Penelope Freeman has narrated 56 audiobooks on Listento.it by 22 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 29 ratings. The most-rated is A Shilling for a Wife.
A Shilling for a Wife
Summary
Random House presents the audiobook edition of A Shilling for a Wife by Emma Hornby, read by Penelope Freeman. Sally Swann thought life couldn't get much worse. Then a single coin changed hands. A dismal cottage in the heart of Bolton, Lancashire, has been Sally's prison since Joseph Goden 'bought' her from the workhouse as his wife. A drunkard and bully, Joseph rules her with a rod of iron, using fists and threats to keep her in check. When Sally gives birth, however, she knows she must do anything to save her child from her husband's clutches. She manages to escape and, taking her baby, flees for the belching chimneys of Manchester, in search of her only relative. But with the threat of discovery by Joseph, who will stop at nothing to find her, Sally must fight with every ounce of strength she has to protect herself and her son and finally be with the man who truly loves her. For a fresh start does not come without a price.... A Shilling for a Wife is powerful, absorbing storytelling that is perfect for fans of sagas by Dilly Court, Rosie Goodwin and Maggie Hope.
©2016 Emma Hornby (P)2017 Random House
The Nightingale Girls
Summary
Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to? What have they let themselves in for?
©2012 Donna Douglas (P)2013 Soundings
The Nightingale Christmas Show
Summary
Christmas 1945. The war is over, but the Nightingale Hospital still bears the scars. Matron Kathleen Fox has the job of putting the hospital back together but wonders if she is up to the task. In an attempt to bring some festive cheer, she decides to put on a Christmas show. The idea is greeted with mixed feelings by the nurses, who all have their own problems, and also by the new Assistant Matron and ward sister, who find themselves rivals for the role of organiser. But as rehearsals begin, the performers begin to find the show is not just a tonic for the patients. Could the Christmas show really be just what the doctor ordered for their own problems?
©2017 Donna Douglas (P)2018 Soundings
District Nurse on Call
Summary
West Yorkshire, 1926. After completing her training in Steeple Street, Agnes is looking forward to making her mark as the village's first district nurse, confident she can make a difference in the locals' lives. But when she arrives, she's treated with suspicion, labelled just another servant of the wealthy mine owners. The locals would much rather place their trust in the resident healer, Nella Black. And when the General Strike throws Bowden Main into turmoil, the miners and their families face hunger and hardship, and Agnes finds her loyalties tested. Now it's time to prove whose side she is really on and to fight for her place in the village....
©2017 Donna Douglas (P)2017 Soundings
Staying at Daisy's
Summary
Staying at Daisy's from Sunday Times best-selling author Jill Mansell is essential reading if you love the novels of Cathy Kelly and Milly Johnson. Daisy MacLean runs the country house hotel owned by her flamboyant father, Hector. When she hears who's about to get married there, she isn't worried at all - her friend, Tara, absolutely promises there won't be any trouble between her and ex-boyfriend Dominic, whom she hasn't seen for years. But Dominic has other ideas.... Meanwhile, Hector's getting up to all sorts with...well, that's the village's best kept secret. And then Barney turns up, with a little something belonging to the husband Daisy's been doing her best to forget. That's the thing about hotels - you never know who you're going to meet. Or whether they're going to stay....
©2007 Jill Mansell (P)2002 Isis Publishing Ltd
All the Days of Our Lives
Summary
It is 1946: The war is over and three young women face a new kind of life. But peacetime brings its own pressures.... Katie O'Neill's childhood has been dominated by her temperamental mother and by frightening secrets that she barely understands. Innocent, yet hungry for love, she is easily taken in by male charm and is left outcast and alone with her young son. Emma Brown has spent the war at home in Birmingham, longing for her husband Norm to return and meet the son he has never seen. But she soon finds that the joy of homecoming only brings a whole new set of problems. And Molly Fox, after a sad and brutal childhood, found a place to belong during the war, in the women's army, the ATS. Now, the women are no longer wanted and Molly finds peacetime a bleak, difficult challenge. Finding work in guesthouses and holiday camps, she keeps running from herself, in search of a place she can call home. All the Days of Our Lives is the story of three girls who first met in a Birmingham classroom in the 1930s, each facing life with all its joys, sorrows, and surprises.
©2011 Annie Murray (P)2014 Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd
While We're Apart
Summary
The compelling new Second World War novel from Sunday Times top-ten best-selling author of Some Lucky Day. It is 1942, and England is at war. Mary Jones has just celebrated her eighteenth birthday and said good-bye to her childhood sweetheart, Jack, when she learns her house has taken a direct hit during a tip-and-run raid.With both her parents dead and her home destroyed, a distraught Mary moves in with Jack’s parents. But her father's trunk is still intact amid the ruins, and Mary discovers a shocking secret amongst his diaries. Mary travels to Cliffehaven on the south coast in search of answers. There she is billeted withPeggy Reilly’s fearsome sister, Doris. When warm-hearted Peggy befriends Mary, she discovers the young woman’s secret. But she begins to regret getting involved, for there can be only trouble ahead...
©2005 Ellie Dean (P)2015 Random House Audiobooks
Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose
Summary
Beware of long-lost friends, sleepy cats, and Santa’s grotto. Think twice about gypsy curses, squawking parrots, and peach-coloured thermal underwear - for any one of them can confound your expectations and shatter a cosy world. In this addictive collection, master crime writer Peter Lovesey prescribes 15 fiendishly clever stories featuring the man in the street along with the ever-popular detectives Peter Diamond and the self-important Bertie, Prince of Wales. Here, the genteel mix easily with the sordid in a nasty but effective concoction of mayhem and suspense. It’s a mixture that will make your heart beat faster - and there are twists that will take your breath away....
©1998 Peter Lovesey (P)2020 Soundings
Nightingales on Call
Summary
Dora and her old enemy Lucy are paired up on the children's ward for the final three months of their training. The two nurses couldn't seem more different, but they may have more in common than they think, as each hides a secret heartache. And there are new faces. Jess is the feisty eldest daughter of a notorious East End family and determined to prove herself as a ward maid. New trainee nurse Effie can't wait to escape her small Irish village, and make her way as a nurse in London. But Effie's sister Katie soon begins to worry that Effie's behaviour is out of control. Nightingales on call and in crisis: have they got what it takes?
©2014 Donna Douglas (P)2014 Soundings
A Child Is Born
Summary
Christmas Eve, 1936. On a foggy December night, a pregnant woman walks out in front of a trolley bus and is knocked unconscious. She is rushed to the Nightingale hospital, and a healthy baby is delivered. But the mother claims to have lost her memory, and cannot believe that the child is hers. It seems that the Nightingale nurses may need to perform a Christmas miracle.
©2014 Donna Douglas (P)2014 Soundings
Ambulance Girls
Summary
Random House presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of Ambulance Girls by Deborah Burrows, read by Penelope Freeman. On duty during London's Blitz... As death and destruction fall from the skies day after day in the London Blitz, Australian ambulance driver Lily Brennan confronts the horror with bravery, intelligence, common sense and humour. Although she must rely upon her colleagues to carry out her dangerous duties, Lily begins to suspect that someone at her ambulance station may be giving assistance to the enemy by disclosing secret information. Then her best friend, Jewish ambulance attendant David Levy, disappears in suspicious circumstances. Aided - and sometimes hindered - by David's school friend, a mysterious and attractive RAF pilot, Lily has to draw on all of her resources to find David and negotiate the dangers that come from falling in love in a country far from home in a time of war....
©2017 Deborah Burrows (P)2017 Random House AudioBooks
The Nightingale Sisters
Summary
To the student nurses at The Nightingale hospital, the ward sisters are heartless and frightening, with impossibly high standards. But the sisters have troubles of their own... Dora, the student nurse is struggling with her heartbreak over Nick, the man who got away. A new arrival on the ward brings the chance to put a smile back on her face. But can she really get over Nick so easily? Dora's fellow student Millie is also torn between the two men in her life. But then an unexpected friendship with an elderly patient makes her question where her heart really lies.
©2013 Donna Douglas (P)2013 Soundings
A Nightingale Christmas Carol
Summary
With her husband, Nick, away fighting, Dora struggles to keep the home fires burning but finds herself in a difficult position when she is put in charge of a ward of injured German POWs. Can she find it in her heart to care for her enemies? Fellow nurse Kitty faces a similar struggle looking after the men who killed her beloved brother. But her life becomes even more complicated when she falls for one of the prisoners. And Helen Denton returns from nursing in Europe with a secret. She has her own reasons for hating the Germans. But will she be able to overcome her prejudice and do her duty?
©2016 Donna Douglas (P)2016 Soundings
The Nightingale Nurses
Summary
It's the final year of training for three young nurses at The Nightingale Hospital. Helen is at a crossroads in her life as she battles with her domineering mother over both her love life and her future career. Dora can't stop loving Nick, who is married to her best friend, Ruby. Millie is anxious about her fiancé, sent to Spain to cover the Civil War, and things only get worse when she encounters a fortune teller who gives her a sinister warning. With war looming in Europe, and the East End of London squaring up to the threat of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts, the women of the Nightingale have to face their own challenges, at work and in love.
©2013 Donna Douglas (P)2014 Soundings
Nightingale Wedding Bells
Summary
East London. War rages on, but for the Nightingale nurses wedding bells are ringing.... Anna is over the moon when her sweetheart returns from the front line. As he recovers from his injuries, they make plans to be married, but the horrors of the trenches cast a long shadow. Caring for shell-shocked soldiers brings untold challenges for Grace, and her parents have very different dreams for her future. Meanwhile Dulcie has her sights firmly set on her own happy ending. And yet sometimes we find love where we least expect to. Each of the nurses has her own battle to fight, but they must rally together if they’re to find true happiness.
©2019 Donna Douglas (P)2019 Soundings
A Nightingale Christmas Promise
Summary
London, 1914. While young men enlist up and down the country, the Nightingale Hospital has its own set of new recruits.... Anna Beck is the daughter of the best baker in Bethnal Green. Her German father built the business out of nothing, but as the shadow of war descends, his fate is at the mercy of their neighbours. Meanwhile Katie Carlyle has always wanted to become a doctor. She fought hard to get into medical school, and even now she faces prejudice from her fellow students as well as the tutors. Can she prove them wrong? And Sadie Sedgwick joins the Nightingale for a fresh start, but the past has a way of catching up with people....
©2018 Donna Douglas (P)2018 Soundings
A Nightingale Christmas Wish
Summary
As Christmas 1938 approaches, the staff at the Nightingale Hospital have their own wishes for the festive season. Ward sister Frannie Wallace is hoping she won't have to live through another war like the one that claimed her fiance. Staff Nurse Helen Dawson wants to find happiness again after the death of her husband Charlie. But is she looking for love in the wrong place? Matron Kathleen Fox struggles to keep up morale. But while everyone else worries about the future of the Nightingale, it's for her own future that Kathleen truly fears. As the country prepares itself for war, one thing is for sure – nothing at the Nightingale Hospital will be the same again.
©2014 Donna Douglas (P)2014 Soundings
Nightingales Under the Mistletoe
Summary
It's Christmas 1941, and the nurses at the Nightingale are facing their toughest winter yet. With shortages everywhere and every news bulletin announcing more losses, the British people are weary and demoralised, and The Nightingale Hospital is suffering too. Millie is recently widowed and dealing with the demands of her family's estate. It's not long before her old world of the Nightingale begins to beckon, along with a long-lost love.... Jess is struggling with her move from East London to the countryside. Effie finds herself exiled to a quiet village, but the quiet doesn't last for long as she soon finds excitement in the shape of a smooth-talking GI. As Christmas approaches, even the shelter of the countryside can't protect the girls from heartache.
©2015 Donna Douglas (P)2015 Soundings
Nightingales at War
Summary
As the war takes its toll, the Nightingale nurses must do their bit for king and country…. Dora is the devoted mother of twin babies, but, determined to help the war effort, she goes back to work at the Nightingale Hospital. More used to nights out in the West End, Jennifer and Cissy volunteer in the hope of tending to handsome soldiers. They soon find out that nursing isn’t quite what they were expecting. For shy and troubled Eve, the hospital provides an escape from the pressures of home, but the life of a nurse is never easy, especially at wartime. Can the nurses rally together while war rages all around them? And will the Nightingale Hospital survive the Blitz?
©2015 Donna Douglas (P)2015 Soundings
As the Sun Breaks Through
Summary
Random House presents the audiobook edition of As the Sun Breaks Through by Ellie Dean, read by Penelope Freeman. The 15th Cliffehaven novel by Sunday Times best-selling author Ellie Dean. Cliffehaven, June 1944. As the planes continue to circle over Cliffehaven, Peggy Reilly’s sister, Doris, must seek refuge after a V-1 blast destroys her home. Rita, Sarah and the other residents at Beach View Boarding House quickly find their peace disturbed, and it’s not long before even Peggy loses her patience. But with more bad news to come, will Doris finally be forced to swallow her pride? Meanwhile Peggy’s father-in-law, Ron Reilly, is delighted when his sweetheart, Rosie, returns home. Until a heartbreaking confession suggests things may never be the same between them. With loved ones scattered far and wide across the globe and tensions running high, the end of the war feels somehow further than ever. And yet with the long-awaited Allied invasion in sight, a glimmer of light is starting to break through.... A fabulous, heartwarming Second World War novel in Ellie Dean's best-selling Cliffehaven series (previously called the Beach View Boarding House series).
©2018 Ellie Dean (P)2018 Random House Audiobooks