Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

Can she win over her sweetheart's family? Emily had always been a trial as a child - pushy and rough - and Boots had always avoided her. But now she's an elegant and stylish young lady, and she and Boots are due to be married - and must face the challenge of his wartime injuries together. Can she draw on that steely toughness to rise to the challenge and do right by the love of her life and his family?

The Adams family were poor, cheerful and, above all, respectable. There was Mrs Adams, a widow having lost her husband in the Boer War; Boots, the bright one; Tommy, the quiet one; Sammy, a wheeler dealer in the making; and Lizzy. Lizzy was a real pearl - one of the prettiest girls in Walworth. Then Lizzy falls in love it is 1914. War is coming, and everyone is going to be affected. Will the Adams family - gutsy, tough and cheeky - pull through? Down Lambeth Way is the first in Mary Jane Staples' Adams Family series. Their story continues in Our Emily.

Molly Dawson, now a respectable married woman, lives with her husband, head gardener Charlie, on the Woodchurch Manor estate, where they have brought up three delightful daughters. Her life appears idyllic...but she has suffered the torment of a secret since she was 18 years old. When George Smith - a young stranger fresh out of the Navy - appears at the estate's annual garden party, Molly's life is set to change again....

1905: Ruby Caselton may only be 25 years old but she already has the weight of the world on her shoulders. Heavily pregnant with her second child, penniless and exhausted, she is moving her family into a new home. The Caseltons left their last place when they couldn’t pay the rent, but Ruby’s husband Eddie has promised this will be a fresh start for them all. And Ruby desperately hopes that this time he will keep his word.

Homeless Bodies and Other Stories is an original fiction podcast featuring audio-exclusive short stories from award-winning authors and Sunday Times best-sellers, inspired by objects & artefacts from Wellcome Collection's permanent exhibition, 'Medicine Man', in London.

Franny has one thing in common with Wan Huang, head of the notorious Triads gang: they both want Vaughn six feet under. When Harry brings Vaughn into his business and his fold, his life is protected - for now. But when Franny finds out the truth about Wan and Harry’s dark dealings, all hell breaks loose in Soho. And Vaughn is the key to helping Franny with the score she now has to settle; together with Alfie Jennings, they were once a formidable trio. But can bitter enemies once again become allies?

Lettice Pegg's father is a working-class policeman and her mother is a middle-class suffragette. Stuck between them as they argue, Lettice mostly cares about trying to fit in at school and convincing her parents to let her have roller skates and go to the music hall. But, when Lettice sees her mother brutally thrown to the ground by a policeman while on a protest march, her life changes forever. Not all of the women on the march are vulnerable to attack. Some of them have a secret weapon: jiu jitsu.

Harry Fletcher - Fletch to his friends - has spent his life surviving the tough streets of the East End. He knows working for notorious gangster Billy King is dangerous, and sleeping with Billy’s beautiful wife, Susan, is deadly...but rules are meant to be broken. If Billy discovers the affair, Fletch is a dead man. But the closer he gets to Susan, the more reckless Fletch becomes. And soon, Fletch realises that every one - even him - must pay the price for his actions.

East London, 1938. Nine-year-old Daisy Purbright is a country girl at heart, and together with beloved brother Bobby, they've enjoyed the endless freedoms of rural England. But when her father gambles the family's fortunes on a speculative investment in London's docklands, Daisy and her family are swept up into the intrigue, danger and excitement. The Purbrights desperately attempt to settle to a new life in the East End, but the whisperings of war grow louder. Then Adolf Hitler conducts a paralysing bombardment on London, and war tightens its grip.

December 1930. With the Depression biting deeper, it looks like many children in the East End will wake up to nothing on Christmas morning. Widower Robbie Graham earns just enough to put food on the table for his children, Ben and Ruthie. Local cake shop owner Flo Hawkins can't bear the thought of any child having nothing for Christmas. Along with her sister, Honour, she hatches a plan to bring some festive cheer to the community.

Robbed of marriage to the man she loved, Leah Bryce rears his daughter Miriam as her own. But her desire for vengeance lead her to treat the girl with extreme cruelty. Leah's son Ralph has always loved the girl he believes to be his sister, and fights to subdue feelings that are more than brotherly. Only when Leah's malign influence is removed for ever can Miriam overcome the horrors of her girlhood to find love and joy at last.

Having suffered much cruelty at the hands of her father, Isabel Kenton is shocked to hear after his death that he was not her real father. Isabel inherits their house while her twin brother, Mark, is left the family steel works. But when World War I breaks out, Mark joins the RAF, and Isabel must take responsibility for the management of the business. Struggling to keep the business alive, she must also discover who she really is.

It’s Christmas 1880 in London’s East End, and a dying Irish girl leaves her baby in the care of the Sisters of Clemency. The nuns raise little Ettie O’Reilly as their own. But the lives of the nuns and orphans are soon crushed by an unexpected turn of events. Ettie is at her lowest ebb when she is betrayed by the boy who has promised his undying love and loyalty. She is faced with the revelation of a heart-wrenching secret.

Deal, Kent, 1812. Eighteen-year-old Winnie Lennicker yearns for a peaceful life as a respectable married woman. However, when she becomes involved in her family's free-trading operations and is caught by the Revenue, she is sent before the magistrates. Forced to confess that she is with child, now more than ever, Winnie is determined to give up smuggling. But the only way she can support herself and her unborn child is to carry on.

When the beautiful but naïve Grace Lennicker falls for Isaiah Feasey, son of a rival smuggling family and owner of a local tavern, her sisters try to intervene. But as tensions grow, there is another suitor also hoping to win her hand in marriage, the dashing and more favourable Albert Enderby, a young lieutenant in the Revenue. Grace is unwittingly drawn back into the world of smuggling that her sisters fought hard to leave behind, and as violence erupts, she finds herself unable to stand by, knowing the rival gangs will kill anyone who stands in their way.

1915, Chrisp Street Market, East London. While the man she loves is fighting on the frontline for his country, Lily Larkin is up at dawn carrying crates of apples to his market stall. Taking charge of Greg's business while he's away, she's grown from a penniless workhouse orphan into a shrewd tradeswoman. But the market is a man's world, and Lily soon starts attracting unwanted visitors, including Greg's old rival.

Liv Anderson can take care of herself, and she knows how to make money in a man's world. The daughter of a convicted murderer, she's made her way in one of the roughest parts of London by entrapping men and extorting them for money. But Liv is playing a dangerous game and soon finds herself in trouble with the city's most notorious gangster.

Winnie Berry had been the landlady for the Battersea Tavern for over 25 years and loved every minute of it. Her husband Brian preferred the quiet of the upstairs, but Winnie liked to be in the thick of it: the atmosphere and the company. While her son has taken after his father in more ways than one, she can't help but love him - David might not be able to hold down a job, but she would do anything to keep him safe. After all, once upon a time she'd made a mistake - something she'd do anything to put right.

Two very different girls from this tight-knit community join up as ARP Wardens to do their bit for the home front. Violet Simms lives with her controlling, widowed mother who runs the local pawn shop. At just 20-years-old, Violet longs for friendship, love and escape. It seems her dreams might come true until tragedy strikes on one of the very worst nights of the Birmingham Blitz. Grace Templeton is the eldest in her family of 10 children. Spirited Grace is determined never to become burdened by child bearing and drudgery like her mother.

The Lennicker sisters live in a cottage nestled amongst the counting houses, shops and inns, where the smugglers plot and the seamen drink. When their father – a fisherman and smuggler – is murdered by a rival gang, the eldest daughter, Louisa, is forced to carve out a living by trading illegally in French lace. She will do anything to keep a roof over her sisters’ heads, but what she truly desires is a way of wreaking revenge. With the threat of Napoleon approaching Britain’s shores, the stakes couldn’t be higher.