Showing results by narrator "Mandy Weston" in All Categories

Long overshadowed by Jane Eyre, Villette is widely admired as one of Charlotte Bronte's finest works. This story of a young teacher at a girl's school in the city of Villette is a particular challenge for the young reader, for it requires maturity of vision, a fine narrative sense - and a command of French! Mandy Weston, a newcomer to Naxos AudioBooks, tells the story magnificently.

Mathilda Gillespie's body was found nearly two days after she had taken an overdose and slashed her wrists with a Stanley knife. But what shocked Dr Sarah Blakeney the most was the scold's bridle obscuring the dead woman's face, a metal contraption grotesquely adorned with a garland of nettles and Michaelmas daisies. What happened at Cedar House in the tortured hours before Mathilda's death? The police assume that the coroner will return a verdict of suicide. Only Dr Blakeney, it seems, doubts the verdict. Until it is discovered that Mathilda's diaries have disappeared.

Marianne is grieving. Still reeling from the loss of her sister, she wakes up one day to discover a thick black hair protruding from her spine. Her doctor assures her that the inexplicable growth is a physical reaction to grief. Forced to admit that she isn’t coping, Marianne accepts the offer of a quiet recovery at Nede, a remote health retreat in the Welsh countryside. But all is not as it seems and Marianne feels herself losing control: of her body, mind, and memories. Why are her fellow patients so unwilling to talk? Can she trust the staff who claim to be so keen to help her?

To make ends meet, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady's maid, Eva Huntford, have decided to open up Foxwood Hall to guided public tours. Not everyone is pleased about it - even to the point of committing murder.

In the Alyssa Maxwell's sixth delightful A Lady and Lady's Maid Mystery set after World War I, a trip to Staffordshire for Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady's maid, Eva Huntford, leads to murder in a famed pottery works.... Following the devastation of the Great War, England's noble class takes comfort in honoring tradition. To celebrate their grandparents' wedding anniversary, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her siblings travel to Staffordshire to commission a china service bearing the Wroxly coat of arms from the venerated Crown Lily Potteries, a favorite of Queen Mary.

Eva is excited for a visit from her sister Alice, who lives in Suffolk with her husband and three children. But when Alice arrives alone, desiring a break from her family, Eva becomes concerned. Her dismay deepens as Alice starts spending time with a former beau, Keenan Ripley, who owns the nearby pear orchard. At the same time, Phoebe's sister Julia, now a widow and pregnant, is in a fretful state, and Phoebe struggles to be helpful to her.

Despite being the granddaughter of an earl, Julia Renshaw is under pressure to marry for money - and has settled for the wealthy, and older, Gilbert Townsend. It’s clear to her sister Phoebe and lady’s maid Eva that this is not a love match. At the reception aboard the groom’s yacht, there is tension between Gil and several guests: his best man, his spinster sister and his younger cousin and current heir. Moreover, the bride has discovered that Gil’s pretty secretary, among others, will be joining them for the honeymoon.

In the sobering yet hopeful years following the First World War, Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her lady’s maid, Eva Huntford, find their summer plans marred by an instance of murder.... Phoebe and her sister Julia are eager for a summer getaway at High Head Lodge, the newly purchased estate of their cousin Regina. But they are not the only houseguests. Regina's odd friend, Olive, is far from friendly, and Regina's mother and brother - bitter over the unequal distribution of her father's inheritance - have descended on the house to confront Regina.

Written by the author of the ever-popular Jane Eyre, Villette is widely admired as Charlotte Brontë’s finest work. The story follows the fortunes of a young teacher at a girls’ school in the French town of Villette and is superbly told by Mandy Weston. It is an adventure story, a romance, and a French lesson all in one! The much-praised unabridged recording returns here in a more accessible abridged format.

Good deeds build good character, and good character is what the Haverleigh School for Young Ladies is all about. Lady Phoebe - with the tireless assistance of Eva - has organised a luncheon at the school to benefit wounded veterans of the Great War, encouraging the students to participate in the cooking and the baking. But too many cooks do more than spoil the broth - they add up to a recipe for disaster when the school’s headmistress, Miss Finch, is poisoned.

December 1918: There is much to celebrate for 19-year-old Phoebe Renshaw and her three siblings at their beloved family estate of Foxwood Hall. The war is finally over; eldest daughter Julia’s engagement to the Marquis of Allerton appears imminent; and all have gathered to enjoy peace on earth, good will toward men. But the peace is shattered on Boxing Day, when the Marquis goes missing and macabre evidence of foul play turns up in gift boxes given to lady’s maid Eva Huntford and a handful of others.

DI Jan Talantire is called to a cottage in Ilfracombe, where the female occupant is found dead, impaled with a crucifix. The woman, who had been renting the house for a few months, is well known locally, but the documents at the house indicate her real name is Ruth Lyle. The name means nothing to the young PC who found her, DI Talantire knows this cannot be the body of Ruth Lyle.

In this first book in a dramatic new spy series, Robinson is covertly deployed by the CIA in a deniable operation to handle one of its biggest assets in the Kremlin—recruited by her. But instead, she finds herself grappling to get to the bottom of an apparent threat that seems likely to engulf the White House. The mission becomes unexpectedly, and deeply, personal for Robinson . . . Can she outwit one of the Russian foreign intelligence service's most deadly operatives? Nothing is what it seems in this vortex of deception and deceit.

Amid the aftermath of the Great War and its hardships, it's no wonder that many wish to rediscover life's pleasures—parties, fashion, dancing. Still, Lady Phoebe and Eva are disconcerted when a small gathering at the home of Phoebe's sister, Julia, becomes a far larger and more glamorous affair . . .

Is a deadly drone attack on the US Secretary of State in Tel Aviv a deliberate provocation? A covert meeting with an Iranian nuclear chief in Vienna goes disastrously wrong . . . And who is the hitman with intelligence operative Jayne Robinson in his crosshairs? Robinson is sent by the CIA to find out who left the Secretary of State fighting for his life in Israel and why. However, the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, has the same agenda. Given their history, can she trust them?

Intelligence operative Robinson is deployed by the CIA to discover why the American cardinals were murdered on their way to a top-level government meeting—with a mysterious message they were unable to deliver. At the same time, a British cardinal and key ally of the pope asks Jayne to help with his own line of inquiry—before it's too late. The case becomes increasingly complicated as the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad, is sucked into the drama in a most unexpected way as the international political stakes rise.

CIA checkmated . . . A defecting oligarch meets a grisly death in London over a game of chess. CIA investigator Jayne Robinson is sent to Moscow on a high-risk mission to find out why. And the US president prepares for a crisis summit as Russia grabs a chunk of Ukraine. The dead oligarch is apparently ready to pass on top secret information about the Kremlin's increasingly hostile plans and strategy. But he never gets the chance.