Showing results by narrator "Elaine Claxton" in All Categories

Looking out from Moon Cottage, Susan Hill records the sights and smells, the people, gardens, animals, births, festivals and deaths that mark the changing seasons in the small Oxfordshire community.

Arden Beacon arrives in the salt-swept port of Vigil with a job to do. Tasked with using the magic in her blood to keep the lighthouse burning, she needs to prove herself worthy of her family name and her ancestors’ profession. But the coastline Arden must keep alight – battered by a sea teeming with colossal, ancient beasts – is far from the cultured, urban world she knows. It is a place of secrets, rumours and tight-lipped expectations of a woman’s place.

2004. Serge, Rosie and Daniel are enjoying their final weeks of university. They are young, inseparable and full of optimism. Fifteen years later, they are guests at a lavish three-day wedding in Provence - and no longer friends. Life has not turned out quite as planned since their heady days at Oxford. Film-maker Serge is winning awards, but hiding a huge debt and fractured relationship. Behind Rosie's social ease, she is heartbroken. And with Daniel's fame has come spiralling anxiety.

It is September 1068. Thea, also known as Gytha, the elder daughter of King Harold II, travels with her brothers and grandmother into exile carrying revenge in her heart. She is soon betrothed to a prince of Kiev. Will her betrothal and marriage bring her happiness, as she confronts enemies from inside and outside Russian territories? Will she prove herself the courageous princess she surely is, win her princely husband's respect and establish her independence in a society protective towards its women?

Faith Lavender's funeral and the arrival of a stranger upsets the balance of Haverstock. Undercurrents of fierce emotion reach the surface while the tensions rise and the ladies of Haverstock find their actions motivated by mutual suspicion and fear.

Rachel Saunders knows gossip is the price you pay for a rural lifestyle and outstanding schools. The latest town scandal is her divorce – and the fact that her new girlfriend has moved into the family home. Laura Spence lives in a poky bedsit on the wrong side of town. She and her son Max don’t really belong, and his violent tantrums are threatening to expose the very thing she’s trying to hide. When the local school introduces a new inclusive curriculum, Rachel and Laura find themselves on opposite sides of a fearsome debate.

The year 1989. When Louise first notices the new girl who has mysteriously transferred late into their senior year, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren't. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends. The year 2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: those first days of their budding friendship; cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept; the night that would change all their lives forever.

Rosie, Daniel, and Serge met at Oxford in the early 2000s. Fifteen years later, they are guests at a lavish three-day wedding in Provence. They are also no longer on speaking terms. Rosie is dreading a weekend around her ex, Serge, and his fiancé Isla. Serge is hiding a crippling debt—and a secret separation. Daniel, now a successful actor, is drinking to cope with life in the limelight. And Isla is wondering why motherhood looks so much easier for everyone else . . .

Since losing her great love to the Queen of the Sainted Isles, Arden must fulfil an impossible promise before she can return home—she must complete the dangerous Rite that will return Jonah’s spirit to the abyssal Court of the Deepwater King. This sets her off on a journey far out at sea to find believers of the old religion on the oil-slick and mysterious islands beyond the horizon. But such a responsibility will not come without sacrifice, for the Deepwater folk who worship the king require the most desperate payments the soul.

Arden Beacon has nothing left to lose. Having fought monsters, the deep waters and the establishment to fulfil a promise the man she loved—she is no closer to peace. But against the odds, she has found Jonah once more and they are together now. She means to keep it that way. Jonah, Arden and Chalice are bound for Clay city. Warnings come that the scorned yet powerful Miah and Bellis have joined forces and turned their eyes to the capital, now following the direction of the slippery Mr Lindsay.

DSI Billie Wilde’s romantic relationship is intense—but it’s nothing compared to the pressure of her latest case, especially since the new chief of police is gunning for her squad. If they don’t get a handle on a series of deaths—which seem to have a connection to Alice in Wonderland—they could wind up being demoted. And the identity of one of the victims has made things devastatingly personal for Billie.

2002, Australia. When Melissa discovers a postcard addressed to 'Desmond' among her recently deceased father's effects, she is determined to discover this person's identity and his relationship to her father. She soon embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...

1075 and Dowager Queen Edith has died. Her niece Gunnhild longs to leave Wilton Abbey, but is her suitor, Breton knight Count Alain of Richmond, interested in her inheritance as the daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-Neck, or does he love her for herself? Is her own love for Count Alain an enduring love, or has she made a terrible mistake? The Swan Daughter is woven around a true 11th-century tale of elopement, love and courage.

The seat of the Trelawney family for over 800 years, Trelawney Castle was once the jewel of the Cornish coast. Each successive Earl spent with abandon, turning the house and grounds into a sprawling, extravagant palimpsest of wings, turrets and follies. But recent generations have been better at spending than making money. Now living in isolated penury, unable to communicate with each other or the rest of the world, the family are running out of options.

Adam Craig is fourteen when he meets Brid near an isolated Celtic stone in the wild Scottish Highlands—he is fascinated by her exotic, gypsy-like dress and strange attitudes. They become friends, and, in time, passionate lovers. She leads him, unsuspecting, into the sixth century, where she has mastered the ancient mysteries and dangerous magic of the Druids. In her obsession with Adam, Brid is seen as a traitor by her people, only escaping death by following Adam to Edinburgh, when he leaves home to study medicine.

Immaculate Forms examines all the ways in which medicine and religion have played a gatekeeping role over women's organs. It explores how the womb was seen as both the most miraculous organ in the body and as a sewer; uncovers breasts' legacies as maternal or sexual organs - or both; probes the mystery of the disappearing hymen, and asks, did the clitoris need to be discovered at all?

It's 1890, and Josie Gray is an innocent and beautiful fifteen-year old when Adam McGuigan, the youngest son of a dangerous and influential crime family, spots her singing in a Sunderland public house. Adam is handsome and charismatic, sweeping Josie off her feet with his beguiling lies and promises. He charms her into marrying him on her sixteenth birthday, but on her wedding night the fairy tale ends.

Two years ago, Sarah’s husband was jailed for her murder; her body was never found. Now, her grieving mother, Claire, spends her sleepless nights running a helpline for vulnerable women. Claire takes many calls, but one caller isn’t like the rest. She isn’t calling for help – she’s calling because she claims to know what happened to Sarah. But when Claire hears the terrifying news that her daughter’s killer has escaped from prison, she realises her nightmare is far from over – and her family are in danger yet again.

At the heart of this history is the female body. The century-span between the crinoline and the bikini witnessed more mutations in the ideal western woman's body shape than at any other period. In this richly detailed account, Virginia Nicholson takes us to the Frontline of Beauty to reveal the power, the pain and the pleasure involved in adorning the female body. Encompassing two world wars and a revolution in women's rights, All the Rage tells the story of western female beauty from 1860 to 1960.

Adeline Evans has recently moved into a home for the elderly. A safe space, where she can be cared for. When she begins to receive cryptic and threatening notes, she is certain that someone is out to get her. But the residents are warned against listening to a woman who is losing her memory. It would seem Adeline is tormented by the secrets in her past, and that the menace is all in her mind. Until danger comes down the corridor and starts knocking in the night.