Showing results by narrator "Julia Franklin" in All Categories

London, early 1950s. Marcia Beasley of St John's Wood is discovered dead in her home, naked and covered with a coal scuttle. Detective Sergeant Greenleaf is tasked with solving the crime and bringing meaning to her gruesome death, and it seems her whole social circle have secrets to hide and grudges to bear. Who, for example, is the limping midnight visitor? Is the bibulous priest as ingenious as he seems? And will Mrs Burkiss ever yield her keys to the broom cupboard?

Now, for the first time, Herron’s short fiction has been collected into one volume. In Dolphin Junction, devoted fans and future converts alike will find much to amuse, delight, and terrify them. Five stand-alone nerve-racking and thrilling crime fiction stories are complemented by four mystery stories featuring the Oxford wife-and-husband detective team of shrewd Zoë Boehm and hapless Joe Silvermann. The collection also includes a peek into the past of Jackson Lamb, irascible top agent at Slough House.

Left as a newborn in a box outside Stoke City Football ground, her grandparents took her into their home. But instead of finding a sanctuary, Nicky was subjected to horrific sexual abuse throughout her childhood. In 1951, when Nicky was six years old, her glamorous-looking estranged mother arrived on the doorstep to 'rescue' her. But Nicky's hopes of a safe and loving family were very soon smashed, and her world became darker still.

After tragically losing her husband, Nicola Jacques and her teenage son, Oliver, relocate to his father’s family's Olive Farm in the hills above the French Riviera. Due to a family feud, Oliver has never known his fathers’ side of the family, and Grandpapa Henri is intent that Oliver will take over the reins of the ancestral farm and his rightful inheritance. Determined to keep her independence from a rather controlling grandpapa, Nicola buys a run-down cottage on the edge of the family's Olive Farm and sets to work renovating their new home and providing an income.

Buying and relocating to the Château du Cheval in rural France has fulfilled one of Peter and Ingrid Chevalier’s lifelong ambitions. Despite never being able to trace a missing link in Peter’s French ancestry he feels he has finally come home. Now they must renovate the Château to its former glory and make it pay for itself…With money getting tight, they take the decision to sell a couple of cottages on the estate. Can the Château begin to pay for itself and be sustainable for the future?

When Pixie Sampson's husband tragically dies, she inherits the beautiful Château Quiltu in Brittany, Northern France. But unbeknown to her, she also inherits a mysterious lodger, Justine Martin and her four-year-old son, Ferdie. Heartbroken and with her adventurous mum, Gwen, in tow, they travel to France to put the château on the market but are soon drawn into a quest to seek the château's secrets. Who is Justine? Why is she living at the château? How did she know her husband?

Bernard Cornwell, the perennial New York Times bestselling author of the Richard Sharpe series and “perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today” (Washington Post) joins co-author Susannah Kells for A Crowning Mercy—a breathtaking romantic adventure set against the dramatic backdrop of the English Civil War. The exciting story of a rebellious Puritan woman on a perilous quest for love and fortune, A Crowning Mercy is a must for Cornwell fans as well as for devoted readers/listeners of Sharon Kay Penman and Diana Gabaldon.

Journalist Eleanor McCartney leads a glamorous life in London exposing the sordid secrets of famous celebrities for Hot Gossip! magazine. But her perfect life is a sham. So when her world collapses, she has to reluctantly head home to her mum and friends in the quiet country village of Cranley. Willow Tree Hall is still in the midst of extensive renovations under the careful eye of Eleanor's best friend, Annie, and her fiancé, record producer and future Earl of Cranley Sam Harris.

When a man's wife leaves him under suspicious circumstances, he sets off in search for her, unprepared for the guilty secrets he's about to drag back into the light. A man is tempted by a luxury apartment with a top-of-the-range kitchen. But there is a heavy price to pay for this glamorous new life. And a couple with their marriage on the rocks go on a hike through the Derbyshire countryside as another way to avoid their real problems. Mick Herron's skill for tension, humour and memorable twists are captured in his short stories, collected here for the first time.

Dedicating a monument to an eminent member of a Cambridge college should be a simple matter of course, but despite already commissioning an artist to complete the work, the meddling daughter of the deceased is determined to enlist her own sculptor to create the statue. It's convenient for her, then, when the university's chosen candidate turns up dead...Felix Smythe and Professor Cedric Dillworthy, a benefactor to the project, are invited to Cambridge to participate in the preparations. Unbeknownst to them, Rosy Gilchrist is also there, attending a reunion at Newnham College.

Lady Joanna Harcourt and her daughter, Sarah, discover their life of luxury at Goodwill House is over. Because with Lord Harcourt away fighting, the Harcourt girls are facing financial ruin. Lady Joanna is terrified of losing their home, but for Sarah, this means her dreams of becoming a doctor are over. Headstrong Sarah isn’t one to quit! War or not, she’s determined to find a way to save her home and follow her dreams - whatever it takes.

Simmy is four months pregnant, working partly from home and partly from her Windermere florist shop when her husband Christopher asks her to take flowers to Eleanor Padgett. Eleanor has helped him in his auction house, as she is an expert in antique textiles. She lives near the church at Dacre, and Simmy meets her in the nearby churchyard. But when they notice the body of a young man by one of the gravestones, the happy outing turns dark. It is not long before Simmy once again finds herself in a complex and puzzling investigation, led by DI Moxon and aided by her friends Ben and Bonnie.

Glamorised, mythologised, and demonised - the women of the 1920s were determined to reinvent the way they lived. Flappers focuses on six women who between them exemplified the range and daring of that generation’s spirit. Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka were far from typical flappers. Talented, reckless, and wilful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they rewrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and tragic ways.

Six children - Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny and Louis - meet in a garden close to the sea, their voices sounding over the constant echo of the waves that roll back and forth from the shore. The book follows them as they develop from childhood to maturity and follow different passions and ambitions; their voices are interspersed with interludes from the timeless and unifying chorus of nature.

Run by sisters Rebecca and Delphine, Villa Sesame is a popular venue for small intimate weddings on the sparkling French Riviera. Beautiful terraces and a horizon pool overlooking the Mediterranean, a setting where dreams come true. When recently widowed Delphine unexpectedly announces her desire to retire and live a different life, Rebecca feels her own life could be slipping into free fall. As the guests gather for the June wedding of Freya and Marcus, Freya’s two childhood friends bring their own problems to the villa and cousin Verity has her own agenda.

Cryptic inscriptions in an antique Bible appear to record three gruesome deaths that took place in a quiet English village in 1779. Nearly 200 years later, a fourth person is found dead under similarly violent circumstances. As the investigation unfolds, suspicions are roused by the parallels with other events in the village’s history, and the book becomes key to unravelling a more than one mystery.

Sarah's grandfather was a horseman of rare talent - only the exceptional are allowed into France's elite riding academy, Le Cadre Noir. But life took an unexpected turn, and now from a council estate in east London, the Captain hopes to train his granddaughter towards a better life.

Gabriella Jacques, is happy to be back in her childhood home, Villa Espoir in the South of France ready to embrace fresh experiences with friends new and old and to heal some deep family scars. Recently widowed Harriet Rogers, hopes to rebuild her family life and reconnect with Elodie, the daughter she abandoned into her mother Gabby’s care to follow her heart. But when an acquaintance from the past seeks her out, Harriet fears a secret from her past will ruin her plans. Elodie Jacques, adores her new life in her Grandmothers old home as a freelance journalist.

Carla's 50th birthday is approaching when her world is turned upside down. Discovering her husband is having yet another affair and following her mother’s death, she is in need of an escape. Finding an envelope addressed to her mother’s estranged sister Josette in the south of France gives Carla the perfect plan. Seizing the moment, she packs her bags and heads to Antibes to seek out the enigma known as Tante Josette. But as the two women begin to forge a tentative relationship, family secrets start to unravel, forcing Carla to question her life as she has always known it.

There is no better hiding place for clues - or red herrings - than inside the pages of a book. With Martin Edwards as librarian and guide, delve into an irresistible stack of tales perfect for every book lover and armchair sleuth, featuring much-loved Golden Age detectives such as Nigel Strangeways, Philip Trent and Detective Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. But listeners should be warned that the most riveting tales often conceal the deadliest of secrets.