検索キーワード： 制作 "Soundings" 大衆小説

The market town of Everham is full of rumours and counter-rumours. Dr Leigh McDowall, medical registrar, is taking a refresher course in obstetrics. He is immediately attracted to Dr Shelagh Hammond, obstetric surgeon, but she is deeply involved with another doctor, Paul Sykes and is caring for her terminally ill mother, who has a secret of her own. Meanwhile Reverend Derek Bolt is troubled by the unwanted attentions of a female parishioner and he confides in headmaster Jeremy North.

When a valuable cargo ship is abandoned in the mid-Atlantic, Captain Barling of the SS Hopeful Enterprise has his own special reasons for wishing to tow it into port. But is he justified in risking men's lives for the sake of his own desires? Shipmate Adam Loder thinks it is nothing but a wild goose chase and chief engineer Jonah Madden is worried about his ailing engines; but Charlie Wilson is hiding a deeper concern.

There were four of the Thorpe family in the Anderson shelter the night of the raid on Coventry. Mum and Dad, Florrie and little May. Jack was missing... he was one of those who did not return from Dunkirk. When Daisy and Marcus, sixth formers in Coventry, are given a project on the bombing of the city in 1940, they go to talk to May, now living in sheltered accommodation but full of memories of the war. The two youngsters both have their problems and as their lives unfold they strike up an unlikely friendship....

On a visit to the ruins of Madderstone Abbey, Penelope Lambe suffers a bad fall and before she slips into unconsciousness, manages to say, “I saw her… It was her”. Some take these words to mean that Penelope saw the Grey Nun, the ghost reputed to haunt the abbey, but Miss Dido Kent is unconvinced and is determined to find the real cause. Dido directs all her mental energy to solving the mystery and revisits the ruins looking for clues.

Cambridge, 1583. About to graduate from Corpus Christi, the young Christopher Marlowe spends his days studying Virgil and Aristotle, and his nights carousing with old friends. But when one of them, Ralph Whittingside, is discovered lying dead in his King’s College room, mouth open in a silent scream, Marlowe refuses to accept the official verdict of suicide.

When a favour to a friend leaves Cal Jardine caught up in the Spanish Civil War, he finds that he must take a bunch of athletes and turn them into fighters. He meets the revolutionary, Juan Laporta, and if they do not make a perfect combination as fighters they form an effective one, both in Barcelona and then as they advance into the interior. But trouble is brewing in the person of communist diehard Manfred Drecker which threatens the fight and Cal himself.

November day is closing in as Marianne makes her way to Hope Grange and a job as a maid in the household of Hugo Lacey. But instead of the grand house she is expecting, Hope Grange is a crumbling wreck and a house of ghosts, whispers and secrets. Living there are seven-year-old Gerald and his grandmother. Forced to sell his home, Hugo’s behaviour becomes more irrational and descends into madness. Marianne finds herself in a perilous situation and fearing for her safety decides to leave.

Moments after she is born, tiny kitten Tallulah, with her bright eyes and silver and white fur edged with gold, is whisked away from her father Solomon and dumped in the hedge like rubbish. After a tough start to life, neglected and abandoned, Tallulah eventually finds a new home with the Lee family and forms a special bond with their daughter Tammy. But Tammy has a terrible secret and Tallulah must do all in her power to keep the family safe.

In 1930s Scotland, families are starving and thousands of farms lie derelict. But Fairlyden has survived thanks to Logan Fairly’s skill as a cattle breeder and his wife’s thriftiness. At 17, their daughter Kirsty is fiercely proud of her father, but her brother Luke has no interest in farming – and his fear of animals results in tragedy. Responsibility for Fairlyden is thrust on Kirsty just as the Second World War breaks out. But even in the face of all adversity, Kirsty retains her determination to keep the farm that has been the pride of the Fairlys for generations.

It is March 1950 and Honey Brown marries the farmer she adores - August Blake Esq. With her mother-in-law determined to turn Honey, an ex-showgirl, into a respectable lady of the manor she has a struggle on her hands. Honey longs for the bright lights and glamour of the Windmill Theatre and the companionship of the other girls. To make matters worse, Honey feels increasing animosity towards dairyman Nick and his insolent stare. Why does she dislike the handsome young man when everyone else appears to like him?

At 16, Rachel O’Brian finds herself alone in the world and accepts a home with an old friend of her father’s, but she is unprepared for his wife’s malice. The younger Maxwells welcome Rachel to their Ayrshire farm, especially Ross, but he too has earned Gertrude Maxwell’s spite. When Ross disappears Rachel is dismayed to find herself destitute and expecting his child. How will past secrets revealed help the two find each other again?

In the years following the end of World War II, life at the Glens of Lochandee is tough. Many families in the village have been bereaved, and rationing is affecting business. Nevertheless, Conan Maxwell’s new garage is doing well, and he and business partner Nick are hoping to expand. But how will their partnership survive their differing ambitions? Conan’s young sister, Bridie, is faced with a dilemma. Is her desire for Nick going to pull her away from her other great passion - her animals and farm?

With Beatlemania having finally reached the capital, it’s an exciting time to be in London. Especially for young photographer Kate O’Donnell, who left her native Liverpool six months previously to share a dilapidated flat with two girlfriends in trendy Notting Hill. When a prostitute is found murdered off the Portobello Road a West Indian immigrant is arrested, inflaming the district’s simmering racial tension to breaking point. The accused is Nelson Mackintosh, the father of one of Kate’s flatmate Tess’s pupils. Convinced of Nelson’s innocence, Kate determines to track down the real killer.

In 1939, the unexpected death of Sandra Anderson dramatically and ruthlessly changes forever the lives of the family she leaves behind. Kitty, her spoiled and pampered 15-year-old daughter, has to give up her dreams of a career as she becomes the family drudge. Sandra's heartbroken husband, Johnny, finds solace for his grief by becoming the main mouthpiece for his trade union in the shipyards, leaving little time for newborn Rosebud, whose birth caused her mother's death.

Liverpool, 1958: nursery nurse Irene Miller falls for her friend Peggy's handsome older brother, Marty. But he is trapped in an unhappy marriage. Meanwhile, Irene's friend Peggy is desperate to marry her long-term boyfriend, Pete, but Peggy's staunchly Catholic parents would never accept a Protestant son-in-law. When her mother decides to remarry, her brother heads off to sea, and she loses her job, Irene feels utterly alone in the world. An unexpected job offer from America offers her a lifeline.

1938: As Hitler sets his sights on the Sudetenland, not everyone in Britain is willing to appease him. Convinced that the fürher’s land hunger is insatiable, the head of the SIS recruits Cal Jardine to help him prove that Czechoslovakia is threatened with invasion. Before heading undercover to Prague, however, Jardine must first extricate himself from France, where his attempts to smuggle guns to Spain have been held up by a group of fanatical fascists. Finally arriving in Czechoslovakia, working undercover for the SIS proves no less dangerous.

Madeleine Ingleton has just come home from the Swiss finishing school where she has spent the last two years. She returns to a whirl of social engagements and parties...and to Hamilton Bramwell, the young man her parents are determined she marry. Hamilton is wealthy and agreeable, but he isn’t the man of Madeleine’s dreams, and she longs to choose her own husband rather than bow to her parents’ wishes. Innocent Madeleine’s eye is caught by a young milkman, and she succumbs to new and overwhelming feelings - feelings which lead to disaster.

Matilda is the granddaughter of William the Conqueror but also descended, through her mother, from the ancient line of Anglo-Saxon kings. Betrothed to Emperor Henry of Germany at the age of eight, she is married at 12 and crowned Empress. By her early 20s she is a widow, and the only surviving legitimate heir to her father, Henry I of England. Forced into a second marriage to a boy 10 years younger, she gives birth to three sons, the male heirs her father longs for.

“The end of the old world”, people said about the long, hot summer of 1914. That summer Aunt Tilly comes to stay with her brother, the Rector, and his four lively daughters in the sleepy Sussex village of Ashden. Aunt Tilly’s visit sparks off a chain of events which threatens to split Ashden apart. Agnes Pilbeam, the Rectory palourmaid, and her sweetheart, Jamie, find themselves bewilderingly caught up. Then, in August, the lamps go out all over Europe, and war bursts open the straitjacket of rural village life.

Castroux, France, 1939. In a bare farmhouse above the village, Oriane lives in desperate poverty. When the Germans invade, her simple world crumbles. Passions erupt, moral boundaries break down , and rebellion is soon in the air. Castroux, France, 2000. In an idyllic gîte overlooking the river, Claudia sunbathes on the terrace. She’s pregnant, trapped, and terrified of the future. She confides only in a reclusive neighbour, Oriane, and discovers that she too carried a shameful secret.