Showing results by narrator "Penelope Rawlins" in All Categories

Leni loves birds. So when two feather-brained professors visit her island home on a mission to bring back the dodo, she jumps at the chance to help them. But the famous bird has been extinct for more than 300 years - and Sugar King Benny Shuster will stop at nothing to keep it that way. Can Leni and the squabbling professors achieve the impossible?

The Muse is the story of a life-changing friendship. It starts with Nell's account of a chance meeting with Josie at the age of 22. Josie teaches her how to live for moment, how to have adventures and find the sweetness of life even in hardship. This was the '60s, a time of literary and sexual experimentation, of the breakdown of old barriers and inhibitions.

Swept into the bright hustle and bustle of New York, Lily, Robert and Malkin discover that danger lies beneath the city’s surface. For there are chilling goings-on...a strange boy held captive who needs their help and a shadowy professor with a treacherous plan. Searching for clues, Robert and Lily are plunged into deep water...But will they uncover the deadly truth in time to survive?

Ally arrives from England with her brothers to stay for a month in Africa - weeks of running wild on an unspoiled, untamed coast amid mangrove creeks, vast white sandy beaches, coral reefs and warm seas. But on their first walk through the forest to the beach, Ally is swamped by a sense of an unseen presence close to her of being spoken to. The feeling increases as a local teenager, Leli, enthusiastically sweeps her into the world of his village and their offshore island (Kisiri - the place of secrets).

At just 25 years of age, Princess Elizabeth succeeded King George VI to the British throne. This compelling audiobook looks at Elizabeth's life as both a public and private figure. It traces her early years as a princess, her experiences in the women's army during World War II, her coronation and her life as queen both at home and in the public eye. The audiobook looks at Elizabeth's marriage to Prince Philip, her husband of more than 70 years, and her life as a mother to her four children, including her eldest son Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.  

Learn all about Amelia Earhart - one of the world's most famous aviators - Jane Goodall and her important work with chimpanzee - Katherine Johnson and her ground-breaking mathematical work - in this children's biography. This new biography series from DK goes beyond the basic facts to tell the true life stories of history's most interesting people. An age-appropriate text to create an engaging audiobook children will enjoy listening to. This is the one biography series everyone will want to collect.

Learn all about - Ada Lovelace and the world's first computer programme - Helen Keller and how she overcame her disabilities - Harriet Tubman's inspirational life and work - in this children's biography. This new biography series from DK goes beyond the basic facts to tell the true life stories of history's most interesting people. An age-appropriate text to create an engaging audiobook children will enjoy listening to. This is the one biography series everyone will want to collect.

In this biography, discover the fascinating story of Florence Nightingale, who cared for British soldiers during wartime as the 'Lady of the Lamp'. Florence Nightingale was a pioneer of nursing at a time when women were discouraged from working outside the home, especially in the field of science. She saved many lives both on and off the battlefield through implementing a new standard of medical care and by leading groups of nurses to improve conditions.

Anna wasn’t looking for love when Adam swept her off her feet, but there was no denying their connection, and she believed they would be together forever. Years later, cracks have appeared in their relationship. Anna is questioning whether their love can really be eternal when a cruel twist of fate delivers a crushing blow and Anna and Adam are completely lost to one another. Now, Anna needs Adam more than ever, but the way back to him has life-changing consequences.

When a travelling skycircus arrives in Brackenbridge, Lily and Robert can't wait to step aboard.... But there's something sinister about the hybrid children who appear as part of the act. And before Lily and Robert can do anything, they're captured by shadowy figures and whisked off in the mysterious flying circus to somewhere far, far away.... Treachery, tightropes and trickery combine in this incredible third Cogheart adventure....

Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At 20, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn. Now, aged 31, she runs a secondhand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing - until she's called to return to New York to see her dying father. Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.

To her friends, Amber leads the perfect life with her successful marriage, her powerful job in London and her immaculate style. But as more of her friends fall pregnant, and her best friend, Dylan, announces his decision to adopt a baby with his gay lover, Amber's carefully structured world begins to fall apart. Intricately crafted and sensually evocative, Something I'm Not is a sharp, contemporary novel that discusses the way the psychological scars of the past pass through the generations of a family.

At 23 Alice Hare leaves England for New York. She becomes fixated on Mizuko Himura, a Japanese writer living in New York, whose life story has strange parallels to her own and whom she believes is her "Internet twin". What seems to Mizuko like a chance encounter with Alice is anything but - after all, in the age of connectivity, nothing is coincidence. Their subsequent relationship is doomed from the outset, exposing a tangle of lies and sexual encounters as three families across the globe collide.

They say there's no place like home. It's where the heart is....Meet the little boy who believes in miracles. Meet the mother who loves to bring babies home from the newborn aisle of her supermarket. Meet the husband who carves a longed-for baby out of ice as a gift for his wife. Meet the widow who is reminded of romance whilst standing at the kitchen sink. In this prize-winning short story collection, Carys Bray weaves together moments of joy, heartache, sadness and unwavering love as told through 17 very different notions of home.

Sophia Beaumont-Brown was an 'it' girl. But now she's in the papers for all the wrong reasons. She's single, sofa surfing and not speaking to her family; only her grandmother has any faith left in her. From her hospital bed, Tilly Beaumont sends Sophia letters about her life: dispatches about wartime England, about family secrets and, finally, about the most beautiful thing she ever owned - a necklace of the most incredible pearls. If Sophia's prepared to listen, she'll unlock the secret story of generations of incredible women.

You shared your life online. Now how will you get it back? Twitter. Facebook. WhatsApp. Google Maps. Every day you share everything about yourself - where you go, what you eat, what you buy, what you think - online. Sometimes you do it on purpose. Usually you do it without even realising it. At the end of the day, everything from your shoe size to your credit limit is out there. Your greatest joys, your darkest moments. Your deepest secrets. If people want to know everything about you, all they have to do is look. But what happens when someone starts spilling state secrets?

Dark times lie ahead for Special Agent Ren Bryce and the Rocky Mountains Safe Streets Task Force in the heart-stopping new thriller from the best-selling author of Darkhouse and Blood Loss. In her most shocking case yet, FBI Special Agent Ren Bryce takes on a depraved serial killer fueled by a warped sense of justice. A master of evasion, each life he takes ramps up Ren's obsession with finding him.

You, Me and Other People is the life-affirming, heartbreaking and ultimately stunning debut novel from Fionnuala Kearney. They say every family has skeletons in their closet...but what happens when you open the door and they won't stop tumbling out? For Adam and Beth, the first secret wasn't the last; it was just the beginning. You think you can imagine the worst thing that could happen to your family, but there are some secrets that change everything.

In the tradition of Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work or Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine comes a complex, tender and gorgeously written novel of parenthood, love and marriage that is impossible to put down. Cambridge 1963. Charlotte struggles to reconnect with the woman she was before children, and to find the time and energy to paint. Her husband, Henry, cannot face the thought of another English winter.

Haunting, compelling, this psychological thriller will have you hooked. Perfect for fans of Gone Girl and Daughter. Best friends are there for each other through thick and thin. You trust them with your life. At least that's what Emma, Daisy, Leanne, and Al think. But all that changes when they embark on a trip of a lifetime together. When they return home, only two of them are left alive, and the group has been torn apart by lies and deception. Many years later, when the dust has settled and life has moved on, one girl receives a threatening letter.