Showing results by narrator "Gordon Griffin" in All Categories

In 1887, Elizabeth Berry found notoriety throughout the nation after the death of her daughter, perceived by many to be the cruellest of murders. There were many who protested her innocence in the affair, but there were also suspicions surrounding another death related to the nurse - that of her mother. Suddenly Elizabeth Berry's dark story began appearing darker still. For the first time we discover the true story behind this infamous case of the first woman to be hanged at Liverpool's Walton Prison.

On 1 July 1916, after a five-day bombardment, 11 British and 5 French divisions launched their long-awaited 'Big Push' on German positions on high ground above the Rivers Ancre and Somme on the Western Front. Some ground was gained but at a terrible cost. In killing grounds whose names are indelibly imprinted on 20th-century memory, German machine guns - manned by troops who had sat out the storm of shellfire in deep dugouts - inflicted terrible losses on the British infantry.

The Sunday Times top ten best seller. Thousands of lives have been saved by this spaniel. He is a best friend in dog's clothing. An RAF dog with his mossy feet firmly on the ground. A brave dog who has served his colleagues and his country with unstinting devotion. A dog in a million. This is the story of the partnership of Buster and Will, told by Will himself, describing how each came to save the other's life.

Luke Livingstone is a respected solicitor, a father and grandfather, a pillar of the community. Yet Luke is struggling with an unbearable secret, and it's threatening to destroy him. All his life, Luke has hidden the truth about himself and his identity. It's a truth so fundamental that it will shatter his family and leave him outcast. But to continue living, he must become the person - the woman - he knows himself to be, whatever the cost.

Inspector Alvarez is rudely awakened from his afternoon siesta by a phone call reporting the death of one Senor Picare. On arrival at the Picare villa, he finds the grieving widow has retired to bed, and the housekeeper, Rosalía, is dealing with the police and comforting the young maid, Marta, who is devastated by the death of her employer.

The first installment of a page-turning trilogy set against the backdrop of the English Civil War. September 1625: Plague-cart driver Matthew Neave is sent to pick up the corpse of a baby. Yet on the way to the plague pit, he hears a cry - the baby is alive. A plague child himself and now immune to the disease, Matthew decides to raise it as his own. Fifteen years on, Matthew's son, Tom, is apprenticed to a printer in the city.

The price for a country. The price for a King. The price for a marriage. The second book in the Tom Neave Trilogy. It's 1647. The king has surrendered to Parliament. Lord Stonehouse, to show his loyalty to Parliament, has named Tom as his successor. But Lord Stonehouse's son, Richard, is also Tom's estranged father and a fervent royalist. If the king reaches a settlement with Parliament, Richard will inherit...

Retired teacher Lewis Sullivan always imagined living by the sea. He lives instead in the Midlands village in which he was born. His grown-up daughter visits every day, bringing soup. He does not want soup. He frequents his second-favourite pub, where he can get half a shandy and a speciality sausage. When a childhood friend appears on the scene, Lewis finds his life and comfortable routine shaken up.

Ionanthe will leave her freedom at the castle doors. The ancient laws of this kingdom demand an eye for an eye – and she must pay the price for her sister’s mistake. Recently crowned Prince Max plans to bring change to his country, but only after his beautiful new bride has arrived – as payment for the debt he is owed… A ruthless ruler and a virgin queen. Trembling with the fragility of new spring buds, Ionanthe will go to her husband: she was given as penance, but he’ll take her for pleasure!

In the summer of 1913, the world seems full of possibility for four very different young men. Young Jean-Baptiste dreams of the day he'll leave his Picardy home and row down-river to the sea. Earnest and hard-working Frank has come to London to take up an apprenticeship in Regent Street. His ambitions are self-improvement, a wife and, above all, a bicycle. Organ scholar Benedict is anxious yet enthralled by the sensations of his synaesthesia.

On board the cruise ship MV Helios, copywriter David Ansell is seeking inspiration to write a glowing account of his voyage. His inspiration comes in the form of the beautiful Melanie Caine and they are inseparable for the rest of the cruise. Back home with his wife, Ansell is delighted to get a call from her summoning him to meet her – along with the toy monkey she asked him to take through customs for her. When she doesn't turn up, he assumes she's got cold feet.

A poignant imagining of Thomas Hardy’s relationship with his last muse. A celebrated author, in the winter of his life, awaits a visit from a beautiful young actress – the leading lady in a staging of his most famous tragedy. But his wife is troubled. An anxious and sickly woman, she watches the growing intimacy between her husband and the young woman, and becomes tormented by the idea that they will betray her.

An Englishwoman living in France falls through a balcony railing. Or was she pushed? An Englishman whose rented car showed a Spanish registration visited her in France on the day she died. Days later, an Englishman living in Spain dies from a heroin overdose - although he wasn’t an addict.

For merchant bankers, success means secrecy; passwords and code names ensure conversations stay private. However, they reckoned without London cabbies Terry, Len, and 'Einstein', who know the rewards of keeping their ears pricked and their noses in The FT. Making money fast is their object, as Len's daughter Poppy is losing her struggle with Cystic Fibrosis. While scheming to give Poppy a chance of survival, they become embroiled in a murder and the politics of their target bank, Skidder Barton.

John visits his ageing mother, Mary, in her nursing home by the sea, and mourns the slow fading of her mind. Hoping to shore up her receding memory, he prompts her with songs, photographs, and questions from their shared past, taking her back to the 1940s, when she was a young woman and he a child in a small Cumbrian town. But as he rekindles her memories, it is her own mother she longs for - and John finds himself delving further back, into the secrets and silences of Mary's fractured childhood, and the unsung sorrows of her thwarted yet spirited mother, Grace.

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, Dr Arthur Jackson leaves the warmth of his bed without hesitation. Tending to his peculiar flock of patients - including the blind cobbler with a surprising taste for hard liquor, the accident-prone butcher, and the young woman with an unusual phobia - is his first priority, whether their illness is critical or they simply need a comforting hand to hold. The whole community turns to the young doctor for advice...and not all of it medical.

"I had not lived in the former pit village of Lynemouth since 1961 but the winding road north from Newcastle will always be the same nostalgic highway, each twist charged with vivid memories and powerful emotions...." So begins a story full of wonderful humour, emotional candour, and hardy tales of tough times - a quietly epic family saga set amid the pit villages of the Northeast. It stretches from the 1920s, before Sid's parents had even met, to the final closing of the mine and his mother's death, in 1999.

By the Booker-shortlisted author of Astonishing Splashes of Colour; a wittily observed slice of modern life as it plumbs the gulf between nostalgia and reality. Who is the Roundabout Man? He doesn't look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children's books. When Quinn's reclusive existence is invaded, he has to face his past, and the uncomfortable truth of who he really is.

Spring, 1947. Having survived the horrors of the camps, Felix Breit, one of pre-war Europe’s foremost sculptors, arrives in London, hoping to rebuild his life and career. The opportunity arises when two English architects invite him to join a community they are hoping to create at the Dower House, a Georgian country house. He is under the spell of Angela Wirth, a fellow concentration camp survivor. Will they ever dare admit their love?

For Dick and Tammy, life was a struggle. Although Dick’s family were wealthy, Dick wanted to prove to himself that he was capable of supporting his wife and two children himself. With both finances and marriage failing, Tammy turns to a family friend, Adam, for support when she realises that baby Richard is not responding as he should. After visiting the doctor, all three are devastated to learn that baby Richard is severely deaf. Will this be the final straw?