Showing results by narrator "Emily Pennant-Rea" in All Categories

When Tegan Penrose climbs over the iron railings of the walled rose garden in the empty ruins of Trevarron House on the wild Cornish coast, she's unexpectedly pulled into 1755... and trapped in a world she doesn't belong to. Mistaken for a lady's maid, she enters a household shadowed by whispers and scandal. Lord William De Vere Trevarron is haunted. His beautiful young wife died under mysterious circumstances four years ago, and society still whispers of murder.

There is a specific energy to it. Cafes and shops close their shutters. Darkness descends. 'The air begins to tingle', wrote John Dos Passos of twenties New York. 'It's tonight if you drink enough, talk enough, walk far enough, that the train of magical events will begin.' Barely four centuries...

Many questions are explored in this authoritative book, written by two people closely associated with Diana: Inspector Ken Wharfe was the Princess's police protection officer for six years during the most turbulent period of her marriage to Prince Charles, and Ros Coward was chosen as author of the official book by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Trust. This book is both an examination of the people and events of the time and an elegiac tribute to one of the most iconic figures of the late twentieth century.

Dr. Irini Harringford was given away by her parents just before her fourth birthday. Although she has spent her whole life trying to convince herself she doesn't need them, deep down Irini longs to understand why she was abandoned, while her parents kept her older sister, Elle. So when Elle gets in touch with news that their mother has died, Irini reluctantly agrees to return to the family home. But she is ill at ease. She and Elle are not close. Irini knows only too well what Elle is capable of.

It’s 1966 and Frankie Croy retreats to her friend’s vacant palazzo in Venice. Years have passed since the initial success of Frankie’s debut novel and she has spent her career trying to live up to the expectations. Now, after a particularly scathing review of her most recent work, alongside a very public breakdown, she needs to recharge and get re-inspired.

When her father dies, Rosie returns to Warbury House after decades away. To secure her share of the fortune, she must endure seven days with her estranged siblings, Hettie and James. But the sprawling estate holds more than money – it guards the truth about her brother’s tragic death. As old wounds reopen, Rosie realises silence won't protect her anymore. With millions at stake and family secrets threatening to surface, can Rosie confront her past before it consumes her future?

When George Mottershead moved to the village of Upton-by-Chester in 1930 to realise his dream of opening a zoo without bars, his four-year-old daughter June had no idea how extraordinary her life would become. Soon her best friend was a chimpanzee called Mary, lion cubs and parrots were vying...

Embodiment is not an easy business. From violence to illness, sexuality to racism, the fact of a body can be impossibly hard to inhabit. Olivia Laing draws on her own background in protest and alternative medicine to investigate the reasons why. Laing’s exploration of the complexities of bodily life takes in some of the most significant and beguiling figures of the past century, among them the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the painters Francis Bacon and Agnes Martin and the singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone.

Frankie Carlisle finds herself back at Feywood—her family's crumbling manor house—after yet another disastrous break-up. Her sisters Juliet and Martha try to comfort her, but Frankie can’t help but wonder why everything always seems to go wrong in her life…Then a charming stranger arrives on the grounds, and Frankie's world is turned upside down once more. Could this unexpected encounter be the key to mending her broken heart and restoring the faded glory of Feywood, or will old wounds sabotage this last chance at happiness?

Winner of the 2024 Richard Jefferies Award for nature writing Shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation A Times Science Book of the Year ‘Sophie writes fantastically, chronicling the most important issues facing nature conservationists today.’ Chris Packham For...

A jaw-dropping novel of psychological suspense that asks, If the love of your life disappeared without a trace, how far would you go to find out why? Hannah Monroe's boyfriend, Matt, is gone. His belongings have disappeared from their house. Every call she ever made to him, every text she...

She trusted a stranger with her secrets. Now she's paying the price. Frazzled mum, Emily, loves her four-year-old twin daughters. Amidst trying her best to be the perfect mum all while keeping her sanity intact, she finds solace in the anonymous internet forum MumsOnline during her darkest days. But when a newfound friendship takes a dark turn, and her past is exposed, Emily's perfect life is threatened.

When a missing teenage girl reappears unharmed but pregnant, the case falls to DI Edina Ogborne, the newest recruit of Canterbury Police. But Ed’s already got her hands full with a team who don’t want her, an ex who won’t quit and terrible guilt over a secret from her past. As Ed investigates the case, she discovers Canterbury has seen this crime not once, but several times before. And when Ed and her detectives encounter missing historic police files, falsified school records and Ed’s new lover as a prime suspect, it becomes clear that the system has been corrupted.

Minnie and Bert are over the moon to have their three grown-up children home for the first time in a decade. But having Lizzie, Jess, Owen and the grandchildren under one roof isn’t without its dramas. Lizzie is off the alcohol (although emergency gin doesn’t count), Jess is juggling a toddler and a newborn, but it’s Owen who has the power to throw a grenade into everything.

Lara Feigel listens to birds outside her window—their circling, strident calls—and thinks of D. H. Lawrence. It is the spring of 2020 and, as the pandemic takes hold, she locks down in rural Oxfordshire with her partner, her two children, and that most explosive of writers. Proceeding month by month through the year, she sets out to start again with Lawrence: to find vital literary companionship; to use him as a guide to rural living and even, unexpectedly, to child-rearing; to find a way through his writing to excavate the modern world she feels he helped bring into being.

1757 - Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, a salacious publication detailing the names and 'specialties' of the capital's prostitutes, eventually became one of the 18th century's most successful literary works as well as an essential accessory for any serious gentleman of pleasure. Beyond its titillating passages lay a glimpse into the sex lives of those who lived and died by the list's profits during the Georgian era. The Covent Garden Ladies tells the story of three unusual characters whose colourful lives were brought together by this publication.

To the outside world, the Goodlights are perfect. Julia is a lawyer, Paul a stay-at-home dad who has dedicated his life to helping their daughter Chrissie achieve her dreams as a talented violinist. But on the night of a prestigious music competition, which has the power to change everything for Chrissie and her family, Chrissie goes missing. She puts on the performance of a lifetime, then completely disappears. Suddenly every single crack, every single secret that the family is hiding risks being exposed. Because the Goodlights aren’t perfect. Not even close.

Ceylon, 1906: Stella Polegate steps off the ship in Colombo harbour, her heart beating with contradictory emotions. As her father’s unofficial research assistant, she’s thrilled to explore this island of ancient temples and verdant tea plantations—yet painfully aware that her brilliant mind will remain uncredited, her academic ambitions dismissed simply because she is a woman.

Alex, Karen and Misty were an inseparable trio at university. But when Alex died suddenly, the remaining two friends could no longer look each other in the eye, knowing they both had a part to play in her death. Thirty years later, Misty and Karen have long since moved on with their lives. But when Karen thinks she sees her former friend alive, she soon becomes obsessed with a past she thought she’d left behind. Before long, the perfect life she’s built for herself starts to unravel, and it seems as though history might just be repeating itself.

Incels. Anti Vaxxers. Conspiracy theorists. Neo-Nazis. Once, these groups all belonged on the fringes of the political spectrum. Today, accelerated by a pandemic, global conflict and rapid technological change, their ideas are becoming more widespread: QAnon proponents run for U.S. Congress, neo-fascists win elections in Europe, and celebrity influencers like Kanye West spread dangerous myths to millions. Going Mainstream asks the question: What is happening here?