AuthorRosamunde Pilcher
NarratorHayley Atwell
Duration19h 34m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Romance, Family Sagas
PublisherHodder & Stoughton
VersionUnabridged
Artist's daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age. And when she discovers that her most treasured possession, her father's painting, The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.
Ellindale Saga Book 4: One Perfect Family
Author: Anna Jacobs
Author Anna Jacobs
Narrator Anne Dover
SeriesEllindale Saga, Book 4
Duration 10h 46m
Lancashire, 1934. When Tam Crawford is unexpectedly bequeathed some money, he can finally realise his dream of settling down in the beautiful village of Ellindale. Tam knows he can be impulsive - his nickname isn't Crazy Tam for nothing! - but this time he is determined not to be ruled by his big heart and hot head. Yet somehow, within just one day...
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Author: Abbey Clancy
Author Abbey Clancy
Narrator Elaine Fellows
Duration 8h 3m
Popstar Jessika Malone can't believe her luck! Not only has she signed a major record deal and is topping the charts with her latest single, she's just been offered the chance of a lifetime: a tour with gorgeous megastar Cooper Black... It's everything she's ever dreamed of - except that it means travelling thousands of miles from her boyfriend, Da...
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Author: Debbie Macomber
Author Debbie Macomber
Narrator Allyson Ryan
Duration 4h 30m
Ashley Davison is desperate to spend the holidays with her mother in Seattle. Dash Sutherland has an interview for the job of a lifetime in Seattle and must arrive by 23 December. Both frantic to book a last-minute flight out of California, Ashley and Dash collide at the airport to learn that there are no flights and only one rental car available....
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Summer At the Comfort Food Cafe
Author: Debbie Johnson
Author Debbie Johnson
Narrator Dawn Murphy
Duration 9h 50m
The Comfort Food Cafe is perched on a windswept clifftop at what feels like the edge of the world, serving up the most delicious cream teas, beautifully baked breads and carefully crafted cupcakes. For tourists and locals alike, the ramshackle cafe overlooking the beach is a beacon of laughter, companionship and security - a place like no other, a...
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The Corner Shop In Cockleberry Bay
Author: Nicola May
Author Nicola May
Narrator Penny Scott-Andrews
Duration 8h 10m
Rosa Larkin is down on her luck in London, so when she inherits a near-derelict corner shop in a quaint Devon village, her first thought is to sell it for cash and sort out her life. But nothing is straightforward about this legacy. While the identity of her benefactor remains a mystery, he - or she - has left one important legal proviso: that the...
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Author: Trisha Ashley
Author Trisha Ashley
Narrator Julia Barrie
Duration 12h 30m
Fall in back in love with life in this gripping listen about fate and second chances. The eagerly awaited new novel from the Sunday Times best-selling author. Thirty-year-old Izzy Sweetwell has a peaceful life. She lives in the sleepy village of Halfhidden with her aunt with her aunt Debo, who runs the local kennels, a home from home for waifs and...
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If We're Not Married By Thirty
Author: Anna Bell
Author Anna Bell
Narrator Rebecca Courtney
Duration 12h 5m
A brilliantly funny, romantic and effervescent read, If We're Not Married by Thirty is the irresistible new novel from the bestselling author of The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart and It Started With a Tweet. Lydia's not exactly Living Her Best Life. She never imagined she'd be here at thirty - newly single, a job that's going nowhere and her f...
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Author: Helen Hoang
Author Helen Hoang
Narrator Emily Woo Zeller
Duration 10h 6m
Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny-but not important emotions, like love. His family knows better-that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and...
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Coming Home To the Comfort Food Cafe
Author: Debbie Johnson
Author Debbie Johnson
Narrator Madeleine Hyland
Duration 9h 8m
Moving to the little village of Budbury, Zoe hopes the crisp Dorset sea breeze and gentle pace of life will be a fresh start for her and her goddaughter, Martha. Luckily for them both, the friendly community at the caf‚ provide listening ears, sage advice, shoulders to cry on and some truly excellent carrot cake. And when Martha's enigmatic,...
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Author: Rosamunde Pilcher
Author Rosamunde Pilcher
Narrator Helen Johns
Duration 40h 39m
Born in Colombo, Judith Dunbar spends her teenage years at boarding school while her beloved mother and younger sister live abroad with her father. When her new friend, Loveday Carey-Lewis, invites Judith home for the weekend to Nancherrow, the Carey-Lewises' beautiful estate on the Cornish coast, it is love at first sight. She falls in love, too,...
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Susan 26 Jul 2023
book: The Shell Seekers
Set in the 2nd world war period, then peace time, the hangovers left by war, quickly bought you eloquently into Penelope Keeling character, afluent background with liberal artistic parents who have left her to drift, so obviously for each other that Penelope was treated like a mini adult, her mother more like a sister, her father much older with ill failing health but they loved her dearly and she felt loved. The many people drifting in and out of the parents home, refugees coming to stay and becoming chosen family.
Her internal struggles of now and of yesteryear, her children, not by any means perfect and each interwoven character became them in your head as you sampled them in turn and felt Penelope's dilemma with each.
The children now adults, their choices, each had a self protective streak, some selfishness, maybe due to the fact they had difficult years as a children on rations making do, also Penelope had tried to make them happy ones, only some actually forgot this of course because they were needy or greedy.
The marriage of their parents had been unhappy, an absent father, but even when around not engaged or his examples, relatives intervening, not always best intentions, the children had built a shell around themselves in their different ways.
Ultimately about Penelope Keeling, her relationship with her parents, the war, the rushed marriage her failing health, remembering the past, the whispers of ghosts in her head, the struggles, sadness, friends a long the way but love, happiness for a few snatch moments with powerful hold on her until the very end.