Showing results by narrator "Rachel Atkins" in All Categories

When troubled teenager Immy disappears, she leaves her widowed mother Bea completely devastated. Bea pours her love into her six-year-old niece Phoebe, even taking her in when her single father Ewan takes a job abroad. Then Immy returns, in desperate need of her mother’s help and love. But Ewan is clear: he will never let Bea see Phoebe again if she welcomes her daughter back. As Bea grapples with this impossible choice between two girls who sorely need her, a long-buried secret comes out that changes everything.

Gangland Queen Nell has the perfect life of crime as a top shoplifter by day and glamorous club owner by night. But a betrayal and botched robbery suddenly reverse her fortunes...and her old rival, Alice Diamond, is hell-bent on taking her down. After escaping a poverty-stricken childhood, nightclub dancer Zoe has more on her mind than settling scores for Alice. But the life of luxury Zoe craves comes at a terrible price. And when a vicious gang tightens its grip on Soho, all three women realise it pays to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

London, 1922. Orphan girl Alice dreams there's more to life than toiling long hours in Pink's jam factory. Inspired by stories about the legendary Queen of Thieves, Mary Carr, who terrorised the streets of Victorian London, Alice decides to set up her own gang: The Forty Thieves. Sly seamstress Kate Felix from Whitechapel has the same plan and will stop at nothing to keep Alice and her pals off her turf in the West End shops. But Alice is determined to win at all costs, hitting the headlines as the Bob-Haired Bandit.

A zero tolerance policy results in the death penalty for all crimes, no matter how minor. When a judge is kidnapped, and a ransom note demands the release of all prisoners awaiting execution, kleptomaniac Detective Inspector Kate Swanson is put on the case. But soon her boss also disappears. Under increasing pressure from her superiors, and the growing social unrest, Swanson must race to find a man whose murdered wife and daughter link the missing men. Can she find him before it's too late?

1851, Angel Meadow Asylum. Dr. Rutherford, principal physician to the insane, is found dead, his head bashed in, his ears cut off, his lips and eyes stitched closed. The police direct their attention towards Angel Meadow's inmates, but to Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain the crime is an act of calculated retribution, rather than of madness. To discover the truth Jem and Will must pursue the story through the darkest corners of the city.

Ever since her sister, Anya, was murdered in Sotogrande, a playground for the rich, Natasha's life has gone off the rails. After three months of poring over the details of what happened, Natasha travels to the scene of the crime where she hopes to unravel the truth—about her sister's death and life. With no job, how did Anya end up in a multimillion-Euro apartment in one of the most exclusive areas on the continent? The police have no suspect. Publicly, they claim the killing was likely gang-related. But their key person of interest, a local with links to organized crime, is also now dead.

The Queue tells the unforgettable story of three strangers, nineteen-year-old Abbie, 40-year-old Mike and 63-year-old Janet, who meet in Southwark Park on 17th September 2022 on a day that will change their lives forever. Over the next twenty-four hours, alongside 250,000 others, friendships are formed, celebrities are spotted and rom-com dreams are ignited. As the unlikely trio wind along the Thames, edging ever closer to Westminster and the Queen, it's clear that they have unknowingly become a part of history.

Maybe it's the weirdness of the weather. Maybe it's another way to pour scorn on politicians. Maybe the steady stream of headlines about fires, floods and droughts is finally starting to get to us. Whatever it is, for more and more of us, climate change is shifting from a shadowy fear in the backs of our minds to something we feel we need to get a handle on. Climate change may be a horror story, but, as Our Biggest Experiment shows, the tale of how we discovered it isn't.

Marisa Merico, the daughter of one of Italy's most notorious Mafia Godfathers, was dazzled by her father, Emilio DiGiovine. To her he was all powerful, sophisticated and loving; to the rest of the world he was staggeringly ruthless. Marisa knew her father would do anything for her, but she hadn't expected just how much he would ask in return.

Visiting the Great Exhibition to view the wax anatomical models of the famous but reclusive Dr Silas Strangeway, Jem Flockhart and Will Quartermain find a severed hand, perfectly dissected and laid out amongst the exhibits. Assuming it to be a prank by medical students they return it to Dr Strangeway, who works at Corvus Hall, a private anatomy school run by Dr Alexander Crowe—once one of Edinburgh's most revered anatomists. Jem's persistence reveals that a body does indeed lie in the school's mortuary, minus its right hand. 

When 12-year-old Mira stumbles across a white stallion in a forest in Berlin, she doesn’t realise that this horse will take her on an incredible journey. Together, they’re going to ascend the starry heights of Grand Prix show jumping and sweep back in time to Poland in 1939, where another young girl is risking everything to save the horse that she loves.... 

I've always known Jack was different. Ever since he was eight years old and he killed his father. He was protecting me, just like I've always protected him. But now he's eighteen and this time he's gone too far. Steve is dead. He was a good man, and god, we could have been really great together—but now he's bleeding out on our kitchen table. I must keep my boy safe. No one can ever know what he's done. What he's capable of. And I won't let him get caught. I'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, keep him with me. Even if it means becoming a monster myself.

The question of how and why organisms age has teased scientists for centuries. There are myriad competing theories, from the idea that ageing is a simple wear and tear process, like the rusting of a car, to the belief that ageing and death are genetically programmed and controlled. In fact, there is no clearly defined limit to life and no single, predictable program playing itself out: different things are happening within and between tissues, and each system or organ accumulates damage at its own pace, according to the kind of insults imposed on it by daily living. 

When Jo Harding falls down the stairs at home, she wakes up in hospital with partial amnesia - she's lost a whole year of memories. A lot can happen in a year. Was Jo having an affair? Lying to her family? Starting a new life? She can't remember what she did - or what happened the night she fell. But she's beginning to realise she might not be as good a wife and mother as she thought.

Mary lives a contented life as wife to a wealthy merchant in Elizabethan London. But there's a part of her past she can't forget.... As a small girl she was cursed for causing the death of a vagrant child, a curse that predicts that she will hang. Sometimes the happiest households are not what they seem, and Mary's carefully curated world begins to falter. Mary's whole life is based on a lie. Is she the woman her husband believes her to be?

Davinsky Labour Camp, Siberia, 1933: Sofia Morozova knows she has to escape. Only two things have sustained her through the bitter cold, aching hunger and hard labour: the prospect of one day walking free; and the stories told by her friend Anna, beguiling tales of a charmed upbringing in Petrograd - and of Anna’s fervent love for a passionate revolutionary, Vasily. So, when Anna falls gravely ill, Sofia makes a promise to escape the camp and find Vasily....

In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth I, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest. Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells: A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death. Ten years later, Lord Rodermere’s son, Beau is born - and all who encounter him are struck by his great beauty. Meanwhile, many miles away in a London alchemist’s cellar lives Randa - a beast deemed too monstrous to see the light of day. And so begins a timeless tale of love, tragedy and revenge.

From his tiny room at Hampton Court, the royal chronicler records the comings and goings of the King of England, his six Queens—and his six mothers-in-law. Introducing us to these redoubtable ladies, he relates the surprising part they played in the destiny of Henry VIII and his unfortunate wives. We meet Catherine of Aragon's duenna, Dona Elvira; Lady Boleyn, whose gentleman admirer threatens danger for her daughter Anne; and Lady Margaret, whose attempt to overturn hundreds of years of tradition leads to a dramatic confrontation.

Desperate to escape their stepfather’s house, sisters Amy and Lillian stow away aboard a train full of children being evacuated from London and the threat of Hitler’s bombs. Arriving in the seaside town of Worthing, they are taken in by kindly Norah and her husband, Jim. With their future now entrusted to strangers, can the girls finally find a safe harbour in these dark days of war? And will they find the strength to confront what they have been running from, when their past finally catches up with them?

Pearl Winter hasn't been outside in 43 years. Since she arrived in Dartmoor as a teenager, her isolated cottage has been her whole world. A place of safety. But now Pearl is utterly alone—except for the postman, the local crows, and her memories of the summer when her life turned upside down. Connor Matthews feels like a stranger in his own home. Since his mother's death, he's been adrift from his remaining family and the life that's always been mapped out for him. But when Connor takes a summer job as Pearl's gardener, their unexpected friendship opens the door to a fresh start.