulterous wife of a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. When her husband discovers her deception, he exacts a terrible vengeance: Kitty must accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic in China.

In ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. In one 50-year period, 26 emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how perpetrator, victim, and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside ancient Rome’s darkly fascinating history, we see how the Romans viewed life and death and what it means to be human.

London, August 1759. Lizzie Hardwicke, society harlot and occasional investigator for the magistrate, is shaken by an encounter with her estranged brother during a riotous evening hosted by the notorious Devil's Brotherhood. Beyond the opulence of this Mayfair party, a streetwalker is found strangled on the doorstep of a well-known moral campaigner, her cheek branded with the letter V.

This impressive debut novel, longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, takes its premise and inspiration from ten of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy—the what-ifs of philosophical investigation—and uses them to talk about love in a wholly unique way. Married couple Rachel and...

As he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, France, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's enigmatic wife allow her to remain? A subversively brilliant study of love, Swimming Home reveals how the most devastating secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.

Glamorous international art-dealer Elizabeth Teerlinc knows a thing or two about fakes. After all, she is one herself. Her real identity, Judith Rashleigh, is buried under a layer of lies. Not to mention the corpses of the men foolish enough to get in her way. But now, caught in the murderous crossfire between a Russian Mafia boss and a corrupt Italian police detective, Judith is forced to create an even more daring work of art - a fake masterpiece she must take to the world-famous auction house where she used to be a lowly assistant and sell for $150 million.

The year is 1967. Thirteen-year-old Maisie is at her decaying family home, once a medieval abbey. Lucas, an artist and friend, is painting a portrait of Maisie and her sisters. Maisie embarks on a portrait of her own: telling the story of herself, her sisters and their lovers, and of her friend, Daniel Nunn. Twenty-three years later, Lucas's now-famous portrait features in a retrospective of his work. Daniel, obsessed by the sisters and determined to understand what happened that summer at the abbey, pursues answers.

Before she became the immortal and haunting Miss Havisham of Great Expectations, she was Catherine, a young woman with all of her dreams ahead of her. Spry, imperious, she is the daughter of a wealthy brewer. But she is never far from the smell of hops and the arresting letters on the brew house wall - HAVISHAM - a reminder of all she owes to the family name and the family business.

Do you believe in fairies? Rosie does but her mum doesn't. Sometimes, though, real life is stranger than a fairy tale.

London, June 1759. When a charmless civil servant takes his own life, few are interested in his death. But Lizzie Hardwicke, who plies her trade in the brothels of London whilst also working as an undercover sleuth for the magistrate, can see no reason why a man who had everything to look forward to would wish to end his life.

Set in Vienna from 1910 to 1946, All of You Every Single One is an atmospheric, original, and deeply moving novel about family, freedom, and how true love might survive impossible odds. Julia Lindqvist, a woman unhappily married to a famous Swedish playwright, leaves her husband to begin a passionate affair with a female tailor named Eve. The pair run away together and settle in the more liberal haven of Vienna, where they fall in love, navigate the challenges of their newfound independence, and find community in the city’s Jewish quarter.

The year is 1831. Down the murky alleyways of London, acts of unspeakable wickedness are taking place, and no one is willing to speak out on behalf of the city's vulnerable poor as they disappear from the streets. Out of these shadows comes Hester White, a bright young woman who is desperate to escape the slums by any means possible. When Hester is thrust into the world of the aristocratic Brock family, she leaps at the chance to improve her station in life under the tutelage of the fiercely intelligent and mysterious Rebekah Brock.

Evie gets a wonderful surprise when she goes to stay at her grandma's house. Fairies appear in the night. They are dream fairies, and they live at the bottom of Evie's bed. Even better, Evie can go and have magical adventures with them in fairyland! Soon Evie discovers that Grandma can see the fairies, too. But will they still be there when Grandma returns from hospital? And how can Evie make sure that their special brand of fairy magic will stay with Grandma forever?

When an undercover assignment for the Bow Street magistrate sees prostitute Lizzie Hardwicke trade Ma Farley’s Bawdy House in Soho for life as a seamstress the theatre on Drury Lane, it becomes clear quite quickly - what goes on in the wings is much more intriguing than the theatrics being played out onstage.... Soon Lizzie is once again thrown together with the handsome Inspector Will Davenport when a high profile investor is brutally hanged at centre stage and Lizzie discovers the body.

From the Booker Prize-longlisted author of Love and Other Thought Experiments comes a masterful and gripping thriller about truth, silence, and the weight of the past. Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, where she works at a nearby library. She feels safe, so long as she keeps to her...

Ellie never thought she'd meet fairies when she goes to stay with her aunt, but Myfanwy and Bronwen, the valley flower fairies, tell Ellie a secret. The old toy museum nearby contains the entrance to Fairyland and some of the toys can even come to life.

Originally published in 1928, The Well of Loneliness follows the life of Stephen Gordon, a girl born to parents who wished for a boy in late Victorian England. Through Stephen, Hall explores love, loneliness, and the struggle for self-acceptance in the face of rejection.

A fascinating exploration of the psychology behind the seven deadly sins: Why have we evolved these ugly emotions? What’s going on in the brain and the body when we feel them? And how best can we live alongside them - in ourselves and with others? Becky Ripley and Sophie Ward take a humorous and compelling look at the psychology behind each of the seven deadly sins. Rolling with the order established by Pope Gregory the Great, first up is pride, followed by greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and (finally) lazy old sloth.