Showing results by narrator "Patience Tomlinson" in All Categories

P. D. James'sextraordinary memoir of her early life and time starting out as a novelist as well as diaries recording her in old age. In this intriguing and very personal book, part diary, part memoir, P. D. James considers the twelve months of her life between her seventy-seventh and seventy-eighth birthdays and looks back on her earlier life.

The 13th book in Lesley Cookman's best-selling Libby Sarjeant murder mystery series follows Libby and the gang as they visit the Isle of Wight for the funeral of an old friend. For once there is nothing suspicious about the death, but their invitation to the funeral comes from elderly cousins who do have an unexplained death in the family. As her best friend, Harry, seems to be involved somehow, Libby is determined to ignore the growing reluctance of the cousins to help as she investigates.

December, 1962. Desperate to create a happy Christmas for her young daughter, Franny, after a disastrous year, Malorie rents a remote house on the Norfolk coast. But once there, the strained silence between them feels louder than ever. As Malorie digs for decorations in the attic, she comes across the notebooks of the teenaged Rosemary, who lived in the house 30 years before. Trapped inside by a blizzard, and with long days and nights ahead of her, Malorie begins to read. Though she knows she needs to focus on the present, she finds herself inexorably drawn into the past.

It is early spring in 1944, and Allied troops will soon invade northern France. Alice Todd is beginning her second year as warden of a Land Army hostel located in the wilds of Devonshire. Here she has won the affection and confidence of the girls in her charge and found herself caught up in lives which are complex, humorous, and sometimes tragic.

In Paris, January 1943, 230 French women resisters were rounded up and sent on a train to Auschwitz - the only train, in the four years of the German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp. The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmer’s wife of 68; there were among them teachers, biochemists, sales girls, secretaries, housewives and university lecturers. The women turned to one another, finding solace and strength in friendship and shared experience.

In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined 24-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London's Bond Street and set about the delicate business of matchmaking. Drawing on the bureau's extensive archives, Penrose Halson - who, many years later, found herself the proprietor of the bureau - tells their story and the stories of their clients. We meet a remarkable cross section of British society in the 1940s.

In this definitive guide, Dr. Rosemary Leonard debunks some of the myths surrounding the menopause, including why perimenopause is a layman's term, and the pros and cons of HRT. Rosemary discusses the best approaches to the menopause and whether drugs, holistic remedies or other forms of treatment will work best for the individual. Covering everything from hot flushes, changes to your menstrual bleeding pattern, and how to tackle sex after menopause to advice on alternative remedies.

In the last months of World War II, 10 Land Girls are serving at Post Stone Farm under the watchful eye of their warden, Alice Todd. The local Land Army representative had at first been reluctant to give Alice the warden’s job, and Roger Bayliss, the farm’s owner, seemed not to have any confidence in her at all. But she proved herself more than capable of the job and she has won the girls’ admiration. Recently divorced and with a 10 year-old son to bring up, Alice fears for the future.

Norfolk, 1940. As war rages on, sisters Prue and Thea, along with the wider community of Great Plumstead, are doing all they can to help the war effort, from running the mobile canteen for the Women's Voluntary Service to organising clothing drives and collecting salvage. When, Anna, a young German girl who fled her country, seeks refuge at the local hall, Thea opens up her home, Rookery House, and invites Anna into their growing family. But while many in the village welcome Anna with open arms, others are suspicious of the new arrival.

Mrs Paschal, the heroine of Revelations of a Lady Detective, is regularly consulted by the police and serves as an undercover agent as well as investigating her own cases. But even though she is 'verging on 40', she throws herself into cases with verve and gusto and has no hesitation in infiltrating a deadly secret society or casting off her crinolines in order to plummet into a sewer on the trail of a criminal.

1990. On the luxurious private island of Angel Cay, four privileged students toast the end of their exams. Self-assured Miles, clever Grace, talented Alex and beautiful Sasha have the world at their feet. But one dark night will change their perfect lives forever. As the friends move into glamorous careers – fashion, music, politics – each tries to put the past behind them. But no matter how far their stars rise, they cannot escape the dreadful truth.

Martha Packer is much loved by everyone in the village of Hillsbridge. As the landlady of The Three Feathers, she runs a respectable establishment and is known for her generosity and care for her family and others around her - she even took in two orphan girls to save them from a life of cruelty in the workhouse. So when Martha announces that she has killed her son, Garth, the community is shocked. Martha refuses to give a reason, but her other children cannot believe their mother is capable of murder and they begin to believe that she is protecting someone - maybe even one of them.

Middle-aged artist-come-investigator Libby Sarjeant can't ever seem to have a quiet moment. Her son, Adam, has uncovered a body within Creekmarsh Place, where he is working as a gardener for TV personality Lewis Osbourne-Walker. The police seem to think there is no connection with the current owner, but Libby, naturally, can't just leave it at that. With her psychic friend Fran's mind on other things, Libby has to go it alone. A murder in London inspires the police to dig deeper, and Libby, determined to help her new friend Lewis, stirs up more trouble.

Bea Abbott runs a domestic agency which does not “do” murder. But the disappearance of Tomi, the star of an award-winning short film, is a different matter, especially when the charming Chris bribes Bea with a bouquet of flowers. Can Bea find time to help him, when some well-meant advice she’s given to her daughter-in-law has led to a breakdown in family relationships? Bea discovers that Tomi’s circle contains a secret so deadly that they are dying one by one, even though none of them will go to the police.

In 1664, four years after Charles II is restored to the throne, Mercia Blakewood stands to lose everything: her father to the executioner's ax, her freedom to her treacherous uncle, her son to his resentful grandparents. But when her father leaves her a cryptic message in his last speech, she seizes her chance to fight back. With would-be lover Nathan Keyte and unlikely new friend Nicholas Wildmoor, Mercia must unravel her father's mystery to find a great prize long thought lost.

Born in Prague to a Jewish family in 1929, Dita Kraus has lived through the most turbulent decades of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Here, Dita writes with startling clarity on the horrors and joys of a life delayed by the Holocaust. From her earliest memories and childhood friendships in Prague before the war, to the Nazi occupation that saw her and her family sent to the Jewish ghetto at Terezín, to the unimaginable fear and bravery of her imprisonment in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and life after liberation.

Barbara Bosgrove is looking forward to the annual Harvest Ball. Her widowed father will be her escort, but it is not long before George Kennett seeks her out for a dance. George vows to win Barbara’s hand in marriage and begins a slow and steady courtship. Little by little, Barbara is won over. Worn down by several years of marriage to the unfaithful George, Barbara feels she has lost all the vitality of her youth. But her old friend Simon is not prepared to let Barbara lose sight of the woman she really is.

An unidentified woman’s body is found in a remote garden in Kent. With the owners not in residence, the only people with legitimate access are the caretaker, Johnny, and landscape gardeners Adam Sarjeant and his employer, Mog. Afraid of her son falling under suspicion, Libby Sarjeant, with her friend Fran, are determined to find the murderer, with or without the assistance of the police in the person of Chief Detective Inspector Ian Connell.

When they met at a motorcycle club in 1912, Elsie Knocker was a 30-year-old motorcycling divorcee dressed in bottle-green Dunhill leathers, and Mairi Chisholm was a brilliant 18-year old mechanic, living at home and borrowing tools from her brother. Little did they know that theirs was to become one of the most extraordinary stories of the First World War.

Robert Browning’s popular poems "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" and "How They Brought the Good News" are often anthologised, but it is in his dramatic lyrics such as "My Last Duchess" and the chilling "Porphyria’s Lover" that his poetic genius shines. Browning, with his unusual use of language, can be a challenging poet, but one who is always rewarding. This selection shows the many imaginative facets of this often neglected Victorian poet.