Showing results by narrator "Imogen Sage" in All Categories

Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor unclaimed. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men.

Poland, 1942: seventeen-year-old Maya Schulze is struggling to survive in a brutal Nazi labour camp. But despite days filled with hunger, fear, and despair, she is able to find courage and beauty in dancing–it is only then that she feels free. One day, a camp guard watches Maya perform, and both their destinies are changed for ever. Jan falls in love with Maya and promises to protect her; Maya lives for their stolen moments together, when her heart can dance again. Jan ultimately plots Maya’s escape and promises to find her when the war is over, but fate cruelly intervenes.

When the lives of four very different women become entangled in a boutique Venice hotel, dark secrets unravel and not everyone who checked into the hotel will check out again. Set against a backdrop of the romance and tragedy of magical Venice, The Venice Hotel explores the powerful bonds that develop between women in times of crisis, and the healing power of female connection.

When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister, Mia, find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe. But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things. Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf.

Two warriors. One wields the power of music, one the strength of her sword. Both face a grave threat in this enthralling historical fantasy. After a violent encounter with masked men and the sinister Crow Folk, Prince Aolu of Dalriada disappears without a trace, and his companion Galen is seriously injured. Liobhan and the Swan Island warriors seek answers to the prince's abduction. For Liobhan this mission is personal, as Galen is her beloved brother. While she and her team investigate, Liobhan's younger brother, Brocc, is in serious trouble.

Liobhan, the young warrior and bard, has lost her brother to the Otherworld. Even more determined to gain a place as an elite fighter, she returns to Swan Island to continue her training. But Liobhan is devastated when her comrade Dau is injured and loses his sight in their final display bout. Blamed by Dau's family for the accident, she agrees to go to his home, Oakhill, as a bond servant for one year. But Oakhill is a place of dark secrets.

Eighteen-year-old Liobhan is a powerful singer and an expert whistle player. Her brother has a voice to melt the hardest heart and is a rare talent on the harp. But Liobhan's burning ambition is to join the elite warrior band on Swan Island. While she and her brother are competing for places in this band, they are asked to go undercover as travelling minstrels. For Swan Island trains both warriors and spies.

I don't want to remember the truck, or the night I was taken, or the family I left behind. I am not a sad Polish girl. I am a good and happy German girl. I am. I am. I am. It's the Second World War and Himmler's Lebensborn Program is in full flight when eight-year-old Zofia Ulinski is kidnapped by the Germans. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, just like the other Polish children taken from their families and robbed of their names, their language, their heritage.

Betsy is taking her mice to the vets when she spots the lights of the circus tent and can’t resist stepping inside. Soon she’s transfixed by the spellbinding performers as they tumble, spin and fly through the air. But when her mice escape and ruin the final act, Betsy has to face the odious ringmaster, Mr Fry. And he’s determined to make her pay....

Betsy Bow-Linnet is determined to become a world famous concert pianist like her parents. There's just one problem: no matter how hard she practises she doesn't share their musical talents. So when a mysterious letter arrives from a woman claiming to know of an unusual method that will make Betsy's playing stupendous, Betsy jumps at the chance. There's just one condition: she must keep the method a secret.

A lush and thrilling story of sacrifice, secrets, and star-crossed love set in a Parisian-inspired world where the sun never sets in this remarkable YA fantasy debut. Sylvie has always known she deserves more. Out in the permanent twilight of the Dusklands, her guardians called her power to create illusions a curse. But Sylvie knows it gives her a place in Coeur d'Or, the palais of the Amber Empress and her highborn legacies. So Sylvie sets off toward the Amber City, a glittering jewel under a sun that never sets, to take what is hers.

Mirage, triumphant in her coup of the Amber Empire, returns to the palais prepared to claim her place as empress. With the support of her friends and a tentative, blossoming romance with Sunder, Mirage is on the cusp of taking hold of everything she has ever wanted. However, her place in the sun is not as sure as she expected, nor is it quite as bright as she imagined.

Betsy is delighted that her father is opening a bakery. And when the taster of fine foods for the queen asks him to cater for a Royal Gala, it seems like the icing on the cake - until they discover just how many cakes are needed. The whole family pitches in to help, but as the day of the gala dawns, Betsy knows the only way they’ll get the job done is with a little help from her 44 mice. Just as long as she can keep them away from prying eyes.

Is Betty ready to fall in love? Will she finally have her first kiss?

Betty Plum has never been in love. She's never even kissed a boy. But when hot Toby starts school it's like Betty has been hit with a thousand of Cupid's arrows. It's like a bomb has exploded - a love bomb!

More than ever Betty wishes her mum hadn't died when Betty was a baby. She really needs her mum here to ask her advice. And that's when she finds hidden letters for just these moments. Letters about what your first kiss should feel like and what real love is all about....