Showing results by narrator "Patricia Gallimore" in All Categories

Gina Knight is looking forward to the prospect of retirement with her husband of forty-three years. Until, to her surprise, said husband decides he needs to 'find himself' – alone – and disappears to Santa Fe, leaving a Dear John letter in his wake. Now Gina needs a new role in life, not to mention somewhere to live, so she applies for the position of Companion to elderly Dorothy Reed. At eighty-nine, ‘Dot’ needs someone to help her around the house – or at least, her family seems to think so. Her companion’s first role would be to accompany Dot for a week-long extravagant wedding party.

The first installment in the breathtaking Kershaw Sisters series. They say you only regret the things you don't do . . . Lizzie Kershaw is an independent spirit; ever since her father's death she has had to be a survivor. Home life is harsh, though, and desperate to escape it, she makes an...

With a narrative that grips the reader like a detective story, Antonia Fraser brings the characters and events of the Gunpowder Plot to life. Dramatically recreating the conditions and motives that surrounded the fateful night of November 5, 1605, she unravels the tangled web of religion and politics that spawned the plot.

Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10 were a period...

Suspicious deaths on the Skipton city council don't sound as though they should have anything at all to do with the Toot Hansell Women's Institute, and DI Adams would rather like to keep it that way. But when the councillor for Toot Hansell becomes the latest victim, Alice Martin, chair of the W.I. and RAF Wing Commander (ret.), steps straight in to take his place.

Coroner Martha Gunn is among the first to be called to the scene when a man's body is found in a small cottage fronting the river. Floating face-down in the rising water, it appears to have been raised from the cellar by the flood.

Award-winning author Dame Susan Hill is best known for her hit ghost story The Woman in Black and her popular ‘Simon Serailler’ detective series, but she has also written extensively for radio. This audio anthology includes full-cast adaptations of two of her early novels, plus an additional 12 BBC Radio plays, many of them available for the very first time since their original broadcasts.

Annie Doyle's husband, Vince, is in a care home with final-stage dementia. And after decades of deeply unhappy marriage, Annie can barely bring herself to care. But as the family gathers to see out Vince's final days, he utters a single word that will change the entire family forever: 'Martha'. Who is Martha? And why is Annie so quick to dismiss the mention of her name?

When a woman arrives in A&E clutching a child in a pink blanket, Martha Gunn is not quite ready to make the discovery that the evening has in store for her. The baby has been mummified. A post-mortem reveals the child to be a new born boy, deceased for over five years. As always coroner Martha Gunn reserves judgement until she is able to question the mysterious woman who brought in the body...

One should never meddle in the affairs of dragons, but someone has been doing just that. They've been making imitation dragon scale baubles that are nothing short of lethal, and kidnapping delivery drivers all over the Yorkshire Dales. They've also been leaving behind some distinctly dragon-ish traces. Beaufort Scales, High Lord of the Cloverly Dragons, is hot on the trail—or would be, if he wasn't having political problems at home.

August 1941: As war sweeps across Britain and millions of men enlist, women must fight the battle on the home front. Fran always thought she would marry her childhood sweetheart and live in Massingham, the beloved pit village she has always called home. But the opening of a munitions factory in the north-east of England presents a new opportunity. Against her father's wishes and with best friends Sarah and Beth by her side, Fran signs up to join the ranks of women at the factory. It's dangerous work, but the friends discover that their lives are only just beginning.

Warring staff. 'Accidental' poisonings. Topiary of dubious intent. Throw in the full complement of the Toot Hansell Women's Institute and dragons doing yoga, and DI Adams is starting to wonder if she might have made a small misjudgement signing up for this particular spa weekend. And that's before the dead body in the sauna and the storm that cuts them off from the rest of the world. Now she's dealing with a houseful of guests (and staff) who're looking more suspicious by the moment, fending off protesters, and trying to keep everyone safe as the storm closes in.

Rebellious Christmas wreaths. Mysterious welly-dwelling eggs. A plague of irate water fowl. And ten ladies of a certain age who are by no means the least troublesome of Toot Hansell's residents, as far as Detective Inspector Adams is concerned. She's entirely certain her training never covered dealing with the Women's Institute, dragons, or festive magic spills. Not to mention invisible dogs with caffeine dependencies. But Christmas is almost here. Things can't go too wrong. . . can they? Well. It is Toot Hansell.

Callum Hughes has been labelled a killer and a psycho - by the press, by his classmates and by the family of the boy he stabbed. Roger Gough has been labelled a victim. He is described by everyone as a sporty, funny, and popular boy who was brutally murdered by Callum. But things are rarely so black and white.

On a bright spring morning, John Hyde opens the gates to the grounds of Moreton Corbet Castle, a local medieval ruin, and discovers the body of a homeless man with his throat slashed. Detective Inspector Alex Randall and his team soon face some disturbing questions: was this a random attack, or does someone have a vendetta against the homeless? For coroner Martha Gunn, establishing the man's identity is essential, but there are no clues.

“All eyes and hair” a courtier had said disparagingly of her – and certainly the younger daughter of Tom Boleyn lacked the bounteous charms of most ladies of Court. Black-haired, black eyes, she had a wild-sprite quality that was to prove more effective, more dangerous than conventional feminine appeal. The King first noticed her when she was sixteen – and with imperial greed he smashed her youthful love-affair with Harry Percy and began the process of royal seduction.

It's 1915 when young Bess Ravenhart, recently widowed, leaves her baby son, Frazer, with her mother-in-law, Cora, while she sails from India to Britain to set up a home. But Cora has no intention of returning Frazer to his mother's care. Though Bess makes a new life in Edinburgh and knows the joy - and pain - of motherhood with further children, her heart always aches for the little boy she left behind. When Frazer travels to Scotland 20 years later, it seems Bess' dreams of a reconciliation will come true. 

Bridget isn’t the adventurous type. But somehow she finds herself attending a memorial for her oldest friend, dressed in the bright woolly jumper he once knitted her – at his request. To her dismay, she’s not the only one. There’s glamorous Gloria and quiet Derek too, each wearing their own knitwear gifts. The three former colleagues haven’t been in the same room for years, something Bridget has been perfectly happy with. But when they’re asked to grant their friend’s final wish – to scatter his ashes in the Shetland Islands – Bridget finds herself swept into an adventure she never planned.

A rare collection of vintage radio dramas from the renowned Ulster poet, plus bonus documentary Born in Belfast in 1907, Louis MacNeice wrote some of the most beautiful and best-loved poetry of the 20th century. But he was also one of the BBC’s most innovative writers and producers, scripting...

Something peculiar is going on at the Group Medical Practice in Taviscombe and old Dr MacDonald seems very uneasy. Sheila Malory can’t help but feel that it may have something to do with the unexpected arrival from London of a new GP, Dr Morrison, an arrogant, cold-mannered man, whose alleged misdiagnosis of a local patient has made him the focus of the village rumour mill.