Searching for: "Sophie Ward"
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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Skin Deep by Liz Nugent, read by Annette Flynn, Sophie Ward, Declan Rodgers , Anna Maria Everett, Daniel Betts, Trev Fleming and Michael Gould. 'Perfect summer read for those who like their escapism on the darker side' Ian Rankin The deliciously sinister new novel from the No 1 bestselling author of Richard and Judy Book Club pick, Lying in Wait 'I could probably have been an actress. It is not difficult to pretend to be somebody else. Isn't that what I've been doing for most of my life?' Cordelia Russell has been living on the French Riviera for twenty-five years, passing herself off as an English socialite. But her luck, and the...read more
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This impressive debut novel, longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, takes its premise and inspiration from ten of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy—the what-ifs of philosophical investigation—and uses them to talk about love in a wholly unique way. Married couple Rachel and Eliza are considering having a child. Rachel wants one desperately, and Eliza thinks she does, too, but she can't quite seem to wrap her head around the idea. When Rachel wakes up screaming one night and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there, Eliza initially sees it as a cry for attention. But Rachel is adamant. She knows it sounds crazy—but she also knows...read more
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From the Booker Prize-longlisted author of Love and Other Thought Experiments comes a masterful and gripping thriller about truth, silence, and the weight of the past. Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, where she works at a nearby library. She feels safe, so long as she keeps to her routines and doesn’t let her thoughts stray too far into the past. But a newspaper photograph of a missing local schoolgirl and a letter from her old teacher send her spiraling and bring back the trauma of what happened years ago, when she was a pupil at The Schoolhouse. The Schoolhouse was a 1970s experimental school where the usual rules did not apply. Life there was a dark interplay of...read more
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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Swimming Home by Deborah Levy, read by Sophie Ward. A poet, his wife, her daughter and their friends arrive at the French Riviera. The prospect of a long hot summer stretches ahead of them. At their villa, they find a body in the swimming pool. But this body is very much alive. It is Kitty Finch: self-proclaimed botanist with lurid green fingernails, avid poetry fan, walking naked out of the water and straight into the centre of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them? And why does the poet's wife invite this beautiful young woman to...read more
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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Accidental Woman by Jonathan Coe, read by Sophie Ward. For Maria, nothing is certain. Her life is a chain of accidents. Friendship passes her by, and she's unimpressed by the devoted Ronny and his endless proposals of marriage. Maria lives in a world of her own - yet not of her own making. Stumbling through university, work, marriage and motherhood, she finds it hard to see what all the fuss is about. Will she ever be able to control the direction of her life? Or will it end, as it began, by accident? What does chance have in store for the accidental...read more
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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe, read by Sophie Ward. Sarah is a narcoleptic who has dreams so vivid she mistakes them for real events; Robert has had his life changed for ever by the misunderstandings arising from her condition; Terry, the insomniac, spends his wakeful nights fuelling his obsession with movies; and the increasingly unstable Dr Gregory Dudden sees sleep as a life-shortening disease which must be eradicated . A group of students sharing a house. They fall in and out of love, they drift apart. Yet a decade later they are drawn back together by a series of coincidences involving their obsession with sleep - and each other...read more
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HAVISHAM IS THE ASTONISHING PRELUDE TO CHARLES DICKENS'S GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Before she became the immortal and haunting Miss Havisham of Great Expectations, she was Catherine, a young woman with all of her dreams ahead of her. Spry, imperious, she is the daughter of a wealthy brewer. But she is never far from the smell of hops and the arresting letters on the brewhouse wall—HAVISHAM—a reminder of all she owes to the family name and the family business. Sent by her father to stay with the Chadwycks, Catherine discovers elegant pastimes to remove the taint of her family's new money. But for all her growing sophistication, Catherine is anything but worldly, and when a charismatic...read more
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A dramatic, sparkling tale of sex, glamour, intrigue, romance and heartbreak, England's Mistress traces the rise and rise of the gorgeous Emma Hamilton. Born into poverty, she clawed her way up through London's underworlds of sex for sale to become England's first media superstar. Nothing could stand in her way of her desire to live out her dream- except her self-destructive desires. Drawing on hundreds of previously undiscovered letters, and told with a novelist's flair, 'England's Mistress' captures the relentless drive, innovative style and burning passion of a true heroine. In a world of tabloid fame and three-minute wonders, Emma's life is truly a tale for our...read more
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Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at nineteen to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, unconsummated union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. On a trip to Scotland she met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. In a daring act, Effie left Ruskin, had their marriage annulled, and entered into a long, happy marriage with Millais. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle. In Cooper's...read more
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'Sumptuous ... part Moulin Rouge, part Alfred Hitchcock' Grazia Scandal, intoxication and lies flourish in the silent film studios of Paris. A silent film, destroyed in a fire in 1914 at the PathE studio, before it was seen even by its director. A lowly seamstress, who makes the costumes she should be wearing, but believes her talent - and the secret she keeps too - will soon get her a dressing room of her own. A famous - and dashing - creator of spectacular cinematic illusions, husband to a beautiful, volatile actress, the most adored icon of the Parisian studios. All fit together, like scenes in a movie. And as you will see, this plot has a twist we beg you not to disclose...read more
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In Ancient Rome all the best stories have one thing in common murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city; Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theatre, Claudius was poisoned at dinner and Galba was beheaded in the forum. In one fifty-year period, twenty-six emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? Emma Southon examines real-life homicides from Roman history to explore how perpetrator, victim and the act itself were regarded by ordinary people. Inside Ancient Rome s unique culture of crime and punishment, we see how the Romans viewed life, death, and what it means to be...read more
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What happens when faith has been forgotten? In A Clergyman's Daughter, George Orwell, author of the dystopian classics Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, turns his attention to 1930s England and the life of the much put-upon daughter of a country rector. Dorothy Hare lives in genteel poverty, sacrificing herself to the whims of her spendthrift father and the demands of her community and church. She is sustained only by her strong, Christian faith as she spends her days dodging debt collectors, ministering to the poor, and avoiding the attentions of the local lothario, Mr. Warburton. But her world is turned upside down when she finds herself on the streets of London, destitute, with no...read more
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'I know,' he says, 'too much. You'll learn to be too much, too.' Then, gently, 'I think it might help.' When Julia flees her unhappy marriage for the handsome tailor Eve Perret, she expects her life from now on will be a challenge, not least because the year is 1911. They leave everything behind to settle in Vienna, but their happiness is increasingly diminished by Julia's longing for a child. Ada Bauer's wealthy industrialist family have sent her to Dr Freud in the hope that he can fix her mutism and do so without a scandal. But help will soon come for Ada from an unexpected quarter and change many lives irrevocably. All of You Every Single One is an epic novel about family, freedom and...read more
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An entertaining and informative look at the unique culture of crime, punishment, and killing in ancient Rome In ancient Rome, all the best stories have one thing in common—murder. Romulus killed Remus to found the city, Caesar was assassinated to save the Republic. Caligula was butchered in the theater, Claudius was poisoned at dinner, and Galba was beheaded in the Forum. In one fifty-year period, twenty-six emperors were murdered. But what did killing mean in a city where gladiators fought to the death to sate a crowd? In A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Emma Southon examines a trove of real-life homicides from Roman history to explore Roman culture, including how...read more
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Set in Vienna from 1910 to 1946, All of You Every Single One is an atmospheric, original, and deeply moving novel about family, freedom, and how true love might survive impossible odds. Julia Lindqvist, a woman unhappily married to a famous Swedish playwright, leaves her husband to begin a passionate affair with a female tailor named Eve. The pair run away together and settle in the more liberal haven of Vienna, where they fall in love, navigate the challenges of their newfound independence, and find community in the city’s Jewish quarter. But Julia’s yearning for a child throws their fragile happiness into chaos and threatens to destroy her life and the lives of those closest to...read more
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Five classic novelisations of TV adventures on alien planets! In Doctor Who and the Zarbi, the First Doctor and his companions Ian, Barbara and Vicki are trapped on the remote planet Vortis. In Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon, the Third Doctor and Jo are mistaken for delegates of the Galactic Federation on a primitive and superstitious world. In Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah find the living remains of a renegade Time Lord and his maniacal saviour. In Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive, the Fourth Doctor and Romana find subterfuge and corruption lurking beneath the surface of the pleasure planet Argolis. In Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy,...read more
