Norah Lofts

Pargeters

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Nicolette McKenzie, Gordon Griffin

Pargeting is a highly skilled trade. And Pargeters is the name given to the Suffolk home of John Mercer in honour of Adam Woodley, the craftsman who had decorated it so lovingly. Over two generations, and throughout the turbulent years of the Civil War, Pargeters comes to stand as a symbol of unity for a household divided by conflicting political loyalties and abandoned by its menfolk. And it is the mistress of Pargeters, Sarah Woodley-Mercer, who holds the small household together in this troubled time.

The Town House

• UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 21 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Juliet Prague, Martyn Read
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

"It was in the first week of October in the year 1391 that I first came face to face with the man who owned me… the man whose lightest word was to us, his villeins, weightier than the King’s law or the edicts of our Holy Father…” So began the story of Martin Reed - a serf whose resentment of the automatic rule of his feudal lord finally flared into open defiance.

The Lute Player

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By David Thorpe, Karen Cass
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Out of the courts of 12th-century England strode the legendary figure of Richard of England leading his knights onto the Saracen battlefields, inspired by a vision of the Holy Land. Here is the story of the Soldier-King and the Third Crusade - of his strange, ill-fated union with Berengaria, Princess of Navarre; and of his mother, the She-Wolf, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who loved her son with a frantic, possessive pride. And, above all, here is the story of the minstrel whose life was linked with that of the King - the story of Blondel, the Lute Player....

Charlotte

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 37 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Julia Barrie

When young John Vincent died, the outward respectability of the Cornwall household was undermined. Strangers pried, asked too many questions and pointed accusing fingers at Charlotte - herself eager to escape from the oppressive atmosphere of her father's home.

The House at Old Vine

• UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 6 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Martyn Read, Julieet Prague
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The House at Old Vine is the second in a trilogy of novels by Norah Lofts about the inhabitants of a Suffolk house from the late 14th century to the middle of the 20th.

Covering the turbulent years of 1496 to 1680, it follows six generations of the descendants of Martin Reed, who founded the "House" dynasty through his act of rebellion in The Town House, through persecution, war, and revolution, from the era of Christopher Columbus to the Restoration of Charles II.

Bless This House

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 23 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Michael Tudor Barnes, Nicolette McKenzie
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The house was built in the Old Queen's time: built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home. It survived many eras, many reigns: it saw the passing of Cromwell and the Civil War. It became rich with an Indian Nabob and poor with a 20th century innkeeper. It saw wars, and lovers, and death. Children were born there, both heirs and bastards. It had ghosts and legends and a history that grew stranger with every generation.

The House at Sunset

• UNABRIDGED (14 hrs and 7 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Martyn Read, Juliet Prague
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

"At the age of seven I was a skilful pickpocket. I could sew neatly, write a tolerable hand, make a curtsey and a correct introduction, dance a little and play simple tunes on the harpsichord.” This was the London life of Felicity Hatton in 1740 – until chance sent her back to the House, first as a pauper, later to become its mistress – a strange eccentric mistress whose choice of husband was as unorthodox as her manner of living.

The Lost Queen

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 45 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Patricia Gallimore
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Thus the future of Caroline Matilda, youngest sister of George III, was settled – marriage to the nearly insane Prince of Denmark. Prompted by a sense of foreboding, she begged that one of her sisters should be sent in her place. But Caroline was the healthiest, the strongest of the English princesses, and as well as being exiled, princesses were meant to be brood mares…Exiled in a strange country, isolated by her inability to speak the language, Caroline forms a close bond with the King’s doctor, Johann Struensee.

The Day of the Butterfly

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 2 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Annie Aldington

When Daisy Holt was dismissed from her post as a nursemaid she set off cheerfully into the jungle of mid-Victorian London. When Kitty Hammond, proprietress of the “select establishment” off Leicester Square discovered her she was quick to realise that Daisy has a rare talent and would make a successful entertainer. And there it was that she met the impoverished artist John Skelton. To him Daisy represented the perfect model – the one to inspire his work.

Nethergate

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Nicolette McKenzie, Gordon Griffin

Forced to flee Revolutionary France after the brutal guillotining of her beloved father, Isabella de Savigny arrives at Nethergate, the Suffolk house of her cousin, hoping for sympathy and succour. Instead, as a poor relation, she is forced to live the life of a servant and suffer the casual cruelty of lady’s maid Martha Pratt. When she is seduced and abandoned by the son of the house, Isabella is forced to marry Martha’s brother, and her struggle to survive truly begins. However, her misery is lessened when her daughter is born....

Knight's Acre

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 21 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Patience Tomlinson

Sir Godfrey Tallboys was a knight-errant, famous for his success at tourneys, but far from wealthy. In an attempt to make his fortune he left his wife Sybilla and travelled to Spain to fight a minor rusade against the Moors. But treachery lurked in that far distant land and soon Sir Godfrey became a prisoner, a helpless slave in a hostile country. Back in quiet Suffolk he was reported dead. And so it fell to Sybilla to fend for the whole family.

A Calf for Venus

• UNABRIDGED (7 hrs and 28 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Gareth Armstrong

The Coffee House was a warm, brightly lit place. The serving girls were pretty and the men who visited the rooms seemed polite enough. But still there were whispers, ugly disquieting rumours about what happened at night when the big oak door was closed. The young doctor had never been inside the Coffee House - and indeed had no wish to - until he met the frail, shabbily dressed girl on the Newmarket coach.

Hester Roon

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 46 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Penelope Freeman
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The Fleece Inn stood where the three roads joined - the roads to London, to Norwich, and to the sea. Its trade was prosperous, its hospitality famous, and the host was jolly and generous. To his servants he was cruel and menacing, and to Ellie Roon, the most menial servant at the Fleece, he was a figure of terror. Ellie was used to being bullied, but when her illegitimate daughter was born - in a rat-ridden attic of the Fleece - she decided that Hester must have a different kind of life.

A Wayside Tavern

• UNABRIDGED (15 hrs and 35 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Jonathan Keeble

A Wayside Tavern tells the story of a Suffolk drinking place from the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, until the present day. The Roman veteran, crippled and left behind, worshipped Mithras, so the place became known as the One Bull and down through the centuries it became a clearing house for contraband, a miniature Hell Fire Club, a fashionable hotel, a mere pub. Across the yard, was the church of St Cerdic, king and martyr, who fought the Danes and was famous for the miracles performed at his shrine.

The Lonely Furrow

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 27 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Patience Tomlinson

The Wars of the Roses were over, but for Henry Tallboys the battle for survival went on. Scratchign a livign from the meagre soil of Knight’s Acre was no easy task, but that wasn’t Henry’s only worry – there was also Joann’s future to settle. Even at the age of eleven Joanna seemed destined to fetch a handsome price in the marriage market; yet a mysterious bond seemed to unite her with Henry, a bond more close than either of them could have known.

The Homecoming

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Patience Tomlinson

Sir Godfrey Tallboys had come home from the Crusades. Home to Knight’s Acre. But the years had brought many changes – and not only to his estate. His wife Sybilla, exhausted with struggling to keep poverty at bay, had grown old before her time. And with Sir Godfrey’s return, there was further change. With him was the Moorish slave girl who had saved his life in Spain.

Eleanor the Queen

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Nicolette McKenzie
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Eleanor…young, high-spirited, supremely intelligent, heiress to the vast Duchy of Aquitaine – at a time when a woman’s value was measured in terms of wealth. Her vivid leadership inspired and dazzled those about her. And yet, born to rule, she was continually repressed and threatened by the men who overshadowed her life. This is the story of a brilliant, medieval figure – of a princess who led her own knights to the Crusades, who was bride to two kings and mother of Richard the Lionheart.

Esther

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 41 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Julia Franklin

Ataxerxes, king of Persia, needed a wife. This powerful warrior lord picked the one girl who would have given anything to have been passed over - a Jewish scholar, Esther, from the back streets of his capital, Shushan. To a king bored by the chattering of women wreathed in musky scents, this changeling was a breath of fresh air. But the new queen of Persia was lost in a world of protocol and soon lost her husband;s favour.

To See a Fine Lady

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Norah Lofts
• Narrated By Charlotte Strevens

When, at the Pollards Harvest Supper of 1817, Araminta Glover was seduced by Jan Honeywood, the outcome seemed inevitable. Araminta, like so many servant girls, would marry her poor suitor and prepare to raise a large family on nine shillings a week. But 17-year-old Araminta was determined enough to rebel against the pattern of impoverished rural life, and, putting marriage and Jan firmly behind her, she accepted the post of dairymaid in the house of the strange Mrs Stancy.