Showing results by narrator "Sarah Durham" in All Categories

Your daughter isn't answering your calls. She's not replying to your messages. You rush to her house. She's slumped in the basement, dying and alone. You desperately call for help. She whispers a single word. Someone is keeping secrets. And it must be someone you know.

This is not a taste, nor an anti-taste, manual. This is an interrogation of the importance we place on seemingly objective ideas of taste in a culture that is saturated by imagery, and the dangerous impact this has on our identities, communities and politics. This book is dedicated to understanding the industries of taste. From the food we eat to the way we spend our free time, Olah exposes the shallow waters of 'good' and 'bad' taste and the rigid hierarchies that uphold this age-old dichotomy.

The students of Royal Hastings University's new Multimedia Art course have been trouble from day one. The year-long course is blighted by accusations of theft, students setting fire to one another's artwork, a rumoured extra-marital affair and a disastrous road trip. ut finally they are given their last assignment: to build an interactive art installation for a local manufacturer. With six students who have nothing in common except their clashing personal agendas, what could possibly go wrong? The answer is: murder.

Four women, all from very different lives, all with reason to step into the water and wash away their past. But will the friendship they build be enough to keep them afloat when they each must face their fears?

Her daughter died. Did she take mine? A year ago, my best friend Rachel’s daughter died. Ever since then I have held my own beautiful little girl tighter. I watch Luna shriek with laughter as she tips her toys all over the floor and I look anxiously at Rachel, sipping her tea. But Rachel reassures me that being near Luna helps fill the gaping hole of her grief, just a little. So when Luna is snatched from her bed in the middle of the night, it is Rachel who holds me tightly. She looks at the blue and white police tape crisscrossing my little girl’s bedroom and promises me they will find Luna.

My husband is a doctor. He’s smart and charming, and everybody trusts him. Except me. On the surface, it looks like I have it all–the perfect marriage, the perfect husband, the perfect life. But it’s far from the truth. Doctor Drew Devlin is not the respectable figure he makes out to be. The reason we moved to this beautiful, old property with a gorgeous view of the sea was because we needed to put our past behind us. It should’ve been a fresh start for us both.

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground.

When Grace’s husband passed away, there was no guidebook for the 27-year-old widow. Crippled with heartbreak, she was also clueless. Was she allowed to wear denim? Should she be shrouded in a black veil? What about T-shirts printed with Tom’s face? Three years later, things look a little different for Grace. She’s adopted two precious girls, and she’s learned some life lessons.

I’m Lucy. Out-of-work actress, part-time princess impersonator, Dorito enthusiast. Oh, and I’ve lost my memory. I got knocked off a bicycle on my way to a children’s party, dressed as Elsa, and accidentally flashed my thong. Now, in my head, it’s 2009 and I’m 17 years old. Not nearly 30 and starting to wrinkle. By this stage of my life, I thought I’d be married, with kids and a mortgage. Instead, I’ve got a phone full of dick pics. As I make my way through my contacts list - and try to jog my memory - I can’t help asking: Am I allergic to love? Commitment? Men?

When I got pregnant, Will and I didn’t have a clue what we were signing up for. It turns out that there’s loads we weren’t warned about. But even if I feel like I’m waiting for my motherhood powers to come in the post, at least I’ve got Will. Our old life - festivals, sambuca shots, an actual sex life - might be a distant memory, but we can get through anything together, can’t we? At least that’s what I thought until, one day, Will walked out on us.... If I’m on my own (apart from Siri, obviously) can I do this whole parenting thing?

As snow begins to fall, and word reaches their town that the Red Army are approaching, German-born mother-of-two Emma knows she has no choice: She must pack their meagre belongings and leave their home, in search of safety. Even if safety is within Nazi Germany. But as the icy grip of winter tightens around them, her four-year-old son—her blue-eyed angel—Jacob becomes ill. Desperate for him to get well enough to continue their journey, she takes him to a hospital, where she hands him to a kind nurse. Then a terrible attack separates mother and son, and their lives change forever.

After every parents' evening, friends Nina, Bel and Rachel look forward to their regular debrief at the pub. But there will be no clinking Prosecco tonight. They are discussing an anonymous note that has been left in a child's schoolbag: this class has secrets. All the parents tell lies. As more notes are discovered, scandalous accusations are made and the school playground becomes rife with rumours. Who could be revealing the three friends' secrets? Because they thought the only people who knew everything about them were each other....

When I step into the elevator that sweltering morning, I barely notice the woman standing next to me. She seems out of place, with her floaty linen clothes in a building full of suits. But that’s none of my business. A minute later, there’s a sudden jerk. The elevator stops. The lights go out.

Freya loves her new home on a quiet suburban street. And her beautiful neighbor, Emily, is everything she’s ever wanted in a best friend. Finally, she has somebody to share her secrets with over a glass of wine. But as Freya watches her new friend setting the table for dinner one evening, she sees something shocking that makes her think that Emily’s life might not be as perfect as it seems. Days later, Emily and her daughter vanish.

I know I want to marry Sam the moment I meet him. After I lost my beloved mother so suddenly, this charming, softly spoken architect with his deep-brown eyes is just the fresh start I’ve been searching for. I’m delighted to be expecting our first child before we’ve even had a chance to plan a honeymoon. I want our family to work, so I try to ignore his long work trips. I turn a blind eye to the private calls he takes, and I listen to his excuses about why the money keeps disappearing from my bank account.

August, 1940. The war is raging in Europe, but on the home front conflict still seems far away. Dot, living with her mother-in-law and dreading the day that her thuggish husband comes home on leave, is fighting her own battle to contribute to the war effort. Peggy has found confidence as an Air Raid Precaution Warden, despite the jeers of the men she works with - but beneath her pluck she fears for her close-knit family, scattered by the war. And glamorous Vivian, the former debutante, is running away from her own heart and into danger as a volunteer ambulance driver.

Becca Palmer has just lost her job as assistant to Simon Jones MP - the highly-regarded Policing Minister, tipped as a future Prime Minister. But Becca claims that Simon was more than her boss, that she is in love with him.When a heartbroken Becca leaves the Home Office, she heads to Westminster Bridge, intending to take her own life. Which is where hostage negotiator Alex Lewis meets her for the first time. It is his job to try to talk her back from the edge.

My husband, James, and I love living on Smith Street, with its neat houses and friendly family barbecues. Our daughter, Scarlett, can play outside with the other local kids–it’s somewhere nothing bad could ever happen. Or so I thought....

Friends for over 30 years, Kerry and Pat’s worlds came crashing down when their teenage sons were both diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses within weeks of each other.

I reach out, arms aching to hold my newborn baby, and catch just a glimpse of soft, dark brown hair before someone pushes me back onto the bed. "It’s alive," says the woman who delivered my child before she places something over my face. My last thought is of my baby’s first cry before my world goes dark.