Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

All Mary wants to do is protect her family. But how can she, when their father keeps tearing it apart? Grieving for their mother and abandoned by their father, Mary and her siblings seek refuge at the foundling school. But the school has its own struggles, short-staffed since Hilary married. When the nuns hire Mary's father, and he arrives with the pregnant 16-year-old he left their mother for, Mary's newfound world is shaken. Can she make a new life for her siblings when their father is set on disrupting it?

Amy Logan’s family are poor but proud. They scrape a living by shrimping for the big Liverpool fish market, which Amy hates. It’s only because her beloved - and strict - mother rules her with a rod of iron that she mucks in. But Isobel Logan dies in childbirth, and Amy and her brothers start to run wild. Matters aren’t helped when her father marries Suzie Keagan from down the street. Until now, Suzie has managed to conceal a dislike for housekeeping, and she forces Amy to slave at chores. Desperate to escape, Amy leaves home to take her first job.

Whitby 1901. Sarah Brook has kept diaries for most of her life. Now eighty-five and at the end of her own journey, she allows her favourite great-niece Esther to read them. But while full of Sarah's thoughts and dreams, and family stories, the diaries also hold dark family secrets about the past, which are about to be exposed... Whitby 1832. When their mother tragically dies, life changes dramatically for Sarah and her siblings.

Blackpool, 1922. Martha and Trisha may have escaped poverty, but their fortunes have yet to turn. Happy on her wedding day, Trisha's new fairy-tale romance soon darkens as her husband, Walter, keeps her at arms length. Between his secrecy, and her mother-in-law's coldness, Trisha feels a stranger in her own home, and lonelier than ever. Meanwhile a spectre from Martha's past threatens the happiness she has found with Joshua and Bonnie. When she is called to help in her past love's hour of need, she must decide whether to risk exposing a secret that could cost her the trust of her daughter.

Two sisters and one betrayal that will carry across generations... In wartime Cornwall, 1943, a story between two sisters begins - the story of Adele and Amelia and the heartbreaking betrayal that will divide them forever. Decades later the efforts of one reckless act still echo - but how long will it be until their past returns? The Returning Tide will sweep you away to the beautiful Cornish coast, full of secrets and mystery, and will be loved by fans of Kate Morton and Rachel Hore.

In the year of her 100th birthday, Dame Vera Lynn's fascinating and life-affirming wartime memoir from the forces' sweetheart of her adventures entertaining the troops in far-flung Burma. "I was just 27 years old when I went to Burma. It was an experience that changed my life for ever. Up until that time I had not really travelled anywhere at all, apart from one touring visit to Holland with a band I was singing with before the war, and I had certainly never been in an aeroplane. But I wanted to make a difference, to do my bit." And she did.

At the age of 21, Monica Baldwin - the niece of Stanley Baldwin - entered one of the most strictly enclosed contemplative orders of the Roman Catholic Church. At the age of 48, and after struggling with her vocation for many years, she left the convent. But the world Monica had known and forsaken in 1914 was very different from the world into which she emerged at the height of the Second World War.

When Anna Harvik goes to Norway in 1946 this beautiful country is still recovering from five cruel years of Nazi Occupation. Her late husband was a pilot in the Royal Norwegian Air Force and she has come to visit his homeland and meet his family, in spite of being in doubt about how she will be received. She stays with Molly, who with other English war-brides makes her welcome.

Claudia Muldoon and her sister, Jenny, live with their parents and their gran in her house in Blodwen Street. Both parents have good jobs and the family assume they are settled for life, but then Grandpa Muldoon has a seizure and begs his son to return to Ireland. In Ireland the Muldoons flourish and the girls love the freedom of their new life, though as they grow up, disadvantages become clear. Claudia has to find work, so both sisters return to Liverpool and to their old pal Danny, who welcomes them back with delight.

Every time Kate Duggan looks in a mirror she's reminded of the night her life changed forever. Kate managed to walk away from the car accident that ruined the lives of her siblings, but questions still remain about what really happened on that dark stretch of road. Since then Kate’s life has been spiralling. On the surface her fiancé Rob is supportive, but the reality is he’s controlling and manipulative and Kate knows she has to get away. So, when Kate begins work at a firm of private investigators, she hopes this is her chance to shake off her guilt and start again.

The moment artist Riana Evans sees the dilapidated mansion in Wales she longs to buy it, despite its unhappy past – 20 years ago, five maids died there in mysterious circumstances. So she is delighted when the house’s elderly and eccentric owner sells it to her for a pittance. The house’s “ghosts” prove good for business – inspiring her paintings and providing welcome atmosphere for a series of successful ghost-spotting weekends.

The George pub in the backstreets of Liverpool lost its landlord when he ran off with the barmaid. Now his wife Eve runs the pub with the help of her three daughters and together they face up to all that life can throw at them. Warm-hearted, full of nostalgic descriptions of life in an earlier era, Lyn Andrews' latest has all the ingredients that her many thousands of fans look for and find in each new novel.

Thousands of short stories were published during the First World War, which coincided with the heyday of the fiction magazine in Britain. Much of this material has never been republished since the end of the war and is virtually lost to the modern audience. This new collection is an important work of recovery, introducing little-known magazine short fiction - which was primarily written for a civilian readership - by major writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle as well as more neglected authors. 

Hilary Napier has had enough of secrets. The engagement party at the Barton is finally a chance for her and David to celebrate their good news. But the course of true love never did run smooth. At the school, Frances and James are readying the children for the play at the annual Summer Fair and doing their best to ignore their feelings for each other. Will the chaos-causing Crocker twins make it to the dress rehearsal? And, more importantly, will Frances find a way to let herself love again?

It's the late 1950s and change is in the air. For the Napier family, up at the big house, the old ways are shifting. Hilary must discover if reaching out for a chance of happiness must mean breaking away from the life expected of her, while Patsy, their young housekeeper's help, is facing motherhood without her own family around her. Down the hill from the Napiers, villagers young and old are setting out on adventures.

Best friends Bernie and Molly are just seventeen when they set off from Ireland in 1928, heading for Liverpool. They quickly find jobs and rooms; soon both women are in love with local men. Tragically, though, Bernie is widowed when she's still barely an adult, while Molly has chosen a bad 'un and faces the deepest shame when he deserts her. But this difficult start only reinforces the bond between the women, and gives them the strength to build a brighter future...

A love story, a modern nightmare and an honest and incisive portrayal of a woman who honours her husband's wish to die and finds herself in the dock for murder. When Deborah reluctantly helps her beloved husband Neil end his life and conceals the truth, she is charged with murder. As the trial unfolds and her daughter Sophie testifies against her, Deborah, still reeling with grief, fights to defend her actions. Twelve jurors hold her fate in their hands, if found guilty she will serve a life sentence.

Poppy Mazzini, born in Hull over her father’s grocery shop, lives up to the promise of her fiery red hair and Italian ancestry. Her lovely singing voice and good looks lead her to her great ambition - to go on the stage and see her name top of the bill. She becomes a music hall star both in her native town and in the south, after an appearance in the theatre at Brighton.

It's been a long, hard winter in Burracombe. At Burracombe Barton, Hilary Napier is doing her best to keep the estate ticking along. Alice Tozer sees her youngest daughter off on the adventure of a lifetime. And all is not well in the village school. As the first crocuses bring colour and the promise of change back to Burracombe, the villagers find ways to help each other through the hardships. And there are two weddings to plan and it won't be long before everyone in this very special village comes together in a joyful celebration of love, life and the things that matter most.

It's December 1953. As the village prepares for the festivities, for many people, a happy Christmas is by no means certain. Recovering from a car-crash, Stella Simmons, the winter wedding that she and her sweetheart had planned seems impossible. Elsewhere in the village, Jackie Tozer is dreaming of America and Hilary Napier, who thought the war had robbed her of her chance at happiness, has to ask herself if she could ever imagine leaving her life at the big house. The darkest time of the year finds everyone asking questions with no easy answer.