Showing results by narrator "Caitlin Thorburn" in All Categories

On a remote Scottish island, the McBride house stands guard over its secrets. A century ago, a young widow and her son died mysteriously there. Just last year a local boy, visiting for a dare, disappeared without a trace. For Zoe Adams, newly arrived from America, the house offers a refuge from her failing marriage. But her peaceful retreat is disrupted by strange and disturbing events: night-time intrusions, unknown voices, and a constant sense of being watched.

Hustvedt displays her expansive intellect and interdisciplinary knowledge in this collection that moves effortlessly between stories of her mother, grandmother, and daughter to artistic mothers, Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, and Louise Bourgeois, to the broader meanings of maternal in a culture shaped by misogyny and fantasies of paternal authority. Mothers, Fathers, and Others is a polymath’s journey into urgent questions about familial love and hate, human prejudice and cruelty, and the transformative power of art.

High school senior Hattie Hoffman has spent her whole life playing many parts: the good student, the good daughter, the good citizen. When she's found brutally stabbed to death on the opening night of her high school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of her small-town community. Local sheriff Del Goodman, a family friend of the Hoffmans, vows to find her killer, but trying to solve her murder yields more questions than answers.

Twenty-nine-year-old Penina longs for true love and marriage, but being infertile in the Orthodox Jewish community means she’s rarely matched with the cream of the crop—or even skim milk two weeks past its expiration date. Matchmakers either set her up with men twice her age or those with serious mommy issues. At this point, she might as well wear a sign around her neck that says “professional virgin.” As if things weren’t bad enough, her sister Libby then shares a terrible secret.

As well as being a prize-winning, best-selling novelist, Siri Hustvedt is widely regarded as a leading thinker in the fields of neurology, feminism, art criticism and philosophy. She believes passionately that art and science are too often kept separate and that conversations across disciplines are vital to increasing our knowledge of the human mind and body, how they connect and how we think, feel and see.

Bloomsbury presents The Broken Road by Peggy Wallace Kennedy with Justice H. Mark Kennedy, read by Caitlin Thorburn. From the daughter of one of America’s most virulent segregationists, a memoir that reckons with her father George Wallace’s legacy of hate - and illuminates her journey towards redemption.

If you save someone's life, do you become responsible for them? When Anna receives a letter from Adam, thanking her for saving his son Max's life with a bone-marrow donation, it's the first positive thing that's happened to her for a long time. Grief-stricken at the recent loss of her baby, she's failed to give life in the past. Now this four-year-old boy is alive and healthy because of her: it's a heady realisation. Anna is desperate to get to know Max, yet terrified at how responsible she feels for him.

From the age of 19, Emma Victor has had to bring up her much younger sister, Stella. It has shaped both their lives. Now Stella is almost grown up, and Emma's nurturing instincts extend to her work as an aromatherapist and inform her relationship with the unreliable but irresistible Gavin. But something is missing, and Emma has to confront her deepest need - a need she's been denying for years - and embark on a search for her birth mother.

New York, present day. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after surviving a kidnap attempt, has a harsh choice - elimination by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to the mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother's homeland in Europe. Founded 16 centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety and a ready-made family - at a price.

Change is sometimes hard to face up to. Rachel is a rising tennis star. But does she want success more than she wants a 'real' life, and a steady boyfriend like everyone else? Susie is Rachel's mother. All she wants is her partner Billy - but he's left her, and it's a huge shock. Is she brave enough to start again? Gordana is Rachel's grandmother. She has everything she ever wanted: health, wealth and a loving family - or at least she thinks she does. Ivan is the link between them all.

In a world where everyone has their perfect match, 17-year-old Lila Black is sick of Cupid's Matchmaking Service spamming her. But her world is turned inside-out when she learns not only that cupids exist, but that she's been matched with the infamous god of love, Cupid. The only catch? She can't actually fall for Cupid; if she does, all of mythical hell will break loose, and it won't be pretty. As arrows fly and feelings become stronger, can Cupid and Lila resist each other's magnetic pull?

From best-selling author and teacher Mary Maccracken comes the engaging and inspiring story of five troubled children she fought to bring back from the brink. Joey is the class clown but alone proves to be an intensely dark seven-year old who still can't read. Eric is a kindergartener left withdrawn and speechless by the horrors he's witnessed at home. Alice appears to be the model fifth-year child but secretly scores zero on every maths test.

When Josie O'Casey returns to London after 12 years in America, she is overjoyed to discover that her childhood sweetheart Patrick Nolan, who she believed to be dead, is alive and well. But Josie's happiness is short-lived - Patrick now belongs to another. Heartbroken, Josie vows to forget about Patrick and settle back into life in the East End. But the East End that Josie knew as a child is much changed. While Josie can remember only too clearly her poverty-stricken upbringing, her family's social standing has vastly improved since they've been away.

Siri Hustvedt's relentlessly curious mind and expansive intellect are on full display in this stunning new collection of essays, whose subjects range from the nature of memory and time to what we inherit from our parents, the power of art during tragedy, misogyny, motherhood, neuroscience and the books we turn to during a pandemic. 

Who is Eva Thorvald? To her single father, a chef, she's a pint-sized recipe tester and the love of his life. To the chili chowdown contestants of Cook County, Illinois, she's a fire-eating demon. To the fashionable foodie goddess of supper clubs, she's a wanton threat. She's an enigma, a secret ingredient that no one can put their finger on. Eva will surprise everyone. On the day before her eleventh birthday, she's cultivating chili peppers in her wardrobe like a pro.

Hildy Good has reached that dangerous time in a woman’s life – middle-aged and divorced, she is an oddity in her small but privileged town. But Hildy isn’t one for self-pity and instead meets the world with a wry smile, a dark wit and a glass or two of Pinot Noir. When her two earnest grown-up children stage ‘an intervention’ and pack Hildy off to an addiction centre, she thinks all this fuss is ridiculous. After all, why shouldn’t she enjoy a drink now and then? But we start to see another side to Hildy Good.

Captain Carina Mitela of the Praetorian Guard Special Forces is in trouble - one military colleague has tried to kill her, and another has set a trap to incriminate her in a conspiracy to topple the government of Roma Nova. Founded 1,600 years ago by Roman dissidents and ruled by women, Roma Nova barely survived a devastating coup d'état 30 years ago. Carina swears to prevent a repeat and not merely for love of country.

Penina has grown up believing the Orthodox Jewish teaching that there is one soulmate out there for everyone. But now she's twenty-nine and single, she's staring to wonder if she's the exception. She has tried everything to find 'the one' and after yet another disastrous date, she can feel even her faith starting to dwindle. Add to that spending her days surrounded by diamond engagement rings in the jewellery store where she works and her new boss, Sam Kleinfeld, making her life a living hell, and Penina feels more hopeless than ever.

Eighteen-year-old Hattie Hoffman is a talented actress, loved by everyone in her Minnesotan hometown. When she's found stabbed to death on the opening night of her school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of the community. Sheriff Del Goodman, a close friend of Hattie's dad, vows to find her killer, but the investigation yields more secrets than answers: it turns out Hattie played as many parts offstage as on.

Glamour and suspense in the all-new Sidney Sheldon from the international best seller Tilly Bagshawe.Grace Brookstein is the beautiful, young, and naive wife of financial superstar, Leonard Brookstein - a billionaire many times over with estates all over the world.