Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

When 12 year-old Jared Johnson’s little sister dies, just hours after his mother breathes her last after wasting away so her children could eat, he knows he is on own. Desperate to avoid the workhouse, he does everything he can to survive the inhospitable streets of Birmingham. Jared is blessed with the gift of the gab and soon attracts the attention of the King of the Tatters, Toby McGuire. Recognising a kindred spirit, Toby soon has Jared out on a cart hustling for rags.

Onstage at a Las Vegas convention, Elo Ó hAllmhuráin, a worldfamous tech magnate, demonstrates a time machine, catapulting himself and journalist Dory Silver into the distant future. Stranded and desperate to get home to her dying partner, Dory is forced to re-examine the past. Time/Life is a love letter to science fiction rooted in a very real present of rising populism and the unintended consequences of technology. Above all, it is a powerful meditation on the nature of love itself.

By the year 1949, life in Walworth has almost returned to normal. Sammy and Boots, now in a highly successful partnership, are rebuilding the old family firm. But an old enemy resurfaces - Mr Ben Ford, better known as the Fat Man, who seems determined to ruin the various branches of this growing business. It takes all the well-known Adams ingenuity and determination to outwit the thugs in the Fat Man's pay.

THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE NEVER FREE. Cain Moran wanted Jenny Riley more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything before in his life. But loving Jenny Riley was the easy part; it was telling his wife he wanted a divorce that was going to be the killer... Jenny is not just any girl. She cares...

THE TAKE by No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author Martina Cole won the British Book Award for best Crime Thriller of the Year and was adapted for television with an all-star cast including Tom Hardy, Brian Cox and Charlotte Riley. 'Martina tells it like it really is' - Sun. In this family, if you...

When orphaned Jake Harding is sent away from his adoptive home aged just seven, he does not understand why - especially as his adopted brother, Toby, is kept by their mother. Forced to make his own way in the world, Jake falls in with a gang of petty thieves, who make their living lifting valuables from those who are better off. At sixteen, he crosses paths with the charismatic Johnny Cooper and his nemesis George Payne, and risks making an enemy when he attracts the attention of George's beautiful daughter Rebecca.

It was 1940, and many of the younger members of the Adams family were caught up in the war in France. Boots, now a major and on the staff of General Sir Henry Simms, was one of the thousands of British troops trying to escape in the armada of little boats from Dunkirk. His son, Tim, and nephew, Bobby, were also struggling to reach the coast and safety, while Eloise was with the ATS awaiting the homecoming soldiers at Portsmouth with a comforting cup of tea and a ticket home. Boots and Tim both made it safely back, but of Bobby, there was no sign, and the family all feared the worst.

Job and Jemima Hardy weren't Londoners by birth. They had both lived in a Sussex village until lack of work had sent Job and the family to Walworth - to a house in Stead Street. They got it cheap because of the poltergiest, but they were sensible folk and decided that eight shillings a week rent was a bargain, and - well - if the floors and doors sometimes moved a bit, they could live with it.

There was a new family in Browning Street, Walworth - the Harrisons. Respectable and well-behaved, the only thing unusual about them was that Mr Harrison was never there. He was a sailor, said Ma Harrison, away fighting pirates in the China Seas. Actually, 'Knocker' Harrison was in Marsham Gaol - he had unfortunately burgled a lady's suite when she happened to be there. Pa wasn't really a very good burglar.

1926: The murderer Gerald Ponsonby has been caught, thanks to Boots, and is facing trial. He hates Boots and the whole Adams clan and is hungry for revenge. When a dapper, quiet, but rather odd lodger turns up at Doreen Paterson's house, nobody thinks anything is amiss. Certainly not Doreen - who works for Boots in Adams Enterprises and thinks him just wonderful. Could the strange lodger be plotting the downfall of the irrepressible, outrageous, and larger-than-life Adams clan?

The house in Caulfield Place, off Browning Street in Walworth, was haunted, or at least that's what the street kids said. So when two men, a woman and a parrot moved in, everyone was very interested, especially 14-year-old Cassie Ford, who was particularly fascinated by the parrot. And it was just about this time that Mr Finch, Chinese Lady's husband and Boots's stepfather began to get mysterious telephone calls. Mr Finch had never told the rest of the Adams family - except for Boots - the secrets of his past, or what kind of work he did for the government.

Sent to the workhouse as a child, all Ella Hathaway can remember is a voice whispering, 'Dearie, promise you will never forget what you saw. Your Ma was killed deliberate...and someone oughter pay for it.' When wealthy spinster Letitia Fairchild witnesses Ella being ill treated, she takes her in as a scullery maid. But as Ella grows up, she is determined to find the truth about her mother's death and appeals to Letitia for help, revealing her only personal possession, a black silk purse. Intrigued, Letitia agrees to begin a quest to solve the mystery of Ella's past.

June Dawson has come a long way from her rough East End background. She now lives in a nice little cul-de-sac in Rainham with her ultra-respectable husband and a lovely social life. But her world collapses when daughter Debbie announces that she is pregnant by her low-life drug addict boyfriend, Billy McDaid. June feels as though she is being sucked back into the world of villains and thugs she thought she had escaped forever.

Circumstances force eight-year-old Sarah and her widowed mother to enter the notorious St Giles and St George’s Workhouse. When her mother dies in childbirth, the independent-minded Sarah falls foul of the workhouse master, Trigg, and his cruel wife. Sarah’s ordeal seems to be over when a sugar mill owner takes her into his home. But her wealthy benefactor reports Trigg and his wife. And blaming Sarah for their misfortune, in a fit of revenge, the couple decide to take the law into their own hands.

A terrifyingly gripping thriller of East End violence and corruption. Eleven years ago Marie Carter was convicted of killing her two best friends. And she's paid the price. Now she is being released from prison. It's time to go home. But life has moved on, and Marie has nowhere to go. Her parents have disowned her; her friends have abandoned her; even her kids don't want to know. But some people out there are watching her, following her every move - they know that Marie Carter wants retribution.

The gripping story of life on the inside and the outside of one of Britain's toughest prisons. Donna Brunos worships her husband and is devastated when he is jailed for armed robbery. Georgio swears he's been set up and persuades Donna to help him escape. Implementing 'the jump' takes Donna into a twilight world she never believed existed - a world of brutal sex and casual violence.

The first time Annie Sweet sees 43 Stanley Road, the house is so perfect she almost feels as though it has chosen her. But with her husband seeming more distant, and her daughter wrapped up in her friends and new school, Annie is increasingly left alone to mull over the past. She soon becomes...

Things have not been going too well for Daisy Lane. Her murdered lover, Eddie Lane, has left her comfortably off and his son little Eddie is an adorable and constant reminder of his father. The new man in her life, South London gangster Roy Kemp, looks out for her and is kind to little Eddie. But someone is watching Daisy's every move, like a predator choosing the perfect moment to pounce.

Daisy Lane returns to her hometown of Gosport after a spell abroad. She's been getting over the bad times, having lost both her husband, Kenny, and her lover, Eddie, to violent deaths. In her months away from home, Daisy has been busy. She's given birth to a baby boy and has been plotting her revenge on Roy Kemp: the London gangster who viciously murdered Eddie. Now she's ready to carry out those plans. But is it possible for a vulnerable woman to take on a man like Roy Kemp and not be badly hurt?

Daisy Lane is trying to build a future for herself and her sons. Roy Kemp, Daisy's former lover, is banged up in prison. Daisy must watch over Roy's criminal empire, while attempting to continue her relationship with copper Vinnie Endersby. But it isn't long before another gangster decides to challenge Roy's dominance.