Showing results by narrator "Susan Duerden" in All Categories

Isla is overjoyed that Mum has agreed to look into the idea of opening a cat café. It means Poppy and Roo can be the family's forever cats, and there'll be lots of other cats coming and going, too! But as they research the idea, the "to do" list just gets longer. Can the family rally together to solve the problems or will this be the end of Isla's dream?

When 18-year-old Grace Campbell arrives in London, in 1914, she's unable to fulfill her family's ambitions and find a position as an office secretary. Lying to her parents and her brother, Michael, she takes a job as a housemaid at Number 35, Park Lane, where she is quickly caught up in the lives of its inhabitants - in particular, those of its privileged son, Edward, and daughter, Beatrice - who is recovering from a failed relationship that would have taken her away from an increasingly stifling life. Desperate to find a new purpose, Bea joins a group of radical suffragettes and strikes up an intriguing romance with an impassioned young lawyer.

July 1964. Chartwell House, Kent: Winston Churchill wakes at dawn. There’s a dark, mute “presence” in the room that focuses on him with rapt concentration. It’s Mr. Chartwell. Soon after, in London, Esther Hammerhans, a librarian at the House of Commons, goes to answer the door to her new lodger.

A tiger escapes from a zoo, padding through the ruined streets and onwards, to a ridge above the Balkan village of Galina. His visits hold the villagers in a terrified thrall. But for one boy, the tiger is a thing of magic - Shere Khan awoken from The Jungle Book. Natalia is the granddaughter of that boy. Now a doctor, she is visiting orphanages after another war has devastated the Balkans. On this journey, she receives word of her beloved grandfather's death, far from their home, in circumstances shrouded in mystery.

Johanna is a servant girl to Dame Margery Kempe, a renowned medieval holy woman. Dame Margery feels the suffering the Virgin Mary felt for her son but cares little for the misery she sees every day. When she announces that Johanna will accompany her on a pilgrimage to Rome, the suffering truly begins. After walking all day, Johanna must fetch water, wash clothes, and cook for the entire party of pilgrims. Then arguing breaks out between Dame Margery and the other travelers, and Johanna is caught in the middle. As the fighting escalates, Dame Margery turns her back on the whole group.

Young Jane Silverlake lives with her father in a crumbling family estate on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Jane has a secret - an unexplainable gift that allows her to see the souls of man-made objects - and this talent isolates her from the outside world. Her greatest joy is wandering the wild heath with her neighbors, Madeline and Nathan. But as the friends come of age, their idyll is shattered by the feelings both girls develop for Nathan, and by Nathan’s interest in a cult led by Ariston Day, a charismatic mystic popular with London’s elite.

Julia Lovat walks away from her seven-year affair with Michael with a broken heart and his final gift to her - an antique book full of secrets. The book is the diary of Catherine Treganna, who was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Morocco 400 years ago. When Julia travels to Morocco to discover Cat's fate, she is quickly lost in an exotic and vibrant land. Her guide is Idriss, a man so charismatic and beguiling that their meeting feels like destiny. And so, in the heat and dust, two love stories, separated by four centuries, entwine and blossom....

Isla Palmer is crazy about cats - super-in-love crazy - but her vet-nurse mum has never let her have one. Then Isla meets Poppy, a gorgeous cat in need of a loving home, and comes up with the perfect way to convince Mum. It's not long before Poppy has transformed life at the Palmers - everyone is happier, especially Gran, and even Isla's older sister, Tilda, admits she likes having Poppy around. But Poppy isn't the only one in need of a home, and soon their house is full of cats. With Mum at her wits' end, Isla needs to come up with a plan and fast!

We wish you a steampunk Christmas.... Changed forever after tragedy, a woman must draw strength from her husband's love. A man learns that love isn't always what you expect. A thief steals the heart of a vengeful professor. And an American inventor finds love Down Under. Enjoy Victorian Christmas with a clockwork twist in these four steampunk novellas.

"It's a lump of rock, Stella; nothing more. No stone is worth dying for." Except it's not just a lump of rock. It's a blue crystal skull made by the Maya to save the world from ruin; a sapphire so perfect, so powerful that for centuries men have killed to own or destroy it.