Showing results by narrator "Emma Spurgin Hussey" in All Categories

Sara has lost her zest for life. Trapped sharing a house with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, with grown-up children who still need her but take her for granted, working in a job where her boss bullies her, the final straw is the heartbreak of losing her beloved best friend Lainey. But Lainey’s death could be the beginning of Sara’s new life … as the last gift Lainey gives to her friend is a sum of money and a request – that Sara travels to Italy, the scene of the pair’s youthful adventures, and scatters Lainey’s ashes on the beach at Portofino. For once, Sara decides to be brave.

Steph has spent decades building a family with her husband, Mal, and putting their family first. She is the glue that holds them all together, and she has convinced herself that she’s been happy...most of the time. But as she stands at her birthday party watching her husband talking about a wonderful marriage she doesn’t fully recognise, the doubts that she has been pushing down for so long begin to grow.

What if the perfect life you envy was rotten to the core? Three brand-new friends. Three very different families. Way too many secrets. Gisela, Sally and Kate become close when they move into the same new housing estate. But behind their shiny front doors, each has something to hide. Three lives collide in this gripping story about friendship, motherhood and marriage and the façade of perfection people present to the world.

Lara's life looks perfect on the surface. Gorgeous doting husband Massimo, sweet little son Sandro and the perfect home. Lara knows something about Massimo. Something she can't tell anyone else or everything Massimo has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation, their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage. Maggie is married to Massimo's brother Nico. She knows all of Nico's darkest secrets - or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic....

When Elizabeth drops her beloved only daughter off at college, she holds back the tears…fighting her worries about an empty nest with the thought of all the adventures that she and her husband Joel can now enjoy together. But as soon as they sit down to eat dinner that evening, Joel drops a bombshell. He wants a break. Searching for an escape, Elizabeth discovers an apartment in Rome that is only available for three months rental to ‘an English woman of a certain age’.

Seventy-five-year-old Ronnie has made it her mission to help women of a certain age rediscover themselves. The owner of a palazzo in Rome, she has left her troubled past behind and reinvented herself in the most beautiful city in the world. And now she helps other women to do the same. Renting out her spare apartment for three months at a time, Ronnie invites her guests to take on a series of challenges that will help them to embrace beauty and joy, to rediscover themselves and to live their lives to the fullest. But Ronnie’s confident exterior hides heartbreak and closely held secrets.

Jo had thought that her life - and her heart - was full. With a busy job, a husband and a teenage daughter who is going off the rails, keeping her life running smoothly had already felt hard enough. But now Jo sits at the funeral of her best friend, Ginny, crushed by the loss of a friendship that had endured for 30 years: from college and their first days at work through to settling down and raising their own children. Against her husband’s wishes, Jo has made a life-changing decision: to take in Ginny’s teenage son, Victor, and raise him as her own.

The official inside story of the life, death and remarkable discovery of history's most controversial monarch. On 22 August 1485 Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field, the last king of England to die in battle. His victorious opponent, Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII), went on to found one of our most famous ruling dynasties. Richard's body was displayed in undignified fashion for two days in nearby Leicester and then hurriedly buried in the church of the Greyfriars.

In Chaucer's People, Liza Picard guides us through the tumultuous world of the late 14th century in an ingenious, informative and entertaining way. Through the assorted cast of pilgrims Chaucer selected for The Canterbury Tales, Picard brings medieval social history to life and uncovers the detail behind Chaucer's poetic portraits. These are the lives lived beyond the court circles frequented by most of his well-heeled audience.

Adventures in Volcanoland charts journeys across deserts, through jungles and up ice caps, to some of the world's most important volcanoes, from Nicaragua to Hawaii, Santorini to Ethiopia, exploring Tamsin Mather's obsession with these momentous geological formations, the cultural and religious roles they have played in the minds of those living around them at different times throughout history, and the science behind their formation and eruptions.

As a child, Vicky Hall never had the sort of family she wanted. The least important person in her new step-family, ignored by her mother in favour of her two younger half siblings, Vicky was always an afterthought. Sitting alone at her graduation ceremony at the age of 21, she vows to create her own family and her own life, one which is full of the love and attention she has always craved.

When Lydia was a teenager, she made a decision that ruined her family's life. They've spent the last 30 years living with the consequences and doing their best to pretend it never happened. Lydia's husband, the gorgeous and reliable Mark, and her two teenage children know nothing about that summer back in 1982. And that's the way Lydia wants it to stay. The opportunity to come clean is long gone, and now it's not the lie that matters; it's the betrayal of hiding the truth for so long.

Finally, Cath has met someone: a man she loves, Robin, and who adores her in return. And after years of managing fine on her own, running a successful business, raising her son and caring for her elderly mother, she feels she deserves some happiness. She expected everyone to be delighted for her. But her friends and family are suspicious of Robin. And Rebecca, a desperate single mother whom Cath has hired as a live-in housekeeper, doesn’t trust him either.

Susie did something that she knows she will always regret: giving her baby son up for adoption, to keep her infidelity secret from her family. Louise, Susie's daughter, feels the effects of that decision echoing down through the years - her mother has always been difficult, too strict with her but not strict enough with her sister, Grace, who is wild and out of control. And Danny, Susie's husband, adores her but has always sensed something wrong at the heart of their marriage.

Demi doesn’t expect her summer in Cornwall to hold anything out of the ordinary. As a waitress, working all hours to make ends meet, washing dishes and serving ice creams seems to be as exciting as the holiday season is about to get. That’s until she meets Cal Penwith. An outsider like herself, Cal is persuaded to let Demi help him renovate his holiday resort, Kilhallon Park. Set above an idyllic Cornish cove, the once popular destination for tourists has now gone to rack and ruin.

Cal and Demi are preparing to launch their beloved Kilhallon Resort in Cornwall as a wedding venue. With the clifftop setting and coastal views, it's the perfect place for a magical ceremony. But their first clients are no ordinary couple. The bride and groom are internationally famous celebrities Lily Craig and Ben Trevone. As secrets surface and truths are told, can Demi and Cal ensure that Kilhallon's first wedding is a success? One thing's for sure: this will be a Cornish celebration to remember....

Return to the Cornish Café in this gorgeous festive romance - the perfect book to curl up with this Christmas. Christmas will be slightly less turbulent than summer, won't it? Demi certainly hopes so. She and Cal are keeping their fledgling relationship under wraps for now. But then Kit Bannen, a hunky, blond - and somewhat mysterious - writer arrives at Kilhallon Resort, and not everyone is charmed. Cal is sure that Kit is hiding something. But is he the only one guarding a secret?

The breathtaking new novel from the prize-winning author of Larchfield. Set across two continents, Tiger is a sweeping story of survival and redeeming love that plunges the listener into one of the world's last wildernesses with blistering authenticity. Frieda is a primatologist, sensitive and solitary, until a violent attack shatters her ordered world. In her new role as a zookeeper, she confronts a very different ward: an injured wild tiger. Deep in the Siberian taiga, Tomas, a Russian conservationist, fears that the natural order has toppled.

1819. Jack 'Crow' Crowlas has married his feisty love, Hester, and with their baby daughter, settled down to enjoy their new life as Lord and Lady Lamorna of Nansmornow in Cornwall. But for Crow, trouble is never far away and as Cornwall seethes with rebellion, he is arrested for treason. Spared execution on condition that he undertakes a highly dubious mission to St Petersburg, he finds himself tangled in a snare of treachery and illicit passion, violence and sexual deceit.

Growing up in Ember Grove, Bitsy Clark knows better than to break the rules around the Revelry, the mysterious end-of-year party in the woods. So when her best friend, Amy, persuades her to sneak in, Bitsy is full of misgivings. Misgivings that she should have listened to, because it's after the Revelry that Bitsy's luck turns and her life starts to unravel. For Amy, it's the opposite, as if she's been blessed with good fortune. Soon Bitsy is convinced that the Revelry has tied the two friends together in a curse that only she can break.