Showing results by narrator "Susan Duerden" in All Categories

The Jacobs family has lived at Orley Court for generations. But when Vanessa Jacobs is widowed and left to manage the property, she finds costs spiralling out of control. In order to stay in their beloved home, she and her daughters will have to sell part of it off - a decision that drives a wedge between Vanessa and her mother-in-law. The new owners of the north wing are Laurence Sturridge and his father, Marcus. Both of them long for an escape: Laurence from the monotony of his City career; Marcus from the grief of losing his wife.

What if your daughter becomes your enemy? When barmaid, Rachel, discovers her soon-to-be-married daughter, Beth, pinned down by a stranger in the pub cellar, Rachel lashes out in panic, and the intruder ends up dead. In desperation, Rachel convinces Beth they should cover up the crime and go ahead with the planned wedding in one month’s time. Rachel, however, has her own reasons for not involving the police.

Lady Tabitha Hampton has the memory of an elephant. But this talent fails to help the twenty-seven-year-old bluestocking attract the attention of a single wealthy suitor. With three sisters of marriageable age, a sickly father, and a series of bad investments that left them impoverished, Tabitha's marriage could save or ruin her entire family. Arthur, the Duke of Collingford, needs a wife but not just any lady will do. Arthur's future duchess must be perfect in every way-fair of face, impeccable manners, with enough social influence to impact his parliamentary projects.

Fashion is many things. It is self-expression, big business, trend-setting, a lifestyle choice. But however you see fashion, it relies on one simple characteristic: the incredible speed with which clothes make their journey from the drawing board to the High Street hanger. Fashion is fast. Fast fashion influences the types of garments we have in our wardrobes.

Logan Ambrose has endured a tortured existence. After learning how to fend for himself at a young age, he eventually amassed power and wealth. His fortune came at an extreme cost, as rising from poverty often does. Branded, he wears his sins on his marred flesh. Each scar represents a past he doesn't wish to remember, the ruthless man he holds at bay, the tortured soul who would do anything to survive.

During their annual Christmas pilgrimage to Scotland to visit their aged uncle in his decrepit castle, the Comte de Rocheforte and his cousin, the Earl of Oakley, are presented with unique gifts: their uncle has raided an English lord's Christmas party and kidnapped four lovely would-be brides for his heirs to choose from...as well as one very angry duke, Lord Bretton. As snow isolates the castle, and as hours grow into days, the most honourable intentions give away to temptations as surprising as they are irresistible.

When the villagers of Godestone report a series of bizarre and troubling events, Sir Hugo, his heavily pregnant wife, Lady Alice, and her distant kinsman Father Gilbert are honor bound to investigate, for they are “born to the Fang,” shape-shifters dedicated to fighting evil in secret. And the events are worrying indeed - stolen farm implements, a mutilated goat, and now a missing child. Their investigation is further complicated by the arrival of Robert Fynch, who was drawn to the scene by the tales of mysterious happenings in the village.

London, spring 1939. Eighteen-year-old Ada Vaughan, a beautiful and ambitious seamstress, has just started work for a modiste in Dover Street. A career in couture is hers for the taking - she has the skill and the drive - if only she can break free from the dreariness of family life in Lambeth. A chance meeting with the enigmatic Stanislaus von Lieben catapults Ada into a world of glamour and romance.

Let's imagine a man called Captain Tom Barnes, aka BA5799, who's leading British troops in the war zone. And two boys growing up together there, sharing a prized bicycle and flying kites before finding themselves estranged once foreign soldiers appear in their countryside. And then there's the man who trains one of them to fight against the other's father and all these infidel invaders. Then imagine the family and friends who radiate out from these lives, people on all sides of this conflict where virtually everyone is caught up in the middle of something unthinkable.

Marguerite Demers is 25 when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint Sulpice to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier - once one of the most powerful men in the village, now dying alone in his large and secluded house surrounded by rambling neglected gardens. Manipulative and tyrannical, Jerome has scared away all of his previous caretakers. It's not long before the villagers have formed opinions of Marguerite.

It's a lump of rock, Stella; nothing more. No stone is worth dying for. Except it's not just a lump of rock. It's a blue crystal skull made by the Maya to save the world from ruin; a sapphire so perfect, so powerful that for centuries men have killed to own or destroy it.

When Major Jack Washburn receives a letter telling him that the wife he thought was dead is still alive, he moves heaven and earth to find her. But the woman he finds has drastically changed from the woman he loved and lost. Annalise Washburn has gone through hell since she was kidnapped and left for dead. Now she must choose between a whole new life and the life of addiction she's not sure she can give up. If she can only convince herself that she's worth being loved by the man who possesses her heart.

When spoiled Lady Alicia Alston, privileged daughter of a duke, is accidentally tossed into a ravine after a wild gallop with Ian MacClain, Earl of Cairnyllan, she expects a proposal as soon as is convenient. The stubborn Scot has other ideas. It takes a headlong journey to prevent an elopement to give Alicia and Ian a chance to clear up misunderstandings and figure out what they find so damnably passion-inducing about one another....

Big business is booming and state institutions are thriving thanks to advances in genetic engineering, which have produced a compliant population free from addictions. Violent crime is now a rarity. Mayhew McCline, a major corporation that analyzes global trends, has hired a genius: Jayna. A brilliant mathematical modeler, she has the ability to produce accurate predictions that are both good for the world and good for the bottom line. Her latest coup: finding a link between northeasterly winds and violent crime.

It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Eva's motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, she is ready for adventure. In present day London, a young woman, Frieda, returns from a long trip abroad to find a man sleeping outside her front door. She gives him a blanket and a pillow, and in the morning finds the bedding neatly folded....

In a near-future London, Millie Dack places her hand on her belly to feel her baby kick, resolute in her decision to be a single parent. Across town, her closest friend - a hungover Toni Munroe - steps into the shower and places her hand on a medic console. The diagnosis is devastating. In this stunning, bittersweet family saga, Millie and Toni experience the aftershocks of human progress as their children and grandchildren embrace new ways of making babies.

Jenni Clark is a ghostwriter. She loves to immerse herself in other people's stories--it's a respite from her own life and from a relationship that appears to be nearing its end. Jenni's latest assignment takes her to a coastal hamlet in England, where she has agreed to pen the memoir of an elderly farm owner named Klara. Jenni assumes the project will be easy: a quiet, ordinary tale of a life well lived. But Klara's story is far from quiet.

Lady Sarah Hampton would rather sew up a wound than tend to her own heart. Or matrimonial prospects. When the small hospital she's been volunteering at faces financial peril, she seeks to save them the best way she knows how—one dare, one wager, and one foolish rake at a time. No matter the risk to herself. If her friend's irritatingly handsome and brutish brother doesn't stand in her way.

In an expensive London restaurant, Julia Lovat receives a gift that will change her life. It appears to be a book of exquisite 17th-century embroidery patterns - but on closer examination, Julia finds it also contains faint diary entries. In these Cat Tregenna, an embroideress, tells how she and others were stolen out of a Cornish church in 1625 by Muslim pirates and taken on a brutal voyage to Morocco to be auctioned off as slaves.

After the woman he loves rejects his marriage proposal, Edmund Crenshaw, Viscount Escher, has sworn off women. If he can't marry Mrs. Katherine Brighton, he'll marry no one. When he discovers a daring debutante in his coach, intent on seduction, he'll do anything to protect his bachelorhood. He must remain uncompromised or doom himself and the lady to a loveless marriage. Because his heart always has, and always will, belong to only one woman—his Kat.