Showing results by narrator "Louise Brealey" in All Categories

It’s 1990. Johanna Morrigan, 14, has shamed herself so badly on local TV that she decides that there’s no point in being Johanna anymore and reinvents herself as Dolly Wilde - fast-talking, hard-drinking Gothic hero and full-time Lady Sex Adventurer! She will save her poverty stricken Bohemian family by becoming a writer - like Jo in Little Women, or the Brontes - but without the dying young bit. By 16, she’s smoking cigarettes, getting drunk, and working for a music paper.

Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson. Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia.

The powerful new novel from number one Sunday Times best seller Clare Mackintosh. Max and Pip are the strongest couple you know. Only now they're facing the most important decision of their lives - and they don't agree. As the consequences of an impossible choice threaten to devastate them both, nothing will ever be the same again. But anything can happen after the end....

In Letters of Note: War, Shaun Usher brings together some of the most remarkable letters that encapsulate the human experience of war, from unimaginable feats of courage and compassion, to unthinkable episodes of violence and horror. A star-studded cast of readers brings the letters to life, with contributions from Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Natascha McElhone, Clarke Peters, Juliet Stevenson and Mark Strong.

Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life. Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. 

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind - a subject of folklore and awe, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. Through the stories of those who've obsessed over this phenomenon, Helm's extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm - and the farmer's daughter who loved Helm.

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Philippa Gregory’s new historical novel tracks the rise of the Tidelands family in London, Venice, and New England.

In Letters of Note: Art, Shaun Usher celebrates extraordinary correspondence about art, from missives on the agony of being overlooked, the ecstasy of producing work that excites, to surprising sources of inspiration and rousing manifestos. A star-studded cast of readers brings the letters to life, with contributions from Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Helen McCrory, Stephen Mangan, Clarke Peters, Juliet Stevenson, Mark Strong and Meera Syal.

THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE CAPTIVATING FAIRMILE SERIES FROM NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR, PHILIPPA GREGORY, TRACKING THE RISE OF THE TIDELANDS FAMILY IN LONDON, VENICE AND NEW ENGLAND. Midsummer Eve, 1670. A turbulent time to seek the truth . . . A wealthy man waits outside a poor London warehouse...

**Now a major motion picture starring Jodie Comer** A startlingly beautiful story of a family's survival, The End We Start From is a haunting but hopeful dystopian vision of a familiar world made dangerous and unstable. 'Engrossing, compelling' - Naomi Alderman, author of The Power 'I was moved...

Edinburgh, 1850. Despite being at the forefront of modern medicine, hordes of patients are dying all across the city, with doctors finding their remedies powerless. But it is not just the deaths that dismay the esteemed Dr James Simpson - a whispering campaign seeks to blame him for the death of a patient in suspicious circumstances. Simpson's protégé Will Raven and former housemaid Sarah Fisher are determined to clear their patron's name.

THE NEW SPELLBINDING NOVEL IN THE FAIRMILE SERIES FROM NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF TIDELANDS and DARK TIDES, PHILIPPA GREGORY In a divided country, power and loyalty conquer all . . . Ned Ferryman, inspired by news of a rebellion against the Stuart kings, returns from America with his...

England 1648. A dangerous time for a woman to be different . . . From Philippa Gregory, the #1 bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl. On Midsummer’s Eve, Alinor waits in the church graveyard, hoping to encounter the ghost of her missing husband and thus confirm his death. Until she can...

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF RICHARD & JUDY THRILLER PICK NO ONE HOME NO GOODBYE When Leonard Franks and his wife Ellie left London for their dream retirement in the seclusion of Dartmoor, everything seemed perfect. But then Leonard heads outside to fetch firewood...

The story begins in 1970. The day after Jimi Hendrix's death...dairy farmer Michael Eavis invites revellers to his field in Somerset to attend a 'Pop, Folk & Blues' festival. Tickets are £1 each, enticing more than a thousand customers with the promise of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment - as well as free milk from his own Worthy Farm cows. Fast forward through five tumultuous decades, and the Eavises' vision now encompasses a gigantic 'city in the fields', with a total annual population nearing a quarter of a million.

Brought to you by Penguin. You wake up. You can't remember what happened. The man lying next to you is not your husband. And he's not breathing... The gripping third thriller starring DCI Jonah Sheens, from the author of Richard and Judy pick and Sunday Times bestseller She Lies in Wait. Louise...

Brought to you by Penguin. All Lauren wants is a new life in Spain. She’s suffered an unimaginable loss, but at last she has found a home in the pretty seaside town of Mantilla de Mar. Everyone deserves a new start, and Lauren needs to put her past firmly behind her. Hope has everything: an...

Agatha Christie meets Countdown in the debut mystery novel from the genius of Dictionary Corner, Susie Dent Word games can be murder When an anonymous letter is delivered to the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary, it is immediately clear that this is not the usual lexicographical...

In Letters of Note: Fathers, Shaun Usher collects letters celebrating weird and wonderful dads.

In Letters of Note: Mothers, Shaun Usher gathers together exceptional missives by and to mothers, celebrating the joy and grief, humour and frustration, wisdom and sacrifice the role brings to both parent and child. A star-studded cast of readers brings the letters to life, with contributions from Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Neil Gaiman, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Helen McCrory, Natascha McElhone, Miriam Margolyes, Clarke Peters, Juliet Stevenson and Meera Syal.