Showing results by narrator "Katy Sobey" in All Categories

It's 1915, and Ada, Jessie and Beatrice Saward live in a small Norfolk village with their parents. Their father, Harry, is the station master at Wolferton, the local stop for the Sandringham Estate. With members of the royal family and their guests passing through the train station on their way to Sandringham, the Saward family have a unique position within their small community.

Elderly widow Sabine knows this will be her last Christmas in her beloved home, Mitras Castle. Determined to make it just like the ones she remembers from her childhood, she employs Dido Jones of Heavenly Houseparties to help with the big day. Dido is enchanted by the castle as soon as she steps through the imposing front door. And as Christmas day approaches, her feeling of connection to the old house runs deeper than she first thought.

Rob and Emma have made a fresh start, moving away from London and back to her hometown. With their baby daughter Sophie, their family is complete. Until one night, Rob arrives home from a late shift to find baby Sophie crying and on her own. Frantically, he searches the house and surroundings, but Emma has disappeared without a trace. Rob is distraught. Emma couldn’t abandon their child - could she? As rumours spread around the village, Rob uncovers secrets about Emma’s past life that shake his foundations about the woman he thought he married.

Eleven-year-old Shelley only leaves her bedroom for two minutes, but when she gets back, there's a real, true-life, lavender-eyed baby on her bed. It's far too noisy, smelly and heavy to be a ghost baby - so whose is it? It can't be her mum's - Shelley would have noticed - but it's not like she's around for Shelley to ask, anyway. She's too busy trying to get her horrible ex-boyfriend Scott ('the Toadstool') back, who Shelley definitely does NOT like as much as her mum does. But someone's got to look after the baby, and give her a name.

Emily Smith was held in a prison of fear for 10 years. When she was four, her father left and a new man was brought into her life. He loved her, he kept telling her so, but the emotional and physical abuse she suffered at his hands were a daily nightmare. Until one day, after he crept into her bedroom, her life became unbearable. Emily found she was different in another way as her autism became more noticeable and punishments for her 'abnormal' behaviour more severe. Astonishingly, she managed to escape her home of hell, where she was abused right in front of her mother.

Lydia is killed in a car accident, but she returns to her bereft sister as a benign ghost who nonetheless comes to haunt the lives of those around her in unexpected ways: Jonathan Goldman, whose flat Lydia is running from when she is knocked down; his daughter, Stella, who has discovered her father has been having an affair with the gladiatorial Sonia; Stella's genius painter-boy lover, Izzy, whom she leaves behind as she flees to the arms of kindly Peregrine. Along with good stepmothers, bad mothers, strange professors and wicked monks, their lives collide in a breathtaking finale.

It is 1942 and Eva Adami has boarded a train to Auschwitz. Barely able to breathe due to the press of bodies and exhausted from standing up for two days, she can think only of her longed-for reunion with her husband Michal, who was sent there six months earlier. But when Eva arrives at Auschwitz, there is no sign of Michal and the stark reality of the camp comes crashing down upon her. As she lies heartbroken and shivering on a thin mattress, her head shaved by rough hands, she hears a whisper. Her bunkmate, Sofie, is reaching out her hand....

Annie Perry is born beside the coal-muddied canals of the Black Country, at the height of the Industrial Revolution. The youngest in a large Romani family who cannot afford to keep her, when she is eight years old, Annie is sold as a servant to the famous and feared bare-knuckle boxer Bill Perry, The Tipton Slasher. Bill is starting to lose his strength, but refuses to give up his crown. When it looks like a fight might become Bill's last, Annie steps into the ring, fists raised in his defence.

Lied to her whole life, Vega Jane broke away from the only home she'd ever known in search of the truth. She has battled monsters, with her best friend, Delph, alongside her, only to arrive in a place that's even more dangerous. The people there are enslaved and don't even know it. It's time for Vega and Delph to take up the fight against a cunning new enemy - and their success or failure will decide the fate of the whole world.

Sixteen-year-old Bessie works long hours as a weaver in Blackburn, helping to support her family. Meanwhile, her older sister, Peggy, works as an apprentice at the Girls' School, hoping for a more prosperous future as a schoolteacher. Jennet and Titus Eastwood have always made decisions for their daughters' futures. But as the sisters near adulthood, they are determined to make their own choices. And with temptation in the way, will the girls find love - or infatuation - leads them astray?

Lancashire, 1832. Maids Hannah and Mary find themselves with no jobs and no home when their employer, Henry Sudell, loses all his money and disappears in the middle of the night. They have no choice but to return to Blackburn where Hannah is lucky to be taken in by her sister, Jennet, and brother-in-law, Titus, but Mary must seek lodgings in the infamous Star beer house.

When Jennet and Titus Eastwood are forced to move from their idyllic cottage into the centre of Blackburn to find work in the cotton mills, their lives are changed in ways they could never have imagined, and their new home on Paradise Lane is anything but. Then Titus is arrested and sent to prison for attending a Reform meeting. Jennet is left to fend for herself, and things go from bad to worse as she finds herself pregnant and alone - with another man's child.

A miraculous new Christmas story from award-winning author Sally Nicholls about hope and heartbreak, wartime romance and the power of love. 17-year-old Margot Allan was a respectable vicar’s daughter and madly in love with her fiancé Harry. But when Harry was reported missing in action from the Western Front, and Margot realised she was expecting his child, there was only one solution she and her family could think of in order to keep that respectability. She gave up James, her baby son, to be adopted by her parents and brought up as her younger brother.

Angie Smith lives in Greenway, Chelmsford, with her elder sister, Doreen, their struggling mother and their drunk, violent father. Bored of her job and of her dull, ordinary boyfriend, Angie dreams of bigger and better things. But then she meets boutique owner Gene Battini. He is older, handsome, charming - and married. She is completely swept off her feet. But little does she know that Doreen is falling for Gene, too, and that their affair will have disastrous consequences.

When Annie Trebarwith unexpectedly inherits Tregavara House, her much-loved family home atop the cliffs of Salt Bay, she begins to wonder: with all the good friends and warm memories she’s made in the village, could it be her forever home? Luckily her gorgeous Poldark-lookalike boyfriend, Josh Pasco, has exactly the same idea. High on the Cornish cliffs he gets down on one knee, and Annie has everything she’s ever dreamed of.

Annie Trebarwith is happily settled in Salt Bay with her beloved great-aunt Alice and gorgeous boyfriend Josh Pasco. Snow is in the air, and Christmas is just around the corner. But when the father she’s never met, aging rock god Barry, turns up with the half-sister Annie didn’t know existed, life suddenly gets complicated. Barry and Storm are soon clashing with the entire village, and their antics are even driving a wedge between Annie and Josh.

When 29-year-old Annie Trebarwith receives an unexpected letter from a great-aunt she’s never known, she leaves her shoebox-size flat in London and catches a train to the rugged Cornish coast. Salt Bay is beautiful, and Annie begins to kindle a bond with her great-aunt Alice. Even though there is zero phone signal and the locals - including the gorgeous but brooding Josh Pasco - can be decidedly grumpy at times, Annie starts to feel at home in Salt Bay.

Pregnant Victoria Valbon was brutally murdered in an alley three weeks ago - and her killer hasn’t been caught. Tonight is Stella McKeever’s final radio show. The theme is secrets. You tell her yours, and she’ll share some of hers. Stella might tell you about Tom, a boyfriend who likes to play games, about the mother who abandoned her, now back after 14 years. She might tell you about the perfume bottle with the star-shaped stopper, or about her father....

As the storm clouds gather over Europe, life at Easterleigh Hall is about to change again. 1937. Evie and her family have struggled to keep Easterleigh Hall, now a hotel, running during the depression, and with war looming, she worries for the children, who have to find their way in a changing world. Bridie is learning her trade at her mother Evie’s side, and is becoming a talented chef. Her cousin James has run away to fight in Spain, leaving the family devastated.

Martha is lost. She’s been lost since she was a baby, abandoned in a suitcase on the train from Paris. Ever since, she’s waited in the station's lost property for someone to claim her. It’s been 16 years, but she’s still hopeful. In the meantime, there are mysteries to solve: secret tunnels under the station, a suitcase that may have belonged to the Beatles, the Roman soldier who appears at the same time every day with his packed lunch. Not to mention the stuffed monkey that someone keeps misplacing.