Audiobooks narrated by Diana Quick

I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys

‘Brilliantly written, compulsively readable and insightful’ Pat Barker, author of The Silence of the Girls ‘A first-class life and a rollicking read … Close to a masterpiece’ Sunday Times An intimate, revealing and profoundly moving biography of Jean Rhys, acclaimed author of Wide Sargasso Sea. An obsessive and troubled genius, Jean Rhys is one of the most compelling and unnerving writers of the twentieth century. Memories of a conflicted Caribbean childhood haunt the four fictions that Rhys wrote during her extraordinary years as an exile in 1920s Paris and later in England. Rhys’s experiences of heartbreak, poverty, notoriety, breakdowns and even imprisonment all became grist for her writing, forming an iconic ‘Rhys woman’ whose personality – vulnerable, witty, watchful and angry – was often mistaken, and still is, for a self-portrait. Many details of Rhys’s life emerge from her memoir, Smile Please and the stories she wrote throughout her long and challenging career. But it’s a shock to discover that no biographer – until now – has researched the crucial seventeen years that Rhys spent living on the remote Caribbean island of Dominica; the island which haunted Rhys’s mind and her work for the rest of her life. Luminous and penetrating, Seymour’s biography reveals a proud and fiercely independent artist, one who experienced tragedy and extreme poverty, alcohol and drug dependency, romantic and sexual turmoil – and yet was never a victim. I Used to Live Here Once enables one of our most excitingly intuitive biographers to uncover the hidden truth about a fascinatingly elusive woman. The figure who emerges for Seymour is powerful, cultured, self-mocking, self-absorbed, unpredictable and often darkly funny. Persuasive, surprising and compassionate, this unforgettable biography brings Jean Rhys to life as never before.

Miranda Seymour (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Forsyte Saga: 4 Full Cast BBC Radio Dramatisations

An epic BBC radio adaptation of John Galsworthy's complete Forsyte Chronicles, narrated by Dirk Bogarde and with an all-star cast 'Hallmarked with elegance and craftsmanship' The Evening Standard First broadcast in 1990, this monumental adaptation of John Galsworthy's Nobel Prize-winning novel series was a radio event. It was the most expensive drama serial ever produced, featured one of the biggest, most star-studded casts and dominated the Radio 4 schedules for over 5 months, attracting over a million listeners each week.Comprising all nine books in Galsworthy's Forsyte Chronicles, it spans 50 years - from 1886 to 1936 - and tells the irresistible story of an upper-class dynasty torn apart by a terrible feud. Wealthy, privileged and successful, the Forsytes seem to have it all. But the disastrous marriage of Irene and Soames Forsyte, and the dire consequences of one night and the next foggy day, are to split the family for generations. As the sins of the father are visited upon the children, the younger Forsytes - from Soames' daughter Fleur to her cousin Dinny Cherrell - find themselves doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past as they experience both the pain and the promise of love. Beset by emotional disasters, domestic dramas and society scandals, can the various members of this sprawling family ever find lasting happiness? This sweeping tale of passion, power and money stars a host of outstanding actors, including Dirk Bogarde, Alan Howard, Michael Hordern, Diana Quick, Michael Williams, Maurice Denham, Amanda Redman and Sophie Thompson. Cast and credits Written by John Galsworthy The Forsyte Chronicles Galsworthy - Dirk Bogarde Old Jolyon - Michael Hordern Soames Forsyte - Alan Howard Irene - Diana Quick Young Jolyon - Michael Williams James - Maurice Denham Aunt Ann - Fabia Drake Aunt Hester - Rachel Kempson Aunt Juley - Renee Asherson June - Angela Pleasence Philip Bosinney - Michael Cochrane Swithin - David March Roger/Justice Bentham/Sir Luke Sharman/Adrian Cherrell - John Moffatt George/Monsieur Profond - Christopher Good Nicholas - John Gabriel Emily - Maxine Audley Winifred - Fiona Walker Montague Dartie/Elderson - Donald Gee Francie - Susan Sheridan Mrs Macander/Mme Lamotte/Smither/American woman - Jo Kendall Young Chankery - Charles Simpson Waterbuck, QC/Timothy/Mr Settlewhite/Hilary Cherrell - David King Annette - Shelley Thompson Holly - Elizabeth Mansfield Val - Dale Rapley Jolly - Paul Downing Dreamer/Francis/Francis Wilmot/Hubert Cherrell - Simon Treves Polteed/Gradman/Cuthbert Mothergil/Editor/Foskisson/Blore - Brian Miller Doctor/Lord Charles Ferrar/Lionel Cherrell/Neil Wintney/Mr Instone - James Greene Fleur - Amanda Redman Other Cast: Gary Cady, Gary Bond,Tara Dominick, Vincent Brimble, Nicholas Gilbrook, Sue Broomfield, Paul Daneman, Philip Sully, Stephen Garlick, John Bull, Danny Schiller, Belinda Lang, Jack May, Ben Onwukwe, David Bannerman, Ian Lindsay, Stuart McGuigan, Michael Kilgarriff, Catherine Furshpan, Christopher Scott, Garard Green, Mary Allen, Sophie Thompson, Dorothy Tutin, Peter Marinker, Moir Leslie, Danielle Allan, Paul Rattigan, Jack Klaff, Lois Burgess, Miranda Foster, Peter Howell, Aubrey Woods, Jody McDonald, James Warwick, David Yelland, Matthew Solon, Elizabeth Kelly, William Wortley, Henry Power, Leonard Fenton, Jenny Howe and Nigel Carrington Dramatised by David Spenser, Shirley Gee and Elspeth Sandys Directed by Janet Whitaker, Anthony Cornish and Sue Wilson Series producer: Janet Whitaker Pianist: Mary Nash First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 September 1990-2 March 1991 ©2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

John Galsworthy (Author), Alan Howard, Amanda Redman, Diana Quick, Dirk Bogarde, Full Cast, Maurice Denham, Michael Hordern, Michael Williams, Sophie Thompson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Anna Karenina

Towering over the other characters, Tolstoy's beautiful tragic heroine, Anna Karenina, dominates the action of the great book which bears her name. Anna is sensitive, generous, warm-hearted and intelligent, but all her virtues count for nothing when she is overcome by passionate love for Count Vronsky. Handsome and sensual, Vronsky is everything Anna's dry, legalistic husband is not. Their love, which flouts the rigid laws of marriage, proves disastrous. Russian high society will not forgive their breach of convention and ultimately, ostracised and humiliated, Anna seeks only oblivion. 1. THE FIRST MEETING. Going to Moscow to help to save her brother Stiva's marriage, Anna travels in the same compartment as Countess Vronsky and so meets her son, the dashing Count Vronsky. When a railway worker is run over by a train, Vronsky gives his widow 200 roubles. This strengthens the impression he has made on Anna. On seeing on her sister-in-law, Dolly, Anne argues her to forgive Stiva's infidelity. Peace is restored in the household, but Anna decides to return to her husband and son in Petersburg immediately, afraid of the attraction she feel for Vronsky. 2. FIGHTING LOVE. On the train back to Petersburg, Anna discovers that Vronsky has followed her. She tries to put him off but her efforts are in vain, as he can read the love in her eyes. Arriving at the station, Anna is met by her sarcastic husband Karenin, who snubs Vronsky. Soon Anna and Vronsky are the subject of malicious gossip in upper-class circles. Anna tries to suppress her feelings for Vronsky, but at a meeting in the house of the socialite Princess Betsy, his passion for her becomes so obvious that all the rumours are redoubled. Only Karenin prefers not to see. 3. CONSEQUENCES. Karenin warns Anna against embarking on an affair with Vronsky, but she mocks him and their marriage becomes even more of a sham. After holding out for a year, Anna takes Vronsky as her lover. When she becomes pregnant, Vronsky insists that Karenin is informed and a divorce sought. Anna is reluctant, she fears that she will lose her son, Seriozha, but Vronsky does not understand her worries. 4. AT DEATH'S DOOR. Karenin buries himself in work and becomes cold and unfeeling towards Seriozha. When he asks Anna to behave with propriety in public, she breaks down and confirms his worst fears. In giving birth to Vronsky's daughter, Anna become ill with puerperal fever. Karenin hurries back from Moscow to find her delirious. Overwhelmed by grief, he forgives her completely. Vronsky is overcome with self-disgust and the realisation that if Anna lives, he should not come between her and her forgiving husband. Despairing, he shoots himself. 5. LOVERS ABROAD. After several days hovering between life and death Vronsky recovers. He accepts a posting to Tashkent but, hearing that Karenin has agreed to a divorce, he decides to see Anna one last time. The reunion overwhelms them both. They leave for Italy at once, Vronsky resigning his commission and Anna abandoning plans for divorce. After a spell of intense happiness, the couple begin to suffer the consequences of their flight: no Russian will meet them and Vronsky becomes bored with the lack of social life. On their return to Petersburg, Anna finds that few of her former friends will call on her. Determined to see Seriozha, she steals into Karenin's house early in the morning of his birthday. Their joyful reunion is interrupted by Karenin and Anna has to leave without even seeing Seriozha unwrap her presents. 6. A DEBT REPAID. Deeply affected by her brief meeting with Seriozha, Anna turns on Vronsky, telling him everything is his fault. He manages to calm her and, reconciled, they leave for his country estate. Dolly, remembering past kindness, visits Anna and Vronsky, although most people shun them. Vronsky begs Dolly to ask Karenin to agree to a divorce again. Her husband, Stiva, visits Karenin on Anna's behalf but Karenin has forgotten his earlier forgiveness and refuses a divorce. 7. LOVE'S DEMISE. Trapped in Vronsky's Moscow flat while he is out seeing his friends on his own, Anna becomes morbidly jealous. She decides that they would be better off in the country and orders their things packed. But when Vronsky returns, he says he cannot leave right away. This provokes their worst quarrel yet. Anna then reads a telegram from Stiva announcing Karenin's refusal to divorce. Anna begins to toy with the idea of committing suicide. 8. DEATH OF A HEROINE. Having convinced herself that Vronsky loves another woman, Anna leaves a message saying she has gone to bed with a headache, hoping that he will come and see her anyway. He does not and the next morning they argue again. Vronsky goes to see his mother. Anna follows him to the station but finds his train has already left. She grows frantic. And, recalling the death of the railway worker on the day she met Vronsky, throws herself under a train. 8. TO WAR. Grief- stricken, Vronsky decides to join a volunteers' force to fight the Turks in Serbia. Waiting at the station, where his mother relates her version of her story, he determines to seek death on the battlefield.

Leo Tolstoy (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Aurora Leigh

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's classic poem, read by Diana Quick.Written in blank verse, Aurora Leigh is Browning's self-styled 'novel in verse', a first-person narration of the lives of Marian Erle and the eponymous Aurora. Travelling across Florence, London, and Paris, and playing off the works of Anne Louise Germaine de Staël and George Sand, Aurora Leigh is one of the greatest poems of the nineteenth century.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Remember

A woman, an obsession, an unforgettable story.Television war correspondent Nicky Wells is a media superstar. Courageous, beautiful and renowned for her hard-hitting reports from the world's most dangerous trouble spots, her life is shattered when she loses the only man she ever truly loved - a dashing English aristocrat, Charles Devereaux.Nicky seeks solace in her work and friendship with photographer Cleeland Donovan and, after a romantic interlude in Provence, begins to think she may fall in love again. But she is forced to remember Charles when confronted with disturbing evidence that he led a secret double life...Packed with passion, intrigue and suspense, Remember is an unforgettable story of a charismatic and sophisticated woman at the height of her professional career.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hold the Dream

The continuing story of Emma Harte, indomitable heroine of A Woman of Substance.Emma Harte was the heroine of Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance.Now she is eighty years old and ready to hand over the reins of the vast business empire she has created.To her favourite grandchild, Paula McGill Fairley, Emma bequeaths her mighty retailing empire with these heartfelt words: 'I charge you to hold my dream.'A towering international success, this is the powerfully moving tale of one woman's determination to 'hold the dream' which was entrusted to her, and in so doing find the happiness and passion which is her legacy.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

To Be the Best

Enthralling sequel to Barbara Taylor Bradford's universally loved novels, A Woman of Substance and Hold The Dream.Set in Yorkshire, Hong Kong and America, this remarkable novel continues the story of an unorthodox and endlessly fascinating family. As the spirit of Emma Harte lives on in her granddaughter, Paula O'Neill, an engrossing drama is played out in the glamorous arena of the wealthy and privileged, underscored by a cut-throat world of jealousy and treachery.Paula must act with daring and courage to preserve her formidable grandmother's glittering empire from unscrupulous enemies - so that Emma's precious dream lives on for the next generation...

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Angel

A captivating story of family and friends, innocence and corruption.Four friends swore eternal friendship when all they had was each other. Now their dazzling careers, their seemingly successful lives, are to be disrupted by a devastating singer - and by the shadow of their past.Rosie Madigan is the angel... an Award-winning costume-designer, she is blessed with worldly goods yet troubled by personal commitments.Gavin Ambrose is the Hollywood megastar: talented and idolized, true love has eluded him.Nell Jeffrey is the glamorous head of an international PR company: her secret love for Rosie's brother Kevin pierces her usual shrewdness.Kevin Madigan, undercover cop, inhabits a world of danger from which he tries to shelter his friends - but evil has a way of spreading.Angel is the stunning novel of family and friends, of love and loss, of innocence and corruption: it will captivate you from the first page.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Everything to Gain

Absorbing and heartrendingly real tale of one woman's life and feelings laid bare.Mallory Keswick is a woman with the world at her feet. Then out of the blue, that world is shattered by violent tragedy and she loses all that she holds dear.Torn by grief, Mal knows that she must rebuild her life. She flees to a village on the Yorkshire moors where she learns to draw on the deepest reserves of her spirit.Returning to Connecticut, Mal opens a cafe and shop selling gourmet food and kitchenware and turns it into a highly successful venture. But there remains in her life an aching void, a grief that no individual, nor her new-found business acumen, can assuage. Then she meets Richard Markson, and once more, Mal's life has come to a crossroads. It is he who shows her that she has everything to gain - but only if she has the courage to take it.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dangerous to Know

A compelling story of old loves and old secrets.Sebastian, the fifty-six-year-old patriarch of the Locke clan, is handsome, charismatic, a man of immense charm and intelligence. He heads up the philanthropic Locke Foundation, funded by the vast family fortune built by his forefathers. Committed to relieving the suffering of those in genuine need, Locke travels the globe, personally giving away millions a year to the poor, the sick, and the victims of natural disasters and wars. He is seen as a beacon of light in today's darkly violent world. That is why the police are so baffled when Sebastian is found dead in mysterious circumstances. Has he been murdered, and if so who would want to kill the world's greatest philanthropist? Could such an upstanding man have enemies?Vivienne Trent, an American journalist, met Locke as a child, married him, divorced him, but stayed close to him. Aware that there was another side to this engimatic man, she sets out to find the truth about his death and about Locke himself.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Her Own Rules

A forgotten past hides the key to the future.Meredith Stratton, at forty-four the owner of six elegant international inns, is about to celebrate her daughter's engagement. At this seemingly happy time in her life she begins to suffer from a strange illness that baffles everyone. Her doctor cannot find a physical cause for her debilitating symptoms, and, desperate for answers, she seeks the help of a psychiatrist. Through therapy Meredith peels back the layers of her life to discover the truth behind her most careful creation - herself. Determined to get well, Meredith traces her roots back to another country where she learns about childhood experiences that dramatically changed her life. What she discovers is not only the key to the past but to her future happiness and fulfilment as a woman.Moving from the Connecticut countryside, the busy streets and suites of London, Paris and New York, to the pastoral beauty of a château in the Loire, Her Own Rules is an exciting and suspenseful novel about secrets, survival, redemption and love.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Woman of Substance

In 1905 a young kitchen maid leaves Fairley Hall. Emma Harte is sixteen, single and pregnant.By 1968 she is one of the richest women in the world, ruler of a business empire stretching from Yorkshire to the glittering cities of America and the rugged vastness of Australia. But what is the price she has paid? is as impossible to put down as it is to forget. This multi-million copy bestseller is truly a novel of our times.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Diana Quick (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Diana Quick