Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

Mr Darcy and Elizabeth now have two children, Miranda and Edward. Miranda is a model daughter, well attuned to life at splendid Pemberley and, were it not for her sex, would make a perfect heir. Edward, alas, would not, and as he and his grandmother, Mrs Bennet, fall into the clutches of those who are not what they seem, awful questions arise about the succession at Pemberley - must the entail be broken and Edward disinherited, ending the Darcy line on the estate?

At the age of 21, Monica Baldwin - the niece of Stanley Baldwin - entered one of the most strictly enclosed contemplative orders of the Roman Catholic Church. At the age of 48, and after struggling with her vocation for many years, she left the convent. But the world Monica had known and forsaken in 1914 was very different from the world into which she emerged at the height of the Second World War.

As she puts the final stitches in her wedding dress, Sarah Love receives news which wrecks her future plans. Heartbroken, she leaps at a chance to make a fresh start. Within a week she has crossed the Irish Sea, and is lodging with other young women in a house in Newcastle, just a short walk from Harrison's, the rundown sewing shop where she will work for troubled spinster, Lucy Harrison. Putting the past behind her, she channels her energies into rebuilding Harrison's into a thriving business and her wonderful sewing and design skills soon lead her down a new path in life.

Hilary Napier has had enough of secrets. The engagement party at the Barton is finally a chance for her and David to celebrate their good news. But the course of true love never did run smooth. At the school, Frances and James are readying the children for the play at the annual Summer Fair and doing their best to ignore their feelings for each other. Will the chaos-causing Crocker twins make it to the dress rehearsal? And, more importantly, will Frances find a way to let herself love again?

The village of Burracombe is looking forward to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, but the year of 1953 is to prove a year of heartbreak as well as celebration. While Stella Simmons begins to plan her wedding, her sister Maddy is only just coming to terms with the loss of her own fiancé; Val and Luke Ferris are wondering if they will ever become parents, and Hilary Napier wonders if love will ever find her. The Tozer family also face anxiety.

At the dawn of the Victorian epoch two young sisters, industrious Carrie and vivacious May, lose home and livelihood when their Leeds pub is sold to make way for the coming of the railway. They head for Harrogate to find work in the burgeoning hotel trade only to fall prey to fraudsters before being driven apart by misunderstanding, pride and a mutual sense of betrayal. Estranged from one another, Carrie and May must each pursue their own destinies as they seek to overcome misfortune and look for lasting happiness.

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.

On Easter day in 1918, Frances Kemp looked out at the little thatched village and promised that, one day, she'd come back...Long before Miss Kemp became headmistress of the village school, she had reason to know and love Burracombe. Sent to stay with family, young Frances treasured her summers there and the friends she made. But as she grows up, she admits that there is someone there who is more than just a friend.

Steal a glimpse at the past lives and loves of your favourite villagers in this captivating Burracombe short story. Autumn 1918 has brought young Alice Whiddon to the Tozer's farm to work as a maid. Alice soon falls in love with the little village and with life on the farm. But that's not all she's falling for. Youngest son, Ted Tozer is half promised to young Ivy Prowse, daughter of a neighbouring farmer, yet Alice and Ted feel a powerful bond forming.

It's the late 1950s and change is in the air. For the Napier family, up at the big house, the old ways are shifting. Hilary must discover if reaching out for a chance of happiness must mean breaking away from the life expected of her, while Patsy, their young housekeeper's help, is facing motherhood without her own family around her. Down the hill from the Napiers, villagers young and old are setting out on adventures.

"I dragged my heels all the way to the mill. ‘I can’t do it!’ I sulked. Mother sighed and shook her head. My heart sank. Of course, I’d seen the mill hundreds of times before, but now it was different - now, I was going in. I’d never seen a place so depressing; I wanted to cry." With tales from hardworking Audrey and mischievous Maureen to high-spirited Doris and dedicated Marjorie, The Mill Girls is an evocative story of hardship and friendship from when cotton was still king.

Hull, 1874. Clara had always wondered about the beautiful, mysterious Jewel Newmarch, who was adopted as a baby and turns heads wherever she goes - her exotic looks point to her origins far away from the streets of Hull. Even at her twin sister Elizabeth’s wedding, Clara knows that Jewel is the belle of the ball. And as Jewel looks on at the happy, newly-married couple she feels a restlessness and intense longing to know her own roots.

Poppy Mazzini, born in Hull over her father’s grocery shop, lives up to the promise of her fiery red hair and Italian ancestry. Her lovely singing voice and good looks lead her to her great ambition - to go on the stage and see her name top of the bill. She becomes a music hall star both in her native town and in the south, after an appearance in the theatre at Brighton.

When Laura Page returns to the remote Holderness village of Welwick, it is to try and discover the mystery of her mother Susannah’s early life. Now a local property owner in Hull, Susannah never speaks of her childhood, when she was brought up with the terrible stigma of bastardy – of being nobody’s child. Born into poverty, living in a tiny labourer’s cottage with her father, Susannah’s mother had caught the eye of the local landowner’s son.

Women’s contribution to the war effort was constantly changing, and The Despatch-Rider follows one young woman’s determination to contribute in a practical way. 

A story from The Prisoner’s Defence, a collection of First World War short stories. In 'Paraphernalia' a nurse describes the difficulty in distancing herself from her patients and their suffering. 

The life of a Bomb Girl isn't usually glamourous. But Maggie is getting married, so she is going to make sure her wedding day is - even if she does have to spend every other day slaving on the factory floor. This blasted factory was not what Julia had in mind either. She had always dreamed of attending Oxford University rather than getting her hands dirty, and the easy laughter of the other women intimidates her terribly. But they are all here together in this munitions factory in a Lancashire mill town, sharing firsts, pitching in and getting on. These Bomb Girls are going to do their best at work and in love.

Despite the war, life had to go on at home, and in this short story, the voluntary work carried out by women on the home front is brought to the fore.

When Carrie Chapman signs up to be an ambulance attendant at the outbreak of World War Two, she has little idea of what lies in store. The job is gruelling, yet it will also bring her freedom, and a love affair that gives her more happiness than she has ever known. But on a summer evening, five years after the war, horrific events change Carrie’s life forever.

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.