Showing results by narrator "Julia Franklin" in All Categories

'Was this what it all meant - utter, intact separateness, obscured by heat of living?' In Odour of Chrysanthemums D.H. Lawrence explores the concept of human isolation and the nature of love and relationships. This is the story of Elizabeth, a young wife and mother waiting for her alcoholic...

Six children - Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny and Louis - meet in a garden close to the sea, their voices sounding over the constant echo of the waves that roll back and forth from the shore. The book follows them as they develop from childhood to maturity and follow different passions...

A gripping novel about how friendships survive the best and worst of times from the bestselling author of SUMMER AT THE LAKE. Dan and Sally Oliver and their friend Chloe Hennessey are lucky to be alive. Three years on, after surviving one of the world's biggest natural disasters - the Boxing Day...

A BRAND-NEW romantic, Spring getaway read from bestseller Jennifer Bohnet, set in the South of France ❤️✨ Perfect for the fans of Jill Mansell and Fern Britton.☀️🏝️ Can a talented chef and a group of writers rediscover joy—and perhaps even create new beginnings? Eight months...

After spending her childhood in Haddon House Children's Hostel, Alice Tucker is selected to go into service at Holmorton Lodge. Left behind in the workhouse after the death of her father and the disappearance of her mother, the only clues to Alice's past lie in hazy childhood memories. Now, ten years later, she longs to uncover the truth about her family and who she really is. When a chance discovery leads her from a Welsh nursing home to a solicitor's office in Manchester, Alice begins to unravel a story far more tangled than she imagined.

"Demonstrating singular adeptness with mood and pacing, narrator Julia Franklin shines in this character-rich mystery set in northern England...Franklin's performance is direct and punchy, matching the speed and shrewdness of Vera's first-rate mind." — AudioFile Magazine From Ann Cleeves—New...

From Victoria Glendinning, winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and (twice) the Whitbread Prize for Biography. ‘It’s Succession in tailcoats and spats … This is a vivid and eye-opening group biography, backgrounded by the rise of supermarket moguls from humble...

Rosie Jackson is beginning to slowly come to terms with a new life and a new future at the age of 65. Rosie is bereft when her husband, Mike, dies. She misses him terribly; even though he wasn't the love of her life, she feels lonely in her grief, despite being close to her two grown-up daughters. With time away from the family florist business, Rosie has the space to think about the past and what might have been.

Just back from honeymoon, the last thing Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy wants to deal with is nuisance calls from an old lady ringing the police incessantly to report seemingly trivial incidents. The woman in question is Timony Weeks, a sixties’ child star in the once-popular soap Butterfield Farm, who lives in an isolated farmhouse. Is she putting on an act and wasting police time, or is someone really trying to frighten her?

Anna is a child of special, unknowable qualities. She is a happy child, always willing to smile at the world around her. But she also presents profound challenges. For her mother Jess, still in her early 20s, living alone in North London and hoping to embark on an adventurous career, her arrival will prove life-transforming. Over the course of decades, in ways large and small, Anna will affect the lives and loves of those around her. While Anna herself will remain largely unaltered by the passing years, she will live through a period of dramatic change.

Summer, 1914. Amy Fletcher’s life is transformed when she meets Edmond Derwent, son of one of the wealthiest families in the small town of Larchbury, and student at Cambridge University. When war breaks out, Edmond signs up as an officer and Amy trains as a VAD nurse. Separated by war, Edmond and Amy share their feelings through emotional letters sent from the front line. But when Edmond is critically wounded at Ypres, their love faces the biggest test of all.

Lady Celia Cleveden considers herself practical, resourceful and independent; the perfect wife for a junior diplomat. But George, her husband, seems more interested in her playing the nurse than a wife, and Celia is beginning to wonder if the match has been a huge mistake. En route to the exotic...

Manchester, 1940: the minute war was declared, best friends Sally and Debs volunteered for the home guard. An Auxiliary Fire Service girl by night, Sally ends up stationed at the salvage depot by day. When Sally meets Andrew, a quiet carpenter with a heart-breaking smile, she finally feels as though her efforts are making a difference. As love blossoms, Sally feels herself opening up to Andrew in a way she'd never imagined possible. But then, a devastating air raid threatens everything she holds dear.

Tom is a teenager and blends into the background of life. After a row with his dad and facing an unhappy future at the dog food factory, he escapes to the library. Tom unwittingly ends up with a bagful of romance novels and comes under the suspicion of Maggie. Maggie is a pensioner and has been happily alone for 10 years, at least that's what she tells herself. When Tom comes to her rescue, a friendship develops that could change her life.

Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned and the project was left abandoned and unfinished. Yet in the early 20th century it attracted three fascinating women: Luisa Casati...

In the first volume of this epic new series, Alison Weir strips away centuries of romantic mythology and prejudice to reveal the lives of England's queens in the century after the Norman Conquest. Beginning with Matilda of Flanders, who supported William the Conqueror in 1066, to the turbulent...

Surrounded by secrets, great and small, the formidable Miss Phryne Fisher returns to vanquish injustice. When a mysterious invitation arrives for Miss Phryne Fisher from an unknown Captain Herbert Spencer, Phryne's curiosity is excited. Spencer runs a retreat in Victoria's spa country for...

1954, Venice. Rosy Gilchrist thinks luck may be on her side. Her boss at the British Museum has chosen her to travel to Venice, track down a rare edition of Horace’s Odes for their collection. Things soon take a drastic downward spiral. A wealthy recluse offers a million pound reward for...

Mistresses and wives, mothers and daughters - Antonia Fraser brilliantly explores the relationships which existed between The Sun King and the women in his life. This includes not only Louis XIV's mistresses, principally Louise de La Vallière, Athénaïs de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame...

Meet Patience Portefeux, 53, an underpaid Franco-Arab judicial interpreter for the Ministry of Justice who specialises in telephone tapping. Widowed after the sudden death of her husband, Patience is now wedged between university fees for her two grown-up daughters and nursing home costs for her ageing mother. She’s laboured for 25 years to keep everyone’s heads above water.