Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

Cliff's End Cottage is a local landmark. Perched on the South Devon coast, its garden has begun slowly toppling into the sea, yet the elderly and infamously stubborn owner, Stella, refuses to leave her home. When Holly, a young journalist and single mum struggling to make ends meet, decides to interview Stella about her life, at first she's given short shrift. However, helped by a slice or two of cake and a couple of friendly cats, a tentative friendship begins to develop between the two lonely women.

Newly retired Sarah Vane is completely settled in Merstairs, enjoying the quirky, quaint feel of her new home. With some time on her hands, she decides to surprise her friend Daphne by cleaning her dusty, cluttered seafront shop. But when she arrives there early one morning, Sarah is shocked to find a dying woman on the doorstep, who utters one word before she takes her last breath: ‘Wits…’ The victim is Abi Moffat—a much loved schoolteacher. Who could want her dead, and what could ‘wits’ possibly mean? Could the answer to Abi’s death be in Whitstable—the posher town along the coast?

Jack Andrews was having a tough time. He'd come back from the First World War to find his wife had 'got religion'. She'd got it so badly that she finally went off, left Jim and the three children and joined Father Peter's League of Repenters. She never really came home again. Jack and the children managed as best they could, but things were pretty tough when Aunt Edie turned up. The first thing she did was give her cousin, Maud Andrews, a piece of her mind for running off and leaving her family. But when that didn't do any good, Edie moved in and took over the Andrews family.

From organising the school summer fete - 'Because of our inability to recognise our climatic shortcomings from the outset, arrangements for outdoor jollities get completely out of hand' - to the sometimes rather odd passions of childhood - 'I collect stones with holes in them' - Miss Read captures the essence of rural life, and in particular of village schools, as only she can.

In 20 meals The Hungry Empire tells the story of how the British created a global network of trade in foodstuffs that moved people and plants from one continent to another, reshaping landscapes and culinary tastes. To be British was to eat the world. The empire allowed Britain to harness the globe’s edible resources from salt beef to sugar. By the 20th century the wheat to make the working man’s loaf of bread was supplied by Canada, and his Sunday leg of lamb had been fattened on New Zealand’s grasslands. Lizzie Collingham takes us on a wide-ranging culinary journey, revealing how virtually every meal we eat still contains a taste of empire.

With characteristic verve and integrity, Ann Widdecombe recalls her life and highlights the people and events that most influenced her along the way. From her early family life in Singapore and her convent school days to her student ambitions at Birmingham and Oxford, and her long-serving years as an MP, this is the life story of one of our most outspoken and celebrated politicians. Offering unique insight into her time as a Minister in three Departments and the Shadow Cabinet in the 1990s, Ann also explains the roots of her conversion to Catholicism in 1993 and her deeply held views on abortion and gay marriage.

When Sophie Ellis is asked to house-sit at a Knightsbridge townhouse, it appears to be the offer of a lifetime. Drawn into the glittering circle of the home’s owner, she meets wealthy American businessman Nick Cooper and is swept up into a thrilling and passionate affair. But when Nick is found dead in his hotel suite, Sophie is suddenly the prime suspect for his murder, and soon realises Nick was not the man he seemed.

In June 1940, a covert new force - the Special Operations Executive (SOE) - was set up to wage a secret war. Its agents were tasked with sabotage and subversion behind enemy lines, and over the course of the next five years, 470 special agents would be sent into France. Only 25 female SOE agents would return. None before have told their story in their own words.

England, 1469. As the War of the Roses rages on, Margaret Paston knows that there is only one way to survive the loss of the Paston's family seat, Caister Castle: a fortunate marriage for one of her unruly daughters. A favourable match will change the future of her family overnight but a scandal will ruin the Paston name forever.

For the first time in audio, a collection of Carys Davies’ iconic novel West and her award-winning short story collection The Redemption of Galen Pike. West: Cy Bellman, American settler and widowed father of Bess, reads in the newspaper that huge ancient bones have been discovered in a Kentucky swamp. He leaves his small Pennsylvania farm and young daughter to find out if the rumours are true: that the giant monsters are still alive and roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River.

Mia is not sure what she is, but she isn't human. Smarter, stronger than her peers, all she knows are the rules: there can never be three for too long; always run, never fight. When she finds herself in Germany 1945, she must turn the Nazis' most trusted scientist with an offer: abandon the crumbling Nazi party, escape Germany with your life, come to work for the Americans building rockets. But someone is watching her work. An enemy who's smarter, stronger, and decidedly not human....

When Keira first receives her breast cancer diagnosis, she never expects to end up joining a running group with three women she’s only just met. Totally blind-sided, all she can think about is how she doesn’t want to tell her family or step back from work. Nor does she want to be part of a group of fellow cancer patients. Cancer is not her club. And yet it’s running - hot, sweaty, lycra-clad running in the company of brilliant, funny women all going through treatment - that unexpectedly gives Keira the hope she so urgently needs.

London, 1938. Bookseller Gertie Bingham is facing difficult times, having just lost her beloved husband, Harry, and with a lingering sadness at never having been able to have a child of her own. Struggling to face running the bookshop she and Harry opened together, Gertie is preparing to sell up and move away when she is asked if she would be willing to take in a young Jewish refugee from Germany. Gertie is unsure and when sullen teenager Hedy Fischer arrives, Gertie fears she has nothing left to give the troubled girl.

As a child Jude suffered a recurrent nightmare; now her six-year-old niece is having the same dream. A successful auctioneer, Jude is asked to value a collection items belonging to Anthony Wickham, a lonely 18th century astronomer, and she leaps at the chance to escape to the untamed beauty of Norfolk. With the help of Euan, a local naturalist, Jude begins to untangle Wickham's tragic story, but she discovers threatening links to the present.

Merry lives a simple life. For work, she writes cryptic crossword puzzles. For pleasure, she swims in the icy cold sea. And in between she keeps a careful eye on her neighbour, Lucas Manning, the son of her late best friend Julia. One day Lucas's wife reports him missing. Merry has known Lucas his whole life; he would never walk out like this. Bad things have always hovered around the Manning family. Lucas's abusive criminal father disappeared decades ago, and his brother Sean is in jail. But Lucas is different. A good man. He was the one who turned Sean in to the police, after all.

The murder of aspiring crime writer Victoria Denby created a sensation at the time. The public's imagination was hooked by the detail of a paper dahlia placed beside the body, just like in one of Dahlia Lively's fictional cases. Was there a copycat killer at large in the peaceful town of Market Foxleigh? Despite the tabloids' fearmongering, the police quickly arrested Victoria's friend and fellow writer, Scott Baker, and when it emerged that he had also been accused of stalking Dahlia actress Caro Hooper, it seemed like an open and shut case.

Connie McColl is finally free to make her own decisions for the first time in decades. And when she meets glamorous Gill and downtrodden Maggie, at a rather dull flower arranging class, it seems that she’s not the only one dreaming of adventure. The three very different women all agree it’s about time they had a holiday to remember. So they make a pact for this summer to be their best yet - and drive off into the sunset together....

Owen Ithell’s sense of self is rooted in his long, vivid visits to his grandparents’ small farm in the Welsh hills. As an adult he moves away from the country and meets Mel, with whom he has children. He believes he has found happiness. But following a car accident, in which his daughter is killed and he loses a hand, the course of his life is changed for ever. In his despair, he resolves to reconnect with both his past and the natural world.

A delicious Christmas feast of short stories from the Sunday Times number one best-selling author of A French Affair and The Perfect Match. Add some extra sparkle to your Christmas by joining Katie Fforde for a perfect romantic Christmas feast of short stories. Collected together for the first time and including one brand-new story. Make your Christmas wishes come true....

Five haunting tales from Benedict Ashforth, the best-selling author of Abbot's Keep.