Penny McDonald has narrated 8 audiobooks on Listento.it by 6 authors, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is The Sugar Girls.
The Sugar Girls
Summary
Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle’s East End Factories. On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle’s refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the giant gates, Ethel felt like she had been preparing for this moment all her life. She smoothed down her frizzy hair, scraped a bit of dirt off the corner of her shoe and strode through. She was quite unprepared for the sight that met her eyes …’In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate and Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked. Through the Blitz and on through the years of rationing The Sugar Girls kept Britain sweet. The work was back-breakingly hard, but Tate & Lyle was more than just a factory, it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of the East End. From young Ethel to love-worn Lillian, irrepressible Gladys to Miss Smith who tries to keep a workforce of flirtatious young men and women on the straight and narrow, this is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness. Tales of adversity, resilience and youthful high spirits are woven together to provide a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.
©2012 Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Peppers and the Island of Invention
Summary
A strange old theatre at the end of the pier is the setting for the next fantastic adventure full of magic and mayhem with unbeatable double act, Esme & Monty Pepper, and their madcap Uncle Potty…. The Pepper twins, Esmé and Monty and their uncle Potty have been summoned to the Sea Spray Theatre on the end of Crab Pie Pier. They’re on a mission to keep the old theatre from closing and must perform the show of a lifetime to reel in the crowds. But not everyone wants the theatre to survive, and a certain someone is determined to sabotage the show, whatever the cost.... Add a strange island hideaway full of zany inventions (including the Great Crab Pie Flytrap and the Banana-Powered Test Your Strength machine), a hair-raising helicopter rescue-mission, some dodgy fortune-telling, and the world’s biggest goldfish bowl, and the Peppers are in for an unforgettable summer.
©2012 Sian Pattenden (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Magical Peppers and the Great Vanishing Act
Summary
The third show-stopping adventure set in the wonderful world of the Pepper twins The Pepper twins Esme and Monty are spending the summer with their Uncle Potty - a professional magician - and summers with Potty are rarely dull…Join the irrepressible Pepper twins in another colourful adventure. The book includes real magic tricks and tips which listeners can try at home!
©2013 Sian Patterson (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Peppers (1): The Peppers and the International Magic Guys
Summary
Take a peek behind the scenes at the wonderful world of The Peppers! A show-stopping adventure starring an unbeatable double act: the Pepper twins, Monty & Esme. The Pepper twins are spending the summer holidays with their bumbling Uncle Potty. Potty is an enthusiastic member of the International Magic Guys organisation so when it is threatened with closure the twins must use every trick in the book to save it… But no one can find the book, the escapologist is all tied up and the human cannonball has put Potty’s assistant out of action. Can the twins still pull off the performance of a lifetime? The book includes real magic tricks and tips which readers can try at home!
©2012 Sian Pattenden (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Netherwood
Summary
Eve Williams is about to discover just how the other half really live.... Above stairs: Lord Netherwood keeps his considerable fortune ticking over with the profits from his three coal mines in the vicinity. It's just as well the coal is of the highest quality as the upkeep of Netherwood Hall, his splendid estate on the outskirts of town, doesn't come cheap. And that's not to mention the cost of keeping his wife and daughters in the latest fashions - and keeping the heir, the charming but feckless Tobias, out of trouble. Below stairs: Eve Williams, is the wife of one of Lord Netherwood's most stalwart employees. When her ordered existence amid the terraced rows of the miners' houses is brought crashing down by the twin arrivals of tragedy and charity, Eve must look to her own self-sufficiency, and talent, to provide for her three young children. And it's then that 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' collide in truly dramatic fashion....
©2011 Jane Sanderson (P)2011 Hachette Digital
The Sea Change
Summary
Yesterday was Alice’s wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from home when she wakes to see a wave on the horizon, taller than her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the world is Alice’s mother, Violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, after it was requisitioned by the army, Violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved and the home that lies in ruins. As Alice searches for her husband, Violet is compelled to return to Imber to discover why she abandoned her great love.
©2014 Joanna Rossiter (P)2014 Oakhill Publishing
The Woman Before Me
Summary
They came for me, just like I knew they would. Luke had been dead for just three days. Rose Wilks’ life is shattered when her newborn baby Joel is admitted to intensive care. Emma Hatcher has all that Rose lacks. Beauty. A loving husband. A healthy son. Until tragedy strikes and Rose is the only suspect. Now, having spent nearly five years behind bars, Rose is just weeks away from freedom. Her probation officer Cate must decide whether Rose is remorseful for Luke s death, or whether she remains a threat to society. As Cate is drawn in, she begins to doubt her own judgment.
©2014 Oakhill Publishing (P)2014 Ruth Dugdall
Nowhere Girl
Summary
Probation officer Cate Austin has moved for a fresh start along with her daughter, Amelia, to live with her police detective boyfriend, Olivier Massard. But when she realises just how casually he is taking the disappearance of a young girl, Ellie, Cate decides to investigate matters for herself. She discovers Luxembourg has a dark heart. As Cate comes closer to discovering Ellie's whereabouts, she uncovers a hidden world, placing herself in danger not just from traffickers but from a source much closer to home.
©2016 Ruth Dugdall (P)2016 Oakhill Publishing