Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

Hull, 1930. A terrified woman runs through the dark, rain-lashed streets pursued by a man, desperate to reach the sanctuary of the local police station. Alice Goddard runs with one thing in mind: her daughter. In her panic she is hit by a car and rushed to hospital. When she wakes, she has no memory of who she is, but at night she dreams of being hunted by a man, and of a little girl. The weeks pass, but even her own mother is evasive about the girl’s whereabouts. Penniless and homeless, Alice must rebuild her life, hoping that one day she will be reunited with her lost daughter.

Proud and canny, ignorant and intensely ambitious, Hannah Massey is a born ruler. Her kingdom may only be a working-class household in County Durham, but within its walls her iron will governs a predominantly male family, her word unchallengeable law. Now, in late middle age, her ambition is yet to be satisfied. She wants to see her brood living in the house where she was in service as a young girl. The apple of Hannah's eye is her pretty younger daughter, Rosie, who has just returned home after a spell in London.

All Mary wants to do is protect her family. But how can she, when their father keeps tearing it apart? Grieving for their mother and abandoned by their father, Mary and her siblings seek refuge at the foundling school. But the school has its own struggles, short-staffed since Hilary married. When the nuns hire Mary's father, and he arrives with the pregnant 16-year-old he left their mother for, Mary's newfound world is shaken. Can she make a new life for her siblings when their father is set on disrupting it?

A story from The Prisoner’s Defence, a collection of First World War short stories. In 'Paraphernalia' a nurse describes the difficulty in distancing herself from her patients and their suffering.

1959. Her modelling career in tatters and her long-term relationship with her sailor boyfriend at an end, 19-year-old Maggie Gregory returns to her family in Liverpool to lick her wounds and decide what to do with the rest of her life. A chance encounter with a handsome stranger offers the possibility of new romance. But is the man who gives his name as Tim Murphy really all he seems? What secrets has he been keeping from Maggie? And will this new relationship only lead to more heartbreak?

From the best-selling author of Miss Appleby's Academy comes a gritty saga perfect for fans of Dilly Court, Maggie Hope and Nadine Dorries. Prue's heart beat hard - she had heard of the low seams of the mines of Northwest Durham, and she had always had a fear of being enclosed. This was her job, she told herself; this was what she had wanted. She must do it. So she picked up her bag and followed them to the cage which carried the miners belowground, praying that the man did not die, that she need not produce some miracle....

Young Harriet and her brother, Austin, have always been scared of the quarry where their stonemason father works. So when they find him dead on the cold ground, they scarper quick smart and look for some help. When help arrives, however, the quarry is deserted, and there is no sign of the body. Were the children mistaken? Is their father not dead? Did he simply get up and run away?

The Woman Unknown: Deirdre Fitzpatrick is married to a man who wants to know where she really goes when supposedly taking care of her sick mother and calls on the expertise of Kate Shackleton, amateur sleuth extraordinaire, to investigate. The Gentleman: Everett Runcie is a banker facing ruin and disgrace. His American heiress wife will no longer pay for his mistakes or tolerate his infidelity and is seeking a divorce.

Margriet grew up as a lonely child in the old town of Hull. Her adored father often travelled by sea to the Netherlands, leaving her with an unaffectionate mother and only her imagination of a little Dutch girl to keep her company. When tragedy struck and her father's ship went down in a storm, devastation ravaged her tiny family. A few years later, Margriet is blossoming into a kind young lady. Keen to escape her mother and strike out on her own, she forms an unlikely friendship with some of the street children.

Best friends Bernie and Molly are just seventeen when they set off from Ireland in 1928, heading for Liverpool. They quickly find jobs and rooms; soon both women are in love with local men. Tragically, though, Bernie is widowed when she's still barely an adult, while Molly has chosen a bad 'un and faces the deepest shame when he deserts her. But this difficult start only reinforces the bond between the women, and gives them the strength to build a brighter future...

Life in 1920s Liverpool for sisters Gloria and Betty Jenkins is secure and comfortable. Elder sister Gloria finds romance with the boy next door, until her wealthy, but snobbish and interfering, Aunt Sybil steps in, offering her the opportunity of a lifetime. A trip to New York gives Gloria everything she desires - including a wealthy husband. Meanwhile, Betty chooses a career at sea, which offers challenges, personal danger, and romance. But with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, tragedy strikes for one of the sisters and through these trials they come to value the bonds of family more than ever.

The George pub in the backstreets of Liverpool lost its landlord when he ran off with the barmaid. Now his wife Eve runs the pub with the help of her three daughters and together they face up to all that life can throw at them. Warm-hearted, full of nostalgic descriptions of life in an earlier era, Lyn Andrews' latest has all the ingredients that her many thousands of fans look for and find in each new novel.

Angela O'Rourke is six when her parents hand her over to an aunt and uncle in a distant village. It's a common practice for large, hard-up families in 1950s Ireland, but for Angela it means that her mother and father don't love her any more. Still, she's well cared for till she's 16, when her uncle starts to take too much of an interest in her. Moving to Liverpool in the early 1960s, she becomes a success in the world of fashion design. The pain of a disastrous love affair sends her home to Ireland just after the death of her aunt. There, among old papers, Angela makes an astonishing discovery....

Mary McGann's marriage has always been difficult, thanks to her husband Frank's drunken, jealous nature. Only because the little money he earns in the docks keeps food in the mouths of their children is Mary prepared to put up with him. But when Frank throws them all out on the street, Mary flees to her family in Dublin. There she meets Richard O'Neill, a handsome though solitary man. Despite the attraction between them, Mary's not looking for love....

When best friends Dee Campbell and Jean Williams leave school, in 1959, it feels like every opportunity awaits them. Their families haven't long moved from a rundown part of the city to leafy Kirkby when Jean's father wins the Irish sweepstake and soon Jean's set up her own hairdressing salon, while both girls have fallen for good-looking lads with prospects. It's hard to imagine being any happier. But Dee's father is about to discover a disturbing truth about her fiancé. With one revelation, the Campbells are torn apart. As Dee flees to Ireland, Jean marries Tony, blissfully unaware that she's not the only pretty girl to catch his eye....

Britain is at war and Ruth, a gifted pilot, is determined to join the Air Transport Auxiliary. Over in America, Jack and Lucy Nelson, are also keen to join. After a perilous journey by sea, Jack is posted to White Waltham, where he quite literally bumps into Ruth.

After Ruth Dixon's mother deserts her on Christmas Eve, her father comes home drunk and commits an unthinkable act. Without money or friends she has nowhere to go, but when he hurts her a second time, she knows what she must do. She is rescued by Jay, a businessman, who takes her to the convent where she meets Sister Madeline. Along with the rest of the nuns, Maddy provides food, shelter and education for orphans. Ruth comes to see her new friends as family, and things are finally looking up.

Detta works as a translator for a Nazi-run labour camp for French workers. One winter morning in early 1945, Detta passes a group of exhausted British prisoners of war who are being force-marched westwards. The following day she receives an urgent message to contact the local priest. He is harbouring a group of escaped British prisoners of war in the manse: can she help? London, 1989. Miranda is a 19-year-old photography student in London, in thrall to her older boyfriend, a journalist called Quill. In November the fall of the Berlin Wall is all over the news.

Lucy Bailey is not a girl to take no for an answer. When she asks her friend Billy Wellington to help her rescue a stray dog, she has no idea of the potential repercussions. A serious crime is committed while Billy is absent from the children's home where he lives and, when suspicion falls on him, the police decide that the safest thing for everybody is to lock him away in a mental institution. Lucy refuses to believe that Billy has done anything wrong, and enlists her cool-headed teenage brother Arnold to help.

After facing the horrors of the Crimean War, Adam Brooksbank returns to Black Moss Farm filled with regret over the path in life he has chosen. Starting anew, he decides to focus on rebuilding his family’s rundown farm and make it a home again. Lucy Bancroft lives with her parents on Prospect Terrace which backs onto the local tannery and is the most beautiful girl in the village. But unfortunately her wealth doesn’t match her looks, and she soon realises that nobody wants to court a girl from the filthy Flay Pits, let alone marry her.