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The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles, by Esther Wilson
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Starring Donna Lavin, a young actress with learning disabilities. Inspired by true stories. A quirky, illuminating and striking exploration of the challenges, aspirations and set backs in the unique life of a woman with learning difficulties. Darleen is living unhappily in the home of a service carer. She looks to her boyfriend Jamie for help.
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Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
In 1570 in the Italian city of Ferrara, the convent of Santa Caterina is filled with noble women who are married to Christ because many cannot find husbands outside. Then sixteen-year-old Serafina arrives, ripped by her family from an illicit love affair, howling with rage and determined to escape. Her arrival disrupts the harmony and stability of the convent, which is overseen by Madonna Chiara, an abbess as fluent in politics as she is in prayer. She gives the novice Serafina over to the care of Suora Zuana, the scholarly nun who runs the dispensary and treats all manner of sicknesses. As an unlikely relationship builds between the two women, other figures stand watching and waiting, notably the novice mistress, Suora Umiliana, a crusader for ever stricter piety, and the mysterious Suora Magdalena, incarcerated in her cell, with a history of ecstasy and visions. While on the other side of the great walls, counter-reformation forces in the Church are pushing for change, inside, Serafina’s spirit and defiance ignite a fire that threatens to engulf the whole convent.
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This Book Will Save Your Life, by A. M. Home
Penny Leicester’s adaptation of A. M. Home’s popular satirical novel. Richard Novak is a rich middle-aged man and living alone in present day Los Angeles whose life begins to fall apart. It is put back together by a series of strange events – a meditation retreat; a discovery of a taste for donuts; a super-hero style rescue of a kidnapped woman; and a reconnection with a lost child. |
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The Art of Deception by Philip Palmer
Notorious forger Daniel Ballantyne is just out of prison. With only months to live he has decided to tell all to academic and critic Jessica Brown. However Ballantyne’s taste for deception and manipulation remains as strong as ever. Despite her best efforts, Jessica’s planned meditation on art and fraud is rapidly re-inventing itself as a lurid detective thriller with her in the cast.
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Diary of an On Call Girl by WPC. E. E. BLOGGS
WPC Bloggs gives 'police procedural' a whole new meaning. Forget the glamour of Special Branch or CID, Ellie Bloggs is a ‘response’ officer working shifts in the remarkably average British town of ‘Blandmore’. When she’s not fighting her way through the idiocies of the computerised Crime Management System, she’s dealing with repeat offenders, abandoned cars, domestic disputes, drunks and suicides – all with the same tough, wry humour, and one very un-PC eyebrow engagingly raised.
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The Pillow Book by Robert Forrest
The Pillow Book is a thriller set in 10th century Japan, inspired by the diaries of Sei Shonagon, poet and lady-in-waiting to the Empress Sadako. Nine months ago Lieutenant Yukinari and Lady Shonagon solved a series of mysterious crimes in the Royal Palace. Since the Lieutenant’s departure, peace has descended on the Palace once more. But a new crime is afoot. Something far more dangerous than the last. And it has to do with fire. |
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Writing the Century, by Vanessa Rosenthal
The next part of the drama series exploring the 20th century through the diaires and correspondence of real people. This week is a return to the diaries of Linton Andrews, the editor of The Yorkshire Post. It is 1954, and Linton’s rise from provincial to national prominence continues through his work as Chairman of the Press Council and his respected editorials. But his wife Pinkie hankers for the quieter life of retirement.
Open University - Writing the Century
Open University - Explore Linton's diaries
Make drama out of everyday life
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Falco: Poseidon's Gold by Lindsey Davis
Anton Lesser and Anna Madeley return as Falco and his upper-class girlfriend Helena, and are joined later in the serial by Trevor Peacock as Falco’s wheeler-dealer Dad, Geminus.Back in Rome after his adventures in Germania, Falco finds himself accused of murder. He learns that his dead brother – the war hero Festus – was involved in a dodgy art scam, and the creditors are gathering like vultures. One of them is found murdered in the upstairs room of the local pub and Falco is in the frame. How can he get out of it – and restore the good name of the family? In this fifth Radio 4 serialisation of Lindsey Davis’s best-selling novels, Falco discovers more about his family history, and continues to try to raise the money he needs to marry Helena |
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The Girl at the Lion d'Or by Sebastian Faulks
In 1936 France is still reeling from the First World War and limbering up for the Second. A lonely, beautiful young girl comes to work in a small and unprepossessing provincial hotel. Haunted by something in her past, she appears determined to make a new life for herself there. But events both personal and political begin to conspire against her. She falls desperately in love with a much older man – a politician working for the new socialist government. But Charles Hartmann is already married. Meanwhile, the Germans are marching into the Rhineland and, unbelievably, people are beginning to talk again of war.
Julian Rhind-Tutt, Catherine Cusack and Jessica Raine star in “The Girl at the Lion d’Or”. |
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Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Lady Audley’s Secret was a sensation when it was first published in 1861, with a powerful woman at the heart of the story, and a secret waiting to be revealed. It was the talk of Victorian society. Mary Elizabeth Braddon draws us into the mysterious and dazzling world of Lucy Graham, who gains all the wealth she desires through her marriage to the devoted Sir Michael Audley. Her maid Phoebe watches with envy as Lucy delights in the glories of her new life.
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Restless by William Boyd
Restless tells the story of Ruth Gilmartin and her mother Sally. When Sally gives Ruth a manuscript she has written, Ruth discovers that everything she thought she knew about her mother is a lie - and that her mother’s dark past remains a very dangerous place. Dramatised for radio by Melissa Murray, and starring Dame Eileen Atkins and Fenella Woolgar. |
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