Showing results by narrator "Rachel Atkins" in All Categories

There were six of them - three Katherines, two Annes, and a Jane. One of them was the king’s wife for 24 years, another for only a year and a half. One died, two were divorced, and two were beheaded. It was a dangerous, uncertain life.

After the King’s death in 1547, his sixth wife finds a box of old letters - one from each of the first five wives. They are sad, angry, frightened letters. They tell the story of what it was like to be the wife of Henry VIII of England.

A man lies half-drowned on a Cornish beach at dawn in the furthest days of this century. The old woman who discovers him, once a famous concert violinist, is close to death herself--or perhaps a new kind of life she can barely contemplate. Does death still exist at all, or has it finally been obliterated? And who is this strange man she's found? Is he a figure returned from her past, a new Messiah, or an empty vessel? God or the Devil?

This is a singular memoir: an excavation of mother love, a candid account of the agonies and absurdities of the cancer experience and a doggedly optimistic paean to life. When Genevieve Fox finds a lump in her throat, she turns up for the hospital diagnosis in a party frock and fancy hair. I can't have cancer, she thinks. I've done my hair. But there is another reason she can't countenance cancer. Genevieve was orphaned to it at the age of nine.

Chris Beckett's thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of contemporary short stories is a joy to listen to, rich in detail and texture. From stories about first love, to a man who discovers a labyrinth beneath his house, to an angel left alone at the end of the universe, Beckett displays both incredible range and extraordinary subtlety as a writer. Every story is a world unto itself - each one beautifully realized and brilliantly imagined.

The Cursed Wife by Pamela Hartshorne is a page-turning, psychological thriller set in Elizabethan London. Curses cannot be silenced . . . Mary lives a contented life as wife to a wealthy merchant in Elizabethan London. But there's a part of her past she can’t forget . . . As a small girl she...

Brought to you by Penguin. Every July, the lucky owners of Cornish holiday homes set off for their annual break. They close up their desirable semis in smartish London suburbs - having turned off the Aga and turned on the burglar alarm - and look forward to a carefree, restful, somehow more...

Authentic leadership is a persuasive and popular idea that continues to gain traction in terms of management thinking. Authentic leaders give people a sense of control and agency that makes them feel better about themselves, their future and their work, sparking change and transformation. But authentic leadership can never be static if it is to be truly successful.

You lost your daughter. You will never forgive yourself. And now someone is determined to make you pay.... Seventeen years ago, something happened to Jess' daughter, Beth. The memory of it still makes her blood run cold. Jess has tried everything to make peace with that day, and the part she played in what happened. It was only a brief moment of desire...but she'll pay for it with a lifetime of guilt.

Oh, how delightful it is to fall in love for the first time! How exciting to go to your first dance when you are a girl of 18! But life can also be hard and cruel, if you are young and inexperienced and travelling alone across Europe . . . or if you are a child from the wrong social class . . . or a singer without work and the rent to be paid. Set in Europe and New Zealand, these nine stories by Katherine Mansfield dig deep beneath the appearances of life to show us the causes of human happiness and despair.

We never forget the one who got away. Eighteen years ago Nell fell in love in the mountains of Crete, and life changed forever. Nell's daughter, Demi, has never met her dad. Nell never saw him again. When she gets the chance to return to the hilltop town of Vounoplagia - where everything began - Nell can't resist the urge to go back and find him. Working on a honey farm perched high up in the hills, there's plenty to keep her busy. And she will quickly realise the town harbours just as many secrets as she does.

Eighteen months after Natalie Gray loses her husband, Bernie, in a horrific hit and run accident, she finds love with his best friend, Ed Cooper, and moves into his home with her teenage daughter, Scarlett. But she begins to suspect Ed has a dark side - and even darker intentions. Natalie must get her troubled child to a safer place, but when Scarlett starts to hear voices coming from the empty apartment next door it seems she has unwittingly moved them into the heart of danger.

A zero tolerance policy results in the death penalty for all crimes, no matter how minor. When a judge is kidnapped, and a ransom note demands the release of all prisoners awaiting execution, kleptomaniac Detective Inspector Kate Swanson is put on the case. But soon her boss also disappears. Under increasing pressure from her superiors, and the growing social unrest, Swanson must race to find a man whose murdered wife and daughter link the missing men. Can she find him before it's too late?

Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband, Gil, about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides each in the thousands of books he has collected over the years. When Ingrid has written her final letter, she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan. Twelve years after her disappearance, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window.

Detective Jane Tennison must lift the lid on the most chilling murder case of her career to date. A coffin is dug up by builders in the grounds of an historic convent - inside is the body of a young nun. In a city as old as London, the discovery is hardly surprising. But when scratch marks are...

Jane Tennison must navigate the salacious world of theatre to solve a brutal murder in the heart of London's West End, in the brilliant new thriller from the Queen of Crime Drama, Lynda La Plante. Things can't get much worse for detective Jane Tennison. Unceremoniously kicked off the...

A smart and funny novel about love, life and a second shot at freedom for rebellious women of a certain age. Eliza is angry. Very angry, and very, very hot. Late for work and dodging traffic, Eliza's still reeling from the latest row with her husband Paddy. Twenty-something years ago their eyes...

Perfect for fans of Richard and Judy picks The Silent Patient and He Said/She Said. What if the people you trust are the ones you should fear most? We all recognise them: those who send prickles up the back of our necks. The charmers, the liars, the manipulators. Those who have the potential to...

Three brand-new adventures for glamorous bounty hunter Vienna Salvatori. 'Dead Drop' by Mark Wright. Dwarfed by the burning star of the Hyspero system, two devastating battle fleets face each other across the stars. On one side the Dyarid Primary Vanguard, commanded by Admiral Salaron aboard the starship Custodian. On the other a Chtzin battle cluster.

The Razor Gang Murder is the second book in the DI Ruth Hunter Crime prequel series. If you like chilling police procedurals, true-to-life characters, and psychological twists, then you’ll love Simon McCleave’s addictive series. A historic crime. A post-war gangland assassination. Can DC...

Diary of a War Crime is the first book in the DI Ruth Hunter Crime prequel series. If you like chilling police procedurals, true-to-life characters, and psychological twists, then you’ll love Simon McCleave’s addictive thrill ride. London, 1997. A series of baffling murders. A web of...