Showing results by narrator "Joan Walker" in All Categories

Minnie and her sister, Clara, spinsters both, live in a dilapidated country house in the middle of a housing estate, built when their father sold off the family's land. Now in their 70s, their days follow a well-established routine: long gone are the garden parties, the tennis lessons and their suffocating strict mother. Gone, too, is any mention of what happened when Minnie was 16 and the secret the family buried in the grounds of their estate. Over the course of the summer, both begin to tell their stories....

The multi-award winning SmartPass full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play.

Exciting new 6 book character-led series for 7+ girls who love adventure!On her tenth birthday, tomboy Sophie learns she is the Guardian of a magic gateway between our world and the Shadow Woods. She must keep the human world safe from mischievous goblins, sprites and elvesEach book sees Sophie having to outwit weird and terrifying creatures from the Shadow Woods, starting with the gruesome Goblins!

America in the 1920s was a place of drama, tension and hedonism. It glittered and seduced: jazz, flappers, the birth of Hollywood, and a glamorous gangster- led crime scene flourishing under prohibition. But it was also punctuated by momentous events such as the political show trials and the huge Ku Klux Klan march. But it also produced a splendid array of writers, musicians and film stars, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bessie Smith and Charlie Chaplin.

The multi-award-winning SmartPass study guide with and without commentary options. Full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Hear "A little touch of Harry" whenever you want to! Examine and appreciate the powerful language of leadership in this guided history play, considered to be Shakespeare's greatest creative statement about war.

Craft enthusiasts are no doubt already aware of the joys of making and the frustration when you must put aside your project and go back to your day job or to less enticing tasks around the house. But there is more to crafting than the simple enjoyment of a creative hobby. Drawing on the firsthand accounts from everyday crafters, Craftfulness considers the vital well-being effects to be gained from the simple expression of your creativity and investigates the soul cleansing and stress relieving benefits of making things by hand.

Newly married to dashing RAF officer Tom, Irene Farley leaves behind her safe countryside life to move in with his family by the docks in South Shields. Little prepares her for the devastation the Jerry bombers have wreaked on the Sixteen Streets or that they would be living under her mother-in-law's roof, alongside Tom's three brothers and two wives!

When a young woman goes missing from Jesus College, Oxford, DS Josie Masters is plunged into a world of panic as fear grips the city. Along with Thames Valley Police’s newest recruit, the handsome DS Pryce, Josie must act fast - and when two more students disappear from Oriel and Somerville colleges, she realises the killer is sending her a deadly message in a cruel game of cat and mouse. This time, the case is personal - but who is the perpetrator?

May of Teck, only daughter of a noble family fallen from grace, has been selected to marry the troublesome Prince Eddy, heir to the British throne. Submitting to the wishes of Queen Victoria and under pressure from her family, young May agrees. But just as a spark of love and devotion arises between the young couple, Prince Eddy dies of influenza. To her horror, May discovers she is to be married to the brother, Georgie, instead, a cold and domineering man. But what can she do? A gripping account of the life of Queen Mary, one of the most formidable queens of Britain.

London, 1930s. Years after she first fled to South Shields, Cathy is known by everyone as the landlady of the Robin Hood pub. But Cathy has a secret from her life before - a daughter, June, whom she had to leave behind. After all these years, can June accept her? Cathy's friend Sofia faces her own dilemma. Encountering a man from her past, Sofia is given the opportunity to return to her hometown, Naples. It would mean escaping her own troubles in the Sixteen Streets... if only she dares take the chance.

Genealogist Freya Cameron has the perfect life. A devoted husband of nearly 30 years and career-driven, successful twin daughters. But what if it's all a lie? So skilled at excavating her clients' family histories, Freya has no idea her family are so cold towards her - but they know something she doesn't and are determined to make her pay for it.

When Elin receives a letter from her childhood friend Fredrik on the Swedish island of Gotland, memories come flooding back: of a past she has tried to forget and a terrible secret she has shared with nobody—a secret that made her flee the island and never return. Torn between past and present and afraid the truth will destroy her family, Elin sets out on a journey to another continent, but also to another time and another life.

It's 1939 and little Dot May Dun is playing with her brothers in the quiet lanes of their Derbyshire village. The grown-ups' talk of war means very little to Dot but things are starting to change in the village, for good. When a prisoner of war camp is built close to Dot's village, and a Yankee base is stationed nearby, Dot makes friends with the most unlikely of soldiers. But her friendships are threatened when telegrams start to arrive in the village and the real impact of war bears heavily on this close-knit mining community.

1928. Agatha Christie leaves England for Baghdad, where two years ago, explorer and writer Gertrude Bell died from a drugs overdose. The authorities believed that Bell had taken her own life, but a letter now unearthed reveals she was afraid someone wanted to kill her. Bell writes that if she were to die, the best place to look for her murderer would be Ur, an archaeological site in Mesopotamia. Looking into Bell's death, Agatha discovers the mission is not without risk. She must use all her skills to try to outwit a killer who hides among the desert sands....

England, 1940s. Minnie has spent most of her life feeling like a plain Jane, watching things happen around her, waiting for something - just something - to once happen to her. When her old best friend, the beautiful and callous Junie, unexpectedly returns to Sixteen Streets, Minnie's not quite sure how to feel. Once inseparable, the two now find themselves at odds. And when Junie strikes up a romance with Minnie's brother Derek, Minnie can't help but feel lonelier than ever.

1918. Fleeing from her past, Cathy Carmichael is new to the Sixteen Streets. She has nothing to her name, no plan and nowhere to go. Cathy thinks she's struck gold when she runs into Mrs Sturrocks, an elderly lady who offers her a room at her boarding house. Her son, Noel, might be strange and sulky, but he gives her a job at the Robin Hood pub and before long, Cathy is thriving as the new barmaid. The Sixteen Streets was only meant to be a temporary stop for Cathy...but could it become home instead?

An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character - vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin, she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him, the young Jewish scholar hidden in a sarcophagus until safe passage to England is found, the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation, and more.

Ipswich, 1923: After an unlucky start in her first role as a nursemaid, sixteen-year-old Elin Odell looks forward to seeing in the New Year at home. Little does she know, her family is changing and she has no idea what lies ahead. Having been offered the role as governess for the Lamberts in Middlesex, Elin quickly accepts, leaving her own family behind in Ipswich. But when tragedy strikes at her new home, Elin steps up to hold everyone together at the expense of her own happiness.

Benjamim, a young man on the cusp of fatherhood, discovers a disturbing family secret: before his father was born, his paternal grandfather had a child with Benjamim's mother. With both men dead, Benjamim turns to three of their confidantes to piece together his family history: Haroldo, his grandfather's best friend; Isabel, his grandmother; and Raul, a friend from his father's youth. Through their conflicting testimonies, full of blind spots and contradictions, Benjamim will gradually learn of the secrets and conflicts that shattered his wealthy family.

Mark lives next door to Freya. When her husband dies tragically, he determines to be her saviour, come what may. Whether that means walking the dog, minding the house or taking her on day trips. However, her neighbours on the other side keep getting in the way, as do her two lumpen brothers-in-law....