Showing results by author "Laura Pearson" in All Categories

A podcast that looks back to the teenage years with all the nostalgia and hindsight that comes with that. We’re here to talk about those first huge feelings of love, loss and friendship.

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard that AJ Silver had died. In summer 1996, there was no avoiding the story that America's biggest teen pop sensation had plunged to his death on a rollercoaster at a family-run amusement park in rural England. Now, 27 years have passed, and – even if you’re too young to remember the event – you’ve probably heard AJ Silver's songs topping the charts again. So what better time to take a forensic look at what happened that summer?

Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’. But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’. Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since the fateful day she left more than sixty years ago.

Soon after Anna goes on the best date of her life with a man called James—she and her best friend Nia visit a fortune teller. Who tells Nia that she will have one great love. But all she tells Anna is that her future is with a man whose name begins with a J. It won’t be James, though—he never calls. And then Anna meets Edward—gorgeous, kind, loving. He’s all she’s ever dreamed of. Until he asks her to make a choice about their future. If Anna says ‘yes’ to him, her life will go one way. If she says ‘no’, it’ll go another. Both of the worlds could be happy.

Debbie Jones thinks life is an adventure. Even having lost her husband a year ago, she’s ready for whatever the world might throw her way. Being in her sixties doesn’t mean it’s all over for her yet, and she loves her new job doing neighbourhood support for a charity. Then she knocks on a stranger’s front door. Ruth Waverley doesn’t like surprises. Her life isn’t perhaps all she once dreamed off, but what other options are there for a woman in her sixties? She’s proud of her home and children. And she likes her life well enough. Then she hears someone knocking at the door.

Back then, all I remember was laughter and joy. I was the first-born child, and I remember so clearly my parents’ joyful faces as I held my little sister, Phoebe, for the first time. But then one devastating day, everything changed, when Phoebe died. And it tore us all apart. Then the third daughter – baby Bea – was born. It was meant to be the start of us healing. Becoming a family again. But the truth was, nothing would ever be the same again.

When Jess gives birth to Edie, it’s the happiest day of her life. She knows, from the moment her little girl’s hand grasps her finger, that her daughter owns her heart, completely and utterly. And even though Edie’s father has left them, and single motherhood isn’t easy, her beautiful, innocent child brings her untold joy.

Emily and Josephine have always shared everything. They’re sisters, flatmates and best friends. It’s the two of them against the world. When Emily has the perfect wedding and Josephine finds the perfect man, they know things will change forever. But nothing can prepare them for what – or who – one of them is willing to give up for love. Four people. Three couples. Two sisters. One unforgivable betrayal.

You’ve heard of the Afterlife. Welcome to the Beforelife. There are four of us: Samuel, Lucy, Thomas, and me – Eliza. We came into being the day Becca Valentine was born. We’ve been by her side ever since. What she doesn’t know yet, is that one day she might become our mother. Then two men come into her life. Both seeking her heart. And then we realise: everything rests on Becca’s love story. Because one of the men is Lucy and Thomas’s father. And the other is mine and Samuel’s. And there’s simply no way we can all be born.

Suddenly Maddy is right there… in her very own future. And it’s all wrong, yet again. It happens to her every time. When the kisses lead to the bedroom, just when she thinks she might have found the one… Just for a split second, Maddy disappears, and she finds that she’s living her own life. But ten years into the future. She’s only there for a little while. But each time, it’s long enough to know that she doesn’t want to be any of those future versions of Maddy. Because every man she falls for seems to lead her to a future that is just… wrong. Until she meets Oliver.

When Shelley Woodhouse wakes up in hospital from a coma, the first thing she says is that her husband must be arrested. He’s the reason she’s in here. She knows it. She remembers what he did. Clearly as anything. But there are things Shelley has forgotten too, including parts of her childhood. And as those start to come back to her, so do other memories. Ones with the power to change everything.