Showing results by narrator "Sandra Duncan" in All Categories

Once a celebrated author of short stories now in his twilight years, Anthony Peardew has spent half his life collecting lost objects, trying to atone for a promise broken many years before. Realising he is running out of time, he leaves his house and all its lost treasures to his assistant Laura, the one person he can trust to fulfil his legacy and reunite the thousands of objects with their rightful owners. But the final wishes of the 'Keeper of Lost Things' have unforeseen repercussions which trigger a most serendipitous series of encounters....

It is 1876. Nineteen-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst arrives at the great country house of Evenwood to be interviewed for the position of Lady's Maid by the 26th Baroness Tansor, the former Miss Emily Carteret. But Esperanza is no ordinary servant. She has been sent by her guardian, the...

Eleven magical short stories to enjoy round the clock from one of the world's best-loved children's authors, Enid Blyton. Join Twiddle the gnome on his search for his grumpy runaway donkey Kick-up, find out what happens when the rocking-horse, teddy and all the other toys come alive, and laugh...

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner For forty years, Willy Chapman has struck a strange but steadfast bargain between the two poles of his life: his beautiful but emotionally damaged wife and the sweet shop he runs on a south...

Maggie O'Farrell's second novel is an intense, unnerving and passionate story of betrayal, loss and love, with all the frisson and psychological intensity of Rebecca. When Lily moves into Marcus's flat and plunges headlong into a relationship, she must contend not merely with the disapproval of...

From the author of the number one international bestseller The History of Bees, a captivating new novel about the threat of a worldwide water shortage as seen through the eyes of a father and daughter. In 2019, seventy-year-old Signe sets out on a hazardous voyage to cross an entire ocean in...

When Antonia Fraser met Harold Pinter she was a celebrated biographer and he was Britain's finest playwright. Both were already married - Pinter to the actress Vivien Merchant and Fraser to the politician Hugh Fraser - but their union seemed inevitable from the moment they met: 'I would have found you somehow', Pinter told Fraser. Their relationship flourished until Pinter's death on Christmas Eve 2008 and was a source of delight and inspiration to them both until the very end.

Forty-five magical short stories to enjoy round the clock from one of the world's best-loved children's authors. Fly away with the Snippet Pixies in search of a new home, discover the secret ingredient in the fairies' spell to make people better, and join Chitter the gnome as he discovers a...

In 1815, the clever, courted and cherished Annabella Milbanke married the notorious and brilliant Lord Byron. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, the future Ada Lovelace. Byron himself escaped into exile and died as a revolutionary hero in 1824, aged 36. The one thing he had asked his wife to do was to make sure that their daughter never became a poet. Ada didn't. Brought up by a mother who became one of the most progressive reformers of Victorian England, Byron's little girl was introduced to mathematics as a means of calming her wild spirits.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Tessa Dunlop...succeeds in weaving a rich tapestry of experiences.' Independent ‘A warm-hearted and engaging read, The Century Girls is replete with wonderful characters.’ Sunday Express 'A delightful book... all about women and women's lives.' Jane Garvey, Radio...

This is the incredible rise and unbelievable fall of a woman whose energy and ambition is often overshadowed by Napoleon’s military might. In this triumphant biography, Kate Williams tells Josephine’s searing story, of sexual obsession, politics and surviving as a woman in a man’s world. Abandoned in Paris by her aristocratic husband, Josephine's future did not look promising.

In this version of London, there is a small, private clinic. Behind its layers of security, procedures are taking place on poor, robust teenagers from northern estates in exchange for thousands of pounds - procedures that will bring the wealthy dead back to life in these young, supple bodies for 14 days. It's an opportunity for wrongs to be righted, for fathers to meet grandsons, for scientists to see their work completed. Old wine in new bottles. But at what cost?

'Of picking, washing and cleaning my pretty little toes, which he took great delight in, and in which pleasurable, innocent, and inoffensive pastime he as often spent hours; 'twas the greatest gratification to him on earth, nor did he (said she) indulge in any other in all the time we spent together, he never was even rude enough to give me a kiss.' So emerged the first exposé of foot fetishism in the 18th century.

In 1969, John Julius Norwich, the legendary popular historian, gathered together the favourite things he'd come across in the last 365 days into one short charming pamphlet. Initially just a treat for his friends, it rapidly turned into a huge word-of-mouth success. And soon the arrival of John Julius Norwich's latest 'Christmas Cracker' became as essential a part of the English Christmas experience as holly and mistletoe. Norwich had a brilliant eye for a story and telling detail, and his Crackers are full of jokes, warmth and wit. 

Julia is married and eight years Julian's senior; he is a gifted English student, a life of academia ahead. Ignoring warnings, they both give up all they have to be together. When Julian hears that his boyhood home is for sale, he sets out to recreate a paradise for his new family. It is only when their daughter, Mira, becomes terrifyingly ill that it is impossible for Julia to conceal the explosive secret that she has been keeping from him.

The perfect gift book, featuring the writing of Meryl Streep, Bill Bailey, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman, Caitlin Moran, Richard Ayoade, Emily Watson and others, to coincide with the upcoming movie Last Christmas, starring Emma Thompson, Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding. When you think back to Christmases past, what (if anything) made it magical? This is a beautiful, funny and soulful collection of personal essays about the meaning of Christmas, written by a unique plethora of voices from the boulevards of Hollywood to the soup kitchens of Covent Garden. 

There are few more precious routines than that of the bedtime story. So why do we discard this invaluable ritual as grown-ups to the detriment of our well-being and good health? In this groundbreaking anthology, Ben Holden, editor of the bestselling Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, challenges how...

In Rise Like Lions, Booker Prize winning writer Ben Okri has compiled a collection of poems that celebrate the many voices of politics, from polemics and rallying cries to lyrics and meditations. Many of these poems have resonated with readers over lifetimes and through generations, from William Blake to Marvin Gaye. In exploring the impact political poems have on ideas, vision, protest, change and truth, Okri demonstrates how the need for this strand of poetry is as great as it has ever been, and its inspiration just as powerful. 

Black Rainbow is the powerful first-person story of one woman's struggle with depression and how she managed to recover from it through the power of poetry. In 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother, and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days.

Leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson gleans life lessons learned by inspirational women from around the world in a personal and inspirational book. In Ruth Davidson's YES SHE CAN we meet world-beating women from fields as diverse as science, politics, the military, business and...