Showing results by narrator "Samara Maclaren" in All Categories

Edinburgh, October 1679. Lady Christian Nimmo is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the broadsides, with headlines that leave little room for doubt: Adulteress. Whore. Murderess. Only a year before, Christian was leading a life of privilege and respectability. So, what led her to risk everything for an affair? And does that make her guilty of murder? She wasn't the only woman in Forrester's life, and certainly not the only one who might have had cause to wish him dead.

Durham University have the best women’s football team in the League and their star striker Sadie McGrath hopes that winning this year might lead her to being picked up by one of the National Teams. The male team is much less impressive – they’ve never won the league and are facing relegation unless they can improve by the end of the season. But now the unthinkable has been asked of Sadie; to train the cocky, new male striker who has just moved over from the US. Arlo Hudson is a know-it-all who refuses to follow direction, and argues with her every lesson.

Billie Carlson left the police force under a cloud. Once a promising young officer, she now works as a private investigator, rooting out insurance scams and spying on cheating spouses. One morning a distraught young woman comes into her office saying that her baby has been stolen. Her story seems unbelievable, yet something about her makes Billie want to help - Billie knows what it's like to lose someone too. To get to the bottom of the case, Billie must rattle some dangerous cages and rely on old police friends for inside help.

PI Billie Carlson is in Cleveland following a lead on the whereabouts of her son, Lucas. But when the trail goes cold, she is forced to return to Glasgow and a life of waiting and praying that one day she might see him again. Back in the office and ready to throw herself into work, she picks up a call from Lars, an old friend from her teenage years in Sweden. He tells her some devastating news. His younger sister, Astrid, was found dead in the Highlands, frozen to death with traces of drugs and alcohol in her system.

It's New Year's Eve and the stage is set for a lavish party in one of Edinburgh's best postcodes. It's a moment for old friends to set the past to rights—and move on. The night sky is alive with fireworks and the champagne is flowing. But the celebration fails to materialise. Because someone at this party is going to die tonight. Midnight approaches and the countdown begins—but it seems one of the guests doesn't want a resolution.

Scottish Highlands, 1727. In the aftermath of a tragic fire that kills her father, Aila and her mother, Janet, move to the remote parish of Loth, north-west of Inverness. Blending in does not come easily to the women: Aila was badly burned in the fire and left with visible injuries, while her mother struggles to maintain her grip on reality. When a temporary minister is appointed in the area, rather than welcome the two women, he develops a strange curiosity for them that sets them even further apart from the community.

Edinburgh, October 1679. Lady Christian Nimmo is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the broadsides, with headlines that leave little room for doubt: Adulteress. Whore. Murderess. Only a year before, Christian was leading a life of privilege and respectability. So, what led her to risk everything for an affair? And does that make her guilty of murder? She wasn't the only woman in Forrester's life, and certainly not the only one who might have had cause to wish him dead.

When a wealthy local landowner contacts her about a case so sensitive he can’t even discuss it over the phone, Grace is instantly intrigued. Russian collector Sacha Komorov lives out of the public eye, despite his immense wealth and marriage to a famous ex-prima ballerina. As Grace gazes at the ominous silhouette of his Scottish estate, Castle Traprain, with its high walls and thrusting turrets, a shiver runs down her spine. Komorov himself is just as forbidding as he discloses the disappearance of a priceless rose-diamond Fabergé egg from his collection.

Sera Swan was once one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her magical Guild. Now she runs an inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep the fox in check, and longs for the magical future she lost. Then she discovers a book that could hold the secret to restoring her power. Trouble is, the only person who can help her is Luke Larsen, the gorgeous historian she had a one-night stand with years ago - and hasn't spoken to since.

When Ailsa Reid becomes the subject of a trial by media after an incident at the school where she works, she escapes to the comfort of her grandparents' house in Fife. But she arrives to find her grandmother, Moira - recently diagnosed with dementia - has gone missing, and her grandfather, Rupert, gravely injured. Desperate to ensure Moira's safe return, Ailsa must rely on the help of her estranged mother, Rowan, who abandoned her at birth. Tensions simmer between the two women as they attempt to piece together the lead-up to Moira's disappearance.

1910. With the disappearance of her mother and the sudden death of her father, Lena instantly loses any security she has within the circus she has known all her life. She is advised to sell the carousel her father cared for like a child and look for a husband, or a job in a factory. Until flame-haired Violet, known to all in the fairgrounds as 'the greatest trapeze artist that ever lived', suggests they go it alone with their own, all-female act. With her outspoken ways and her refusal to marry, Violet is as much an outcast as Lena. What do they have to lose?

It's 1932 and adventuress and plant-hunter Emily Blackwood accepts a commission from Heinrich Vogel, a former dealer of exotic animals in Manhattan, living now with his macabre collection in a remote Scottish castle. Emily is tasked to find a long-lost treasure which Heinrich believes has been hidden within the castle walls. But instead she discovers the pages of a diary, written by Hester Vogel, who died after falling from the Brooklyn Bridge. Hester's diary leads Emily to an old book The Birdcage Library and into a treasure hunt of another kind.

Raine is seventeen-years-old and still on the run. She can see the dead, a secret that could get her killed. Seeking refuge with a deluded cult is her latest bad decision but rescuing an injured woman in the snow is soon revealed to be a horrific mistake. Hazia endangers not just Raine, but the whole world: she's escaped from Redwinter, fortress-monastery of the Draoihn, the warrior magicians who answer to no king or queen of the land, but to their own Grand Master. They will stop at nothing to retrieve what she's stolen.

Jayne Ferguson has always been a keeper of secrets, most especially her own . . . If there’s one thing Jayne Ferguson has learnt in her life, it’s that every blessing comes with a curse. She married the most handsome man on the isle of St Kilda - but he’s a bully. She inherited her mother’s gift of second sight - but only ever foresees her fellow islanders’ deaths. She has learnt to keep to herself, treading in the shadows and shirking the highs for fear of the lows.

The future is looking bright for Billie Carlson. With her child safely home and a new relationship on the horizon, she hasn't felt so settled in years. But when Billie takes on a new client, Elizabeth Fletcher, it's clear trouble is imminent. Elizabeth has killed a man in self-defence. She met him in a bar but he'd turned aggressive, attacking Elizabeth in the middle of the night when she caught him going through her husband's desk drawers. Refusing to go to the police for fear her husband will find out, Elizabeth wants Billie to work out who he was - and what secrets he was looking for.

Martha and Finn's marriage is hanging by a thread. Martha, crippled by paralyzing climate anxiety, finds herself at odds with Finn, who steadfastly refuses to confront the demons of his past. In a desperate attempt to repair their relationship, they join a group of privileged tourists on a pilgrimage to The Salt Centre, a mysterious retreat nestled deep within the Bolivian salt flats.

The power of the Sixth Gate grows stronger within Raine each day - to control it, she needs lessons no living Draoihn can teach her - but when her master Ulovar is struck by a mysterious sickness that slowly saps the vitality from his body, Raine must face her growing darkness alone. And to do so, she must learn the secrets the Draoihn themselves purged from the world. The book can teach her. She doesn't know where she found it, or when exactly, but its ever changing pages whisper with power that has lain untouched for centuries. But others have plans for Raine too.

Having been saved from execution at the hands of the Draoihn - powerful magic users Raine used to count as allies - Raine finds herself in the Fault, a vast magical wasteland, which is falling apart before her eyes. Alongside her two closest companions, they are searching for the only person Raine believes can help them get back home: the enigmatic and infuriatingly elusive Queen of Feathers. But what home are they trying to get back to?

Stumbling through the terrifying wrought iron gates of Auschwitz, Jewish author Etty Weil longs for her apartment overlooking the Seine where she used to laugh with friends, her shelves full of records and her beloved typewriter by the wide window. Now, she looks on in horror as a young girl, Danielle, is ruthlessly torn apart from her sobbing mother. Etty has always longed for the warm embrace of family. Trapped inside the maze of barbed wire, she takes 14-year-old Danielle under her wing, soon coming to cherish her like a sister.

After an ambush leaves the Novantae resistance in tatters, the survivors scatter across the galaxy. Wanted by two great empires, the bounty on any rebel's head is enough to make a captor filthy rich. And the Seven Devils? Biggest score of them all. The Devils take refuge on Fortuna where Ariadne gets a message with unimaginable consequences: the Oracle has gone rogue. The AI has developed a way of mass programming citizens into mindless drones. The Oracle's demand is simple: it wants its daughter Ariadne back at any cost.