Showing results by author "Anna Jacobs" in All Categories

Si, dans les années 1860, Singapour a tout d'une destination exotique, elle n'en reste pas moins une ville impressionnante pour Isabella, jeune Anglaise sans le sou, orpheline depuis la mort de sa mère. Ne trouvant pas de place de gouvernante, elle accepte l'offre de M. Lee, un riche marchand chinois. Elle s'installera chez lui et lui enseignera l'anglais. Deux ans plus tard, ce dernier lui présente Bram Deagan, un Irlandais ambitieux souhaitant s'installer en Australie et y ouvrir un négoce. M. Lee pousse Isabella à épouser Bram et à le suivre dans l'aventure.

Dans l'arrière-pays australien où il n'a pas plu depuis des mois, Maia et Xanthe Blake, 27 ans, les deux sœurs cadettes de Cassandra, abordent un tournant de leur vie. Maia, gouvernante dans une propriété, est amoureuse de son patron. Mais ce dernier est marié. Xanthe, de son côté, n'a qu'une idée : voyager et retrouver son Lancashire natal.

Rosalind and her husband, Paul, move from Australia to England due to his job with a multinational company. But Paul is called away to deal with a crisis in Hong Kong, and Rosalind is left to settle in a new country on her own. One by one her three grown children need help, and there is only Rosalind available, because as usual Paul puts his job first. When she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful for years, it appears to be the final blow to their marriage, especially as she has met another man. 

When the teenage girl who's been hanging around near the house knocks on the door and tells her she's her granddaughter, Cassie is shocked rigid. There's only one way this can be true: if Evie is the daughter of the baby Cassie gave away for adoption when she was herself a troubled teenager. Is this a trick? Or is Evie's tale true? When she finds out why the girl has come to find her, it brings a tangle of other problems that she can't ignore. This was the last thing she expected to be dealing with as she moves into her new home in a leisure village in Wiltshire.

1861. Le Lancashire subit la crise. Privées de coton, les filatures ferment une à une en Angleterre, plongeant la population dans la misère. Cassandra Blake, ses trois sœurs cadettes et leur père Edwin tentent malgré tout de faire face à l'adversité. Mais la mort du patriarche vient tout bouleverser.

This collection of stand-alone short stories is a treat for new listeners and dedicated fans alike. In each of these 17 stories, an ordinary person takes on an extraordinary journey to a new life, discovering facets and strengths they never knew they possessed. Across a variety of time periods and settings, these stories capture Anna Jacobs' unique style and showcase her mastery of emotional tales.

"Crime Plagues Rio as Olympics Begin, despite Security Force of 85,000" is from the August 07, 2016, World section of The New York Times. It was written by Anna Jean Kaiser and Andrew Jacobs and narrated by Kristi Burns.

Armistice Day, London, 1918. Fiercely independent Georgie is tired of being told what's best for her by men. When she defies her father's wishes by going out into the peace festivities, she tries to help a woman being attacked and encounters Patrick, a gallant wounded ex-soldier looking for a new calling now that the fighting is done. But the war isn't over for everybody. Enemy forces have infiltrated the bureau and sent her father into hiding. And they are coming for her, too. Georgie knows there's only one place where she'll be safe: Honeyfield. 

Hampshire, 1900: With the sudden death of her father, the life of 15-year-old Harriet Benson changes forever. Forced from her home, Harriet is sent into service to provide for the family. Arriving at the grand Dalton House, she meets the owners' crippled son Joseph, with whom friendship soon blossoms. When circumstances force Joseph to leave the family home, Harriet is happy to accompany him. But Harriet is unprepared for her inheritance of Greyladies, a supposedly haunted house in the country.

During WWI Greyladies is requisitioned by the government as a POW internment centre. Harriet is now a widow, as she has always known she would be with such a frail husband as Joseph, but now has a son and daughter to care for. The three of them go to live with Joseph’s family when Greyladies is requisitioned. Harriet is worried that all her careful renovations will be destroyed and her search for other Latimer women has to be abandoned temporarily because of the war.

The houses in Saffron Lane are being filled with artists thanks to the efforts of Nell and Angus. Ginger doesn’t win a place there but gets a job running the small café/art gallery, taking refuge there from her abusive bully of a son. When she meets Iain, sparks fly between them, the first time she’s felt attracted to anyone for years. But will her son spoil it? 

After being driven from home by their brutal father, the Willett sisters find themselves facing greater heartache in the wider world. Nell, the middle daughter, has left home to be with her lover, Cliff, fearing what reprisals might come from marrying against her father’s wishes. The couple head for Lancashire, but Nell’s happiness is short-lived.

Janey is 18 and living in a small flat with her baby daughter. Just as her new life starts to show promise, her past catches up with her. Nicole is renting one of the new luxury flats. She’s just walked away from her husband and teenage sons, tired of being treated as a servant, suspecting her husband of having an affair. Winifred has lived in her large family home for over 80 years but it’s all getting too much, though she doesn’t want to leave. Things are not what they seem, and danger can strike both rich and poor.

Now that Nell's three sons are in work and becoming more independent, she's ready to build a new life for herself. She's been left a house in England and decides to leave Australia to start a new chapter. On her arrival at Peppercorn Street, Nell encounters Angus Denning, a software engineer with a stately home at the end of the road. Then there's Winifred, an elderly lady who lives alone but has made friends with young single mum Janey.

When Megan meets Ben Saunders, she's very attracted and he seems the same, but she didn't expect him to propose immediately. It'd be like marrying a stranger. Only, how can she refuse when they get on so well and he goes to Australia in a week? Can they make this sudden marriage work?

Eleanor and Beatrice dream of lovematches but the Dowager insists romantic love is for housemaids, not for the Graceover women. Beatrice, despatched to London to look over the current crop of bachelors, is unimpressed by the frivolities of the Season. Disturbed by the languid charm of Lord Serle and appalled by the mercenary attitudes to marriage displayed by Society, Beatrice’s country innocence and unconventional behaviour lead her into some alarming situations.

Nell has come to feel very at home in her beautiful corner of Wiltshire with her partner, Angus. What she could do with, however, is a challenge, and the prospect of bringing life back to an abandoned row of houses, Saffron Lane, is just what she’s looking for. Stacy, lost and alone after a divorce she didn’t see coming, is trying her best to start over. And Elise, battling her nieces who would force her into residential care, longs for a home where she can get back to her painting. When their paths cross, the future starts to look brighter - although not all goes according to plan.

For Mattie Willit, caught in a thunderstorm running away from her bullying stepfather, rescue comes in the form of Jacob Kemble, a widowed farmer living with his two young children. She is escaping from an enforced marriage; he, struggling with the memory of a loveless one. As Jacob nurses Mattie back to health, the two come know and love each other. Meanwhile, wealthy and elderly Miss Emily Newington needs their help to save her from her greedy cousin who is plotting to take her house.

Olivia Hanbury is widowed in the middle of WWI and reluctantly goes back to live with her parents. In the village the Vicar's wife is trying to set up a women's institute. Olivia helps her, and for the first time since her husband's death she feels useful. However, her family decide the Vicar's wife is giving her foolish ideas, so they forbid her to help any more. Instead Olivia runs away to become one of the paid organisers who is helping set up local women's institutes in Wiltshire.

Renie, the youngest sister, is living with the newly married Nell, happy in her waitressing job at the King’s Head Hotel. But a shadow falls over her the day Mr Judson arrives as assistant manager. Feeling increasingly harassed by him and also eager to escape from Nell’s unpleasant husband, Renie is delighted when she is offered a new job in London.