Showing results by narrator "Patience Tomlinson" in All Categories

After travelling the world with her parents, Lisa yearned for stability, roots and tradition. Marriage to solid, dependable Henry would help her achieve this ambition, but first she had to meet his parents! Christmas in the snow-bound Yorkshire Dales should have been a joyous occasion, but Henry’s family home was as cold and chill as his mother was aloof and unbending. Rescue came in the unlikely guise of the exasperating Oliver Davenport.

Having sent his last wife to the block, the tyrannical Henry VIII sets his lustful sights upon an innocent and unworldly gentlewoman, the recently widowed, Katherine Parr. In mourning for her late husband, and yet desperately in love with another, Katherine is forced to choose between the man she loves and a crown of despair. In the years that follow, as Henry's terrified sixth wife and queen, she battles to contain her fear and revulsion of her bloated and monstrous new husband.

All was quiet in the Bodle home in Plumstead village on the morning of 2 November 1833. In the large ten bedroom farmhouse, the maid Sophia Taylor began preparing breakfast while, at the cottage down the track, Mary Higgins came down to set the fire. But all was not as it seemed that morning... When the local doctor was summoned several hours later he found four women suffering from severe vomiting and stomach pains whilst the master of the house was delirious with pain.

Life wasn’t easy as a single parent, but somehow Win had managed to raise a child that any parent could be proud of. And now Charlie’s father was back on the scene and demanding a share in his son. Was a share all he wanted, or did he intend to take Charlie away from her? All Win knew was that in the space of a few days James had managed to turn her from a calm, self-assured adult into an insecure bundle of nerves. But was her concern all for Charlie?

Poppy Carlton: Cousin to the groom. She is devastated when Chris falls in love and marries someone else. She will never love again. James Carlton: The groom’s older brother – and best man. Mocking and cynical, he is the exact opposite of fun-loving Chris. James taunts Poppy that she should find herself a real man and leave her adolescent fantasies behind. He is not adverse to showing her just what real passion is about. But how can he be sure that her response is for him?

Wiser after her humiliating experience with one particular rogue male, Beth is not about to fall for any man’s lies again. From now on, emotion is out and playing men at their own game is in. A business trip to the beautiful city of Prague puts her in the way of seductively charming Alex Andrews. His claim to be rapidly falling in love with her is disconcerting, especially as Beth has good reason to believe that his motives are far from pure. But he’s tempting - oh, so tempting.…

For Elaine, her first lvoe was all consuming, but when Chris, the love of her life, inherited a large sum of money everything changed. With the help of her friend, Mary, Elaine slowly began to forge a new life and fell in love again, with Ian. When an expected face from the past returns to haunt her she is forced to question the future for which she has worked so hard. Can life ever be the same again for Elaine and the people she loves? And, more importantly, has she ever really known the true meaning of love?

After her father’s death, Theordora Buckleigh’s new adopted family want to give her a London season. But though she is a pretty girl, Theodora has limped from birth, and dreads exposure to the social round. She takes evasive action, accepting an invitation from Dorothy Wordsworth to stay with her and her poet brother William in Dorset. Here she will find love, danger and intrigue. Might Coleridge and the others be engaged in treason?

Miss Melinda Pink, intrepid rock climber, gothic writer and people observer, is awestruck by her first glimpse of the majestic Utah canyon country. But she’s soon aware of undercurrents of tension among the close-knit inhabitants of Salvation Canyon. When Birdie, a young half-Indian girl, disappears, her body found in a nearby river soon afterward, the tension explodes to the surface.

1835, England. Serafina Finn is conceived as the result of a love affair between a sea captain and a married woman, who dies giving birth to the child. Abandoned to an orphanage, Serafina grows up never quite knowing who she is. Eighteen years after her birth, and having heard rumours that his lost daughter is still alive, her father instigates a search. He hires Adam Chapman to track Serafina down. Adam falls in love with Serafina but must find evidence to prove her identity.

Kathy Brady is evacuated during World War II and separated from her two stepbrothers and mother. She lives on Magpie Farm with the Spicer family and falls in love with Chris. However, Kathy is embarrassed about her background and invents a much grander life than she actually had. She eventually hears that her mother has been killed and that she must return to live with her stepbrothers. Kathy gets caught up in their money laundering but she eventually manages to escape back to Magpie farm.

England, June 1944. Exactly one week after the Allied armies invade Nazi occupied Normandy, Hitler strikes back with his Vengeance Weapons: the terrifying V-1 Flying Bombs. In August, one of these "doodlebugs" falls on an Anglican convent near Camberwell, killing three nuns.

Born in Prague to a Jewish family in 1929, Dita Kraus has lived through the most turbulent decades of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Here, Dita writes with startling clarity on the horrors and joys of a life delayed by the Holocaust. From her earliest memories and childhood friendships in Prague before the war, to the Nazi occupation that saw her and her family sent to the Jewish ghetto at Terezín, to the unimaginable fear and bravery of her imprisonment in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and life after liberation.

The Oast Theatre in Steeple Martin is hosting a touring production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night which is attracting a lot of attention. But very soon it begins to attract attention of an entirely different kind when a document goes missing along with its owner. When a body turns up, Libby Sarjeant and Fran Wolfe become involved with the investigation with the help, naturally, of their friends and relatives.

When the sleepy village of Steeple Martin announces its first beer festival, the locals are excited. Beer, sun and music, what could possibly go wrong? But when an unexpected death shakes the village, it’s up to Libby Sarjeant to solve the puzzle. Was it just another rock-star death or is there something more sinister afoot?

Max Tobin brings his all-male dance company to Steeple Martin, with his new ballet, Pendle, based on the infamous Pendle Witch Trials, due to be performed at the Oast Theatre. There have been unpleasant incidents during rehearsals in London, and Max asks Libby Sarjeant and her friend Fran Wolfe to look into them. To everyone’s surprise, the incidents continue at the Oast, and their seriousness escalates until, inevitably, someone is murdered. While the police look into the murder, Libby and Fran wonder why someone seemed so set against the ballet.

Libby Sarjeant and friends are taking a well-earned holiday at a village on the Turkish coast – but despite their best intentions it seems that murder has even followed them there. When out on a boat trip they discover a body, but at first it has nothing to do with them, for once...until they find out that the deceased was English – and so are the suspects.

A member of a local ukulele group is found dead in Steeple Martin's churchyard. Libby's first reaction is relief that the victim isn't anyone she knows. She and the usual suspects have other things to occupy them, as they are gearing up for a Christmas concert and pantomime in the Oast Theatre, but when Libby's cousin gets romantically involved with a man in whom the police are taking an interest, she can't help asking a few questions - and getting into trouble....

A woman of independent means with a healthy dose of cynicism about the male persuasion, Harriet Tremayne is content with her circle of spinster friends and their devotion to literature, women's rights, and intellectual interests. However, when she determines to undertake a London Season for her beautiful but featherbrained niece, she concedes she must appear less a bluestocking and more fashionable to successfully sponsor this impossible young lady whose only real desire, it seems, is to consume chocolate.

It's not easy sharing a flat. Especially when you're 95 years old. Change is afoot at Sunset Grove retirement home, and its residents aren't impressed. Under threat from falling masonry, best friends Irma and Siiri are forced out of their home to negotiate 21st-century living in the centre of Helsinki. Their new surroundings throw up an endless number of daily challenges, from caring for the ailing Anna-Lisa to the mystery of which of the many remotes controls the TV.