Showing results by narrator "Penelope Freeman" in All Categories

She longed to be reunited with her family. The compelling new novel from the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Workhouse Girl. Eleven-year-old Stella Barry is forced into service when her family find themselves living hand-to-mouth. Leaving her mother and younger brother and sister...

It is April 1939 and unaware that the German war machine is advancing towards the Channel Islands, seventeen-year-old Meg Colivet and her sister are enjoying a holiday in Oxford with their aunt. Here Meg meets charismatic German undergraduate Rayner Weiss and the couple fall passionately in love...

As the war takes its toll, the Nightingale nurses must do their bit for king and country... Dora is the devoted mother of twin babies, but, determined to help the war effort, she goes back to work at the Nightingale Hospital. More used to nights out in the West End, Jennifer and Cissy volunteer in the hope of tending to handsome soldiers. They soon find out that nursing isn’t quite what they were expecting.

Dora and her old enemy Lucy are paired up on the children's ward for the final three months of their training. The two nurses couldn't seem more different, but they may have more in common than they think, as each hides a secret heartache. And there are new faces. Jess is the feisty eldest daughter of a notorious East End family and determined to prove herself as a ward maid. New trainee nurse Effie can't wait to escape her small Irish village, and make her way as a nurse in London.

Orphan William Hyde and professor's daughter Melissa Elmet fell passionately in love as teenagers at Oxford. But, after her family intervenes, their secret marriage is annulled. Heartbroken, Melissa retreats into her shell, now a shy academic. Will, on the other hand, joins MI6 - then becomes a millionaire in New York, with a model girlfriend and only dark memories of the young woman who broke his heart.

It's the final year of training for three young nurses at The Nightingale Hospital. Helen is at a crossroads in her life as she battles with her domineering mother over both her love life and her future career. Dora can't stop loving Nick, who is married to her best friend, Ruby. Millie is anxious about her fiancé, sent to Spain to cover the Civil War, and things only get worse when she encounters a fortune teller who gives her a sinister warning.

It’s the early 1920s. Julia Howard’s father is a toy manufacturer who created a paper doll in her image. However, Julia longs to cast off her goody-goody reputation, but her plans to do so are thwarted by wealthy businessman Latham Miller. When Julia marries Latham to please her father, Latham proves to be a controlling man who has no intention of giving up his outside pleasures. But when Julia is reunited with an old acquaintance, the attraction that once existed between them grows into love.

Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?

It’s the perfect wedding: tropical sunshine, glamorous guests, a beautiful bride and a handsome Hollywood millionaire. But the day is about to take a shocking turn. Lisa Costello has all the expensive clothes and exotic vacations that come with dating a rich man. But her relationship with Josh Steen is a sham. Yet nothing could have prepared Lisa for the morning after their decadent wedding in Thailand. Josh is dead – and it looks like Lisa killed him.

DCI Monika Paniatowski has a bitter personla history with Chief Superintendent Kershaw, but that is not the only reason she doesn’t want the investigation into the sudden – and probably violent – disappearance of his wife, Elaine, landing on her desk. Why should all the resources be channelled into this one case?Why doesn’t somebody take an interest in the disappearance of a young prostitue called Grace Meade?

To the student nurses at The Nightingale hospital, the ward sisters are heartless and frightening, with impossibly high standards. But the sisters have troubles of their own...Dora, the student nurse is struggling with her heartbreak over Nick, the man who got away. A new arrival on the ward brings the chance to put a smile back on her face. But can she really get over Nick so easily? Dora's fellow student Millie is also torn between the two men in her life.

Christmas Eve, 1936. On a foggy December night, a pregnant woman walks out in front of a trolley bus and is knocked unconscious. She is rushed to the Nightingale hospital, and a healthy baby is delivered. But the mother claims to have lost her memory, and cannot believe that the child is hers. It seems that the Nightingale nurses may need to perform a Christmas miracle.

As Christmas 1938 approaches, the staff at the Nightingale Hospital have their own wishes for the festive season. Ward sister Frannie Wallace is hoping she won't have to live through another war like the one that claimed her fiance. Staff Nurse Helen Dawson wants to find happiness again after the death of her husband Charlie. But is she looking for love in the wrong place? Matron Kathleen Fox struggles to keep up morale.

Welcome to the district nurses' home on Steeple Street, where everyone has a secret.... Ambitious young nurse Agnes Sheridan had a promising future ahead of her until a tragic mistake cost her the love and respect of everyone around her. Now she has come to Leeds for a fresh start as a trainee district nurse. But Agnes finds herself facing unexpected challenges as she is assigned to Quarry Hill, one of the city's most notorious slums.

With her husband, Nick, away fighting, Dora struggles to keep the home fires burning but finds herself in a difficult position when she is put in charge of a ward of injured German POWs. Can she find it in her heart to care for her enemies? Fellow nurse Kitty faces a similar struggle looking after the men who killed her beloved brother. But her life becomes even more complicated when she falls for one of the prisoners. And Helen Denton returns from nursing in Europe with a secret. She has her own reasons for hating the Germans.

Cornwall, 1793. As the French Revolution threatens the stability of England, so too is discontent brewing in the heart of Celia Cavendish. Promised to the brutal Viscount Vallenforth, she must find a way to break free from the bounds of a life stifled by convention and cruelty. Celia enlists her neighbours, Sir James and Lady Polcarrow, in the hope of escaping her impending marriage and making a new life for herself.

Matron Kathleen Fox has the job of putting the hospital back together but wonders if she is up to the task. In an attempt to bring some festive cheer, she decides to put on a Christmas show. The idea is greeted with mixed feelings by the nurses, who all have their own problems, and also by the new Assistant Matron and ward sister, who find themselves rivals for the role of organiser. But as rehearsals begin, the performers begin to find the show is not just a tonic for the patients.

November gloom had descended on London when, at 1752 hours (5:52 p.m. on unofficial clocks), a telephone call was received at the Pine Road, Chelsea, police station....

East Kent, 1830. Catherine Rook takes her peaceful life for granted. Her days are spent at the village school and lending a hand on her family's farm. But rural unrest begins sweeping through Kent, and when Pa Rook buys a threshing machine it brings tragedy to Wanstall Farm. With the Rooks' fortunes forever changed, Catherine must struggle to hold her family together. She turns to her childhood companion, Matty Carter, for comfort, and finds more than friendship in his loving arms.

West Yorkshire, 1926. After completing her training in Steeple Street, Agnes is looking forward to making her mark as the village's first district nurse, confident she can make a difference in the locals' lives. But when she arrives, she's treated with suspicion, labelled just another servant of the wealthy mine owners. The locals would much rather place their trust in the resident healer, Nella Black.