Showing results by narrator "Eilidh Beaton" in All Categories

Kelsey Anderson is stuck in a rut so big, she’ll need a four-wheel drive to get out. She’s just been made redundant from her dead-end job, and boyfriend Fran is so busy climbing up the career ladder that he’s forgotten how to have fun. She needs to change her life - and fast. She stumbles across an advert for tour guides in Stratford-upon-Avon, and it seems like the perfect way to bring the sunshine back. In an impulsive move, she moves from her small Scottish village to Shakespeare’s birthplace, armed only with a suitcase and her battered copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

A historical romance set partly in the 1940s, the beautiful and emotive Margot & Me tells the stories of two teenage girls over the course of 50 years. Fliss's mum needs peace and quiet to recuperate from a long illness, so they both move to the countryside to live with Margot, Fliss's stern and bullying grandmother. Life on the farm is tough and life at school is even tougher, so when Fliss unearths Margot's wartime diary, she sees an opportunity to get her own back.

After a brief and ill-advised dalliance with the Suffragette movement, Lady Rose Summers' debut season in London society turns out to be a complete disaster. Rose's father suspects that her fiancé, Sir Geoffrey Blandon, is a first class scoundrel and calls in Captain Harry Cathcart to investigate. But when a malicious guest is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Rose becomes far more interested in discovering the truth than in landing a more appropriate suitor.

Lady Rose Summer prides herself on not being a jealous woman - and she knows her engagement to Captain Harry Cathcart is only a ruse to keep her parents from shipping her off to India to find a husband. But then Harry's latest client, Dolores Duval - French, curvaceous, flirtatious - starts appearing everywhere at his side. And that changes everything. In a fit of temper Rose threatens Dolores - only to be found the very next day standing over her dead body.

Longing for a life of emancipation, Lady Rose Summer has abandoned the comforts of her parent's house to become self supporting. But life as a working woman isn't quite as liberating as Rose has imagined - fortunately for her, though, her drudgery comes to an end when old acquaintance Freddy Pomfret is murdered and her help - and upper class connections - are required by amateur sleuth Captain Harry Cathcart.

It would seem that even a pretend engagement cannot keep Lady Rose Summer from trouble. Bored with endless parties, teas and balls, she befriends Dolly Tremaine, a beautiful young girl newly arrived from the country and overwhelmed by the demands of the Season. Their friendship is cut tragically short, however, when Dolly is found dead in the river, with flowers in her hair and blood on her breast.

Dear Lily, It’s me, Joy, your older sister. I thought I’d start a new tradition of letter writing - now that we’re long distance. On the plane over here, I began to cry. I think the magnitude of it finally hit me, after everything that happened. I’m sorry for abandoning you - I’ve always been a buffer in your shouting matches with Mum. But I had to leave, Lily, I had to. Anyway, I’m here now. I want to learn to laugh again and to find someone to love who will love me back. Wish me luck, little sister. Love, Joy x

The King and Queen of Fairyland are all in a fluster. Jack Frost is up to his old tricks and has kidnapped the Christmas elves. Without the elves to make the presents and decorate the trees, there won't be any Christmas this year. Can Rachel and Kirsty save the day, with a little help from Holly the Christmas Fairy?

After her mother dies, grief-stricken Cora discovers she has been left a cottage, a crumbling shelter on a mysterious Scottish island. The moment Cora arrives on the windswept isle of Seal, she falls under its spell and is drawn to brooding Innes, back on the island to confront his past. As Cora begins to trace her mother's roots, she learns Gealach Cottage has a dark, turbulent history. Another young woman has sought refuge here, fleeing terrible danger, and waiting for her lover to return. What became of her?

It’s been a long time since the Hardwicke family left their home in Midtown, Essex, to go on holiday. But thirteen-year-old Galen has wanted to see the wild dolphins in Scotland’s Chanonry Point for as long as she can remember, and her mother Christine – a lone parent since her beloved husband Charlie left - is determined she gets her wish. When DC Saul Anguish is called to the scene of a shooting at the home of an ex-police officer in Midtown, he quickly discovers that this is the first of a trail of killings by a damaged young couple.

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them. But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show.

Maggie Mackay has been haunted her entire life. No matter what she does, she can’t shake the sense that something is wrong with her. And maybe something is. When she was five years old, without proof, Maggie announced that someone in the remote village of Blairmore in the Outer Hebrides had murdered a local man, sparking a media storm. Now, Maggie is determined to discover what really happened and what the villagers are hiding. But everyone has secrets, and some are deadly. As she gets closer to the horrifying truth, Maggie’s own life is in danger.

Jess and Laura might be sisters, but they’re very different. Laura is laid-back, eats cheese in bed and takes life as it comes. Jess, meanwhile, is the classic overachiever. They’re family, but they’re not exactly friends. When their mum dies, the sisters struggle to agree on anything, from where to scatter the ashes to whether 'passed away' is an acceptable term. But as life forces them together, Laura and Jess realise: the only way through this is as a team. After all, they’re stuck with each other - and drinking wine is more fun as a pair....

Inspired by the true history of the SS Great Britain, Starboard is about the friendship, heroism and bravery that you can find in others, whether they’re made of flesh or iron. It’s about taking control of your own life and going on epic adventures. But most of all, it’s about finding out who you really dare to be, when you’re completely out of your depth.

One family across two generations. A marriage marred by trauma and infidelity. Lives marked by death, divorce and a shattered family. A dark secret at the heart of a tragedy. Now the Pengelly family reunites around the sickbed of David, a beloved husband and father, to confront the emotions and the secrets that have divided them over the years.

In Highland Scotland in 1850, Catrìona lives life to the rhythm of seasons and Gaelic songs, until a dramatic change of circumstances forces her to fight for everyone and everything she loves. Years later Rose, an artist, who's trying to make sense of her fractured family and her own restlessness, searches among ruins in a deserted landscape.

I almost gave up on love. My ex, who called his private parts ‘Nigel’, was enough to put me off men forever. But then I met Joe. Alice thought she’d found Mr Right. Her blue-eyed boyfriend, Joe, gives her butterflies, makes her bacon sandwiches when she’s hungover and doesn’t have a nickname for any of his body parts. She should have known it was too good to be true. Because one day, Alice and Joe bump into Zoe. According to him, Zoe’s ‘just an old friend’. But Alice saw the way they froze and heard the strange note in Joe’s voice when he said her name.

Maggie Adair, the passionate, devoted English teacher at Downey House, is about to ride off into the sunset with her new love when tragedy strikes. Pulled from their happy-ever-after, she and David must put their budding romance aside until they return for a new term, unsure where they now stand. A fresh new year at Downey House comes with more drama from the students - with Fliss and Alice at odds after a summer apart, and Simone trying to nurture her new relationship while dealing with exam stresses, the new term is shaping up to be a challenge for all.

Kate used to be good at recognising people. So good, she worked for the police, identifying criminals in crowds of thousands. But six months ago, a devastating car accident led to a brain injury. Now the woman who never forgot a face can barely recognise herself in the mirror. At least she has Rob. Young, rich, handsome and successful, Rob runs a tech company on the idyllic Cornish coast. Kate met him just after her accident, and he nursed her back to health. Until one day, she looks at Rob anew.

Drawing on the infamous Lord Lucan affair, this compelling novel explores the roots of a shocking murder from a fresh perspective and brings to vivid life an era when women's voices all too often went unheard. In the summer of 1974, Mandy River arrives in London to make a fresh start and begins working as nanny to the children of one Lady Morven. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a bitter custody battle and the house under siege: Lord Morven is having his wife watched.