Maggie Ollerenshaw has narrated 13 audiobooks on Listento.it by 8 authors, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is Martha's Journey.
Lime Street Blues
Summary
It is the heady 60s in Liverpool, and the Flowers, the Baileys, and the McDowds are three very different families bound together by music. The children are determined to be part of the glamour that surrounds the city, so when Sean, Lachlan, and Max form The Merseysiders and Jeannie and Rita become part of The Flower Girls, they put their hearts and souls into achieving success. The greatest star of all is Sean McDowd, who is adored by women; but Jeannie Flowers has married Lachlan and no one is prepared for the deceits and betrayals that lie ahead.
©2005 Maureen Lee (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Martha's Journey
Summary
Liverpool, 1915. Martha Rossi lives in a tenement with her husband and their five children. Despite working all the hours she can, the family doesn't have much money. So when Martha’s 14-year-old son, Joe, proudly enlists to fight for his country just to earn his mother an extra shilling, Martha is horrified. Despite her pleas and protests, Joe is dispatched to France within weeks. Unbeknown to them all, Joe’s act of selfless heroism will have huge implications for Martha and all the family. As the dreaded telegrams begin to arrive from the front in France, mothers’ hearts are broken across the country. Spurred on by grief of her own, Martha Rossi begins a quest that will take her right to the doors of No.10 Downing Street....
©2010 Maureen Lee (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The House by Princes Park
Summary
The First World War is almost over when nurse Olivia Jones meets dashing American soldier, Tom O'Hagan, and they propose to marry. But Tom is dead by the time Olivia finds herself pregnant. Just hours old, their daughter Ruby is brutally removed from Olivia by her disgusted father and secretly taken to be raised in a convent in north Wales. At 14, Ruby is beautiful, intelligent, and wilful - and delighted to be chosen by the wealthy Emily Dangerfield, who lives in a grand house near Liverpool, as a companion. But her charmed life there comes to an abrupt end.
©2002 Maureen Lee (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
99 Red Balloons
Summary
Two girls go missing, decades apart. What would you do if one was your daughter? Eight-year-old Grace is last seen in a sweetshop. Her mother, Emma, is living a nightmare. But as her loved ones rally around her, cracks begin to emerge. What are the emails sent between her husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is there more to the disappearance of her daughter than meets the eye? Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees a familiar face in the newspaper. A face that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl - the first girl who disappeared.... This is a gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist that will take your breath away.
©2017 Elisabeth Carpenter (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
Secret Baby, Surprise Parents
Summary
Grace thought being a surrogate for her sister would be a selfless act. But secretly she longed for the baby inside her to be her own, conceived in passion with the only man she has ever loved... Josh couldn't bear to watch the baby grow in Grace's belly, unable to share the magic. But when tragedy struck Josh rushed to be there for Grace and baby Posie. They were his life, his family...
©2009 Liz Fielding (P)2010 WF Howes Ltd
Queen of the Mersey
Summary
Queenie is only 14 and has been deserted by her mother. Set in Liverpool and Wales at the outbreak of World War II, this story explores themes of female friendship and betrayal from the perspective of a group of women of widely different ages.
©2003 Maureen Lee (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
1939: The Last Season
Summary
A wonderful portrait of British upper-class life in the season of 1939 - the last before the Second World War. The season of 1939 brought all those 'in Society' to London. The young debutante daughters of the upper classes were presented to the king and queen to mark their acceptance into the new adult world of their parents. They sparkled their way through a succession of balls and parties and sporting events. The season brought together influential people not only from Society but also from government at the various events of the social calendar. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain chaperoned his debutante niece to weekend house parties; Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, lunched with the headmaster of Eton; cabinet ministers encountered foreign ambassadors at balls in the houses of the great hostesses. As the hot summer drew on, the newspapers filled with ever more ominous reports of the relentless progress towards war. There was nothing to do but wait - and dance. The last season of peace was nearly over.
©1989 Anne de Courcy (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group
The Viceroy's Daughters
Summary
The lives of the three daughters of Lord Curzon: glamorous, rich, independent and wilful. Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (b. 1898) and Alexandria (b.1904) were the three daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India 1898-1905 and probably the grandest and most self-confident imperial servant Britain ever possessed. After the death of his fabulously rich American wife in 1906, Curzon's determination to control every aspect of his daughters' lives, including the money that was rightfully theirs, led them one by one into revolt against their father. The three sisters were at the very heart of the fast and glittering world of the '20s and '30s. Irene, intensely musical and a passionate foxhunter, had love affairs in the glamorous Melton Mowbray hunting set. Cynthia ('Cimmie') married Oswald Mosley, joining him first in the Labour Party, where she became a popular MP herself, before following him into fascism. Alexandra ('Baba'), the youngest and most beautiful, married the Prince of Wales' best friend Fruity Metcalfe. On Cimmie's early death in 1933, Baba flung herself into a long and passionate affair with Mosley and a liaison with Mussolini's ambassador to London, Count Dino Grandi, while enjoying the romantic devotion of the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax. The sisters see British fascism from behind the scenes, and the arrival of Wallis Simpson and the early married life of the Windsors. The war finds them based at 'the Dorch' (the Dorchester Hotel) doing good works. At the end of their extraordinary lives, Irene and Baba have become, rather improbably, pillars of the establishment, Irene being made one of the very first Life Peers in 1958 for her work with youth clubs. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Anne de Courcy (P)2021 Orion Publishing Group
Our Autistic Lives
Summary
This collection of narratives from autistic adults is structured around their decades of experience of life, covering 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60 and 70s+. These are varied and diverse, spanning different continents, genders, sexualities and ethnicities, yet the author highlights the common themes that unite them and skilfully draws out these threads. Each chapter is based on accounts from one age group and includes accounts from people of that age, giving an insight into the history of autism and signifying how gaining a diagnosis (or not) has changed people's lives over time. The book is about ageing with an autistic mind and helping the listener find connections between neurotypical and neurodiverse people by acknowledging the challenges we all face in our past, present and future.
©2020 Alex Ratcliffe (P)2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi
Summary
A fascinating biography of Freda Bedi, an English woman who broke all the rules of gender, race, and religious background to become both a revolutionary in the fight for Indian independence and then a Buddhist icon. She was the first Western woman to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun - but that pioneering ordination was really just one in a life full of revolutionary acts. Freda Bedi (1911-1977) broke the rules of gender, race, and religion - in many cases before it was thought that the rules were ready to be challenged. She was at various times a force in the struggle for Indian independence, a spiritual seeker, a scholar, a professor, a journalist, an author, a social worker, a wife, and mother of four children. She counted among her friends, colleagues, and teachers Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and many others. She was a woman of spiritual focus and compassion who was also not without contradictions. Vicki Mackenzie gives a nuanced view of Bedi and of the forces that shaped and motivated this complex and compelling figure. Cover image courtesy of Bedi Family Archives
©2017 Vicki Mackenzie (P)2017 Audible, Inc.
God on the Rocks
Summary
During one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. Her father, preaching the doctrine of the unsavoury Primal Saints; her mother, bitterly nostalgic for what might have been; Charles and Binkie, anchored in the past and a game of words; dying Mrs Frayling and Lydia the maid, given to the vulgar enjoyment of life - all contribute to Margaret's shattering moment of truth. And when the storm breaks, it is not only God who is on the rocks as the summer hurtles towards drama, tragedy and a touch of farce.
©2008 Jenny Gardam (P)2014 Audible, Ltd
It's All in Your Head
Summary
Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2016 Pauline first became ill when she was 15. What seemed to be a urinary infection became joint pain, then life-threatening appendicitis. After a routine operation, Pauline lost all the strength in her legs. Shortly afterwards, convulsions started. But Pauline's tests are normal: her symptoms seem to have no physical cause whatsoever. This may be an extreme case, but Pauline is not alone. As many as a third of people visiting their GPs have symptoms that are medically unexplained. In most an emotional root is suspected, which is often the last thing a patient wants to hear and a doctor to say. We accept our hearts can flutter with excitement and our brows can sweat with nerves, but on this journey into the very real world of psychosomatic illness, Suzanne O'Sullivan finds the secrets we are all capable of keeping from ourselves.
©2016 Susan O'Sullivan (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
The Old House on the Corner
Summary
Victoria Macara is 27 and lives alone in the old house on the corner that was once home to the family removal business. When the land is sold, she finds herself surrounded by a small estate of new properties called Victoria Square. The newcomers who move in around her bring with them their own dramas. The mismatched Kathleen and Steve are lovers with broken marriages behind them; Rachel is attempting to escape from a terrible tragedy; upper-class Sarah arrives with her children after running away from an abusive husband; while Anna and Ernie are just after a quiet life. For Marie Jordan, Victoria Square is a refuge from the men who murdered her husband; for Judy Moon, it means a fresh start after 40 years of marriage to a man she'd thought she'd love forever. But it is to Gareth, trapped in a hopeless marriage, that Victoria is particularly drawn. When Rachel decides to hold a barbecue, the scene is set for confrontation, truth-telling, and the revelation of long-held secrets that will touch the lives of all these characters.
©2004 Maureen Lee (P)2014 Audible, Inc.