Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

The iron wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened, so did the sound. Deeba and Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars and vans and motorbikes outside grew tinny. The wheel turned off all the cars and turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London.... Zanna and Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives, until they stumble into the world of UnLondun, an urban Wonderland where all the lost and broken things of London end up.

In the dark days since the sudden death of her surgeon husband, Julia’s main worry has always been Tash. Her student daughter was broken - she worshiped her father. But six months on, Julia thinks the light is returning. She is about to find out that she’s wrong. When she saves the life of a boy who’s been hanging around her beach cottage, the questions start. All she has to go on is the butterfly tattoo on his wrist, but who is he? What was he doing there? And why was her late husband’s watch in his bag? Julia wants to believe it’s a casual theft.

Primrose Hall is more than Jackson Moody and his fiancée Pia’s home – it’s the heart of the community. The Sunday craft fairs in the renovated stables are a popular draw for the locals and tourists alike, enticed by the beautiful surroundings of Primrose Woods as well as the irresistible goodies on display. But for Sophie Wright they’re a chance to forge a new life and a new business. After leaving behind a turbulent relationship, Sophie is starting again – and romance is the last thing on her mind.

As young women, Lise and Emma had the kind of friendship people dream about. While Lise's own family was distant and disengaged, Emma's was welcoming and warm, and for the first twenty-six years of their life, growing up together in a close-knit community, the duo were inseparable. But when they decide to spend one year living together in Paris, what starts as the adventure of a lifetime becomes a disaster that changes everything. And when Emma returns to Bath the following summer, Lise stays behind in France, their friendship in tatters.

Aidan Edwards has always been fascinated by the life of his great-great-uncle Robert. A trip to Hartsford Hall and an encounter with Cassie Aldrich leads him closer to the truth about Robert Edwards, as he unravels the scandalous story of a bright young poet and a beautiful, spirited aristocrat in the carefree twilight of the 1930s, before the Second World War. But can Aidan find out what happened to Robert after the war - or will he have to accept that certain parts of his uncle’s life will remain forever shrouded in mystery?

Sadie McQueen has leased a double-fronted space in a small cul de sac in a culturally diverse corner of central London. The cobbles muffle the noise of double-deckers roaring past the arched gates. Turn right and you are in a futuristic maze of corporate glass monoliths. Turn left and you see a wide street with many different houses. Towering above the mews are the degenerating tower blocks of an infamous estate.

When Mary Corbet walks into private investigator Jennie Redhead's rundown Oxford office one pleasant spring day in 1974, she is a desperate woman. Although she's convinced her daughter has been murdered, she can get neither the police nor her husband to agree with her. Jennie is not convinced either, but more out of compassion than conviction agrees to take the case. The only clue she has to go on is a fragment of an obscure 17th-century poem she finds in Linda's bedroom.

Here today. Dead tomorrow? Last night I almost died. A fire consumed the hotel room where my best friend, Emily, and I slept. Emily was killed. But I can't afford to cry, to grieve. It was meant to be me. And he'll be coming for my daughter next. The press thinks it was me that died. At best that gives me 24 hours. Twenty-four hours to find Polly and disappear. Twenty-four hours to stay alive.

With her heart in tatters, Rose Bennett swaps her hometown of London for sunny Australia, but arrives to find the Shingle Valley shrouded in winter. As the weather improves, Rose starts to unlock the secrets of the valley - from bonfire ceremonies and wine-making traditions, to eccentric locals and their histories.... And soon, Rose falls in love with the valley, the wines, the two children she’s caring for and with the handsome and brilliant Mark Cameron, owner of the troubled Kalkari Wines estate.

Jenny Aaron was a government assassin, part of an elite unit tracking Germany's most dangerous criminals. She was one of the best, until a disastrous mission ended with her abandoning a wounded colleague and losing her sight forever. Now, five years later, she has learnt to navigate a darkened world but is haunted by her betrayal. When she is called back to the force to trace a ruthless serial killer, she seizes the opportunity to solve the case and restore her honour.

Mattie Cameron thinks she's got it all figured out: she's got an impressive career in London, a gorgeous boyfriend and brilliant friends....

On August 12th each year, members of the upper class retire to their country estates for grouse-shooting season. Frances Wynn, the widowed Countess of Harleigh however, is expecting to spend a quiet few months in London. Instead, she's immersed in a shocking mystery when a friend, Mary Archer, is found murdered. Her cousin Charles is in the spotlight for the murder, along with dozens of others. It seems Mary had countless notes hidden in her home, detailing private indiscretions of society's elite.

When Anna Flores' adored older sister goes missing as a teenager, Anna copes by disappearing too and eventually building a life for herself abroad. Thirty years later, the death of her mother finally forces Anna to return home. Tasked with sorting through her mother's possessions, she begins to confront not just her mother's death but also the huge hole Gabriella's disappearance left in her life - and finds herself asking a question she's not allowed herself to ask for years: what really happened to her sister?

In Australia, Simone has been widowed for four years and is ready to make a more interesting life. Her friends are driving her mad introducing her to eligible men; her busy daughters are just the opposite, wanting her available for babysitting. When she is offered a house swap with a couple in the UK she takes it, not without some trepidation. In the UK, Russ has just taken possession of his new house and wants only peace and quiet after a few months of rehab following a serious injury. Can these two help one another avoid meddling friends and relatives and build new lives?

"Asylum-seeker"; "refugee". All the major British political parties have brought these words to the top of the political agenda. Some newspapers shout about the swarms of refugees arriving on our shores; others criticize our government's lack of humanitarian principles. But what do we know about the refugees themselves what it means to leave your home, your family, your past? Author Rose George has travelled to Liberia and Ivory Coast and also met refugees in Britain to discover what really happens when you are uprooted by war, greed, and guns.

One year on from the death of her husband, Emma feels no closer to moving forward with her life. Seeking distraction, she quits her job and begins working at the local garden centre. Here, Emma begins to open up and finds herself attending boss Les’ talk on the Titanic. Intrigued, Emma sets out to research who would have arranged the flowers on-board.

2002, Quebec. A former schoolteacher is accused of brutally stabbing her husband—a famous university professor—to death. Detective Maxine Grant, who has recently lost her own husband and is parenting a teenager and a new baby single-handedly, takes on the investigation. Under enormous personal pressure, Maxine makes a series of macabre discoveries that link directly to historical cases involving black magic and murder, secret societies and spiritism...and women at breaking point, who will stop at nothing to protect the ones they love.

Every queen had ladies-in-waiting. Her confidantes and chaperones, they are the forgotten agents of the Tudor court. Ever present and yet hidden behind the scenes, these women held the secrets and the hearts of some of the Tudor period's most powerful men and women. Experts at survival, negotiating the competing demands of their families and their queen, the ladies-in-waiting of Henry VIII's wives were far more than decorative 'extras': they were serious political players who changed the course of history, and four of them became queen themselves.

Gangster Max Carter and his ex-wife Annie Carter are leading separate lives in separate countries: past hurts and broken promises cannot be resolved. But then a summons to Majorca and a tragic death makes Max question all that has happened to him over many years. He had two brothers - both are now dead. His closest friend has been found hanging from a London bridge. As the police wrestle with a seemingly unsolvable case, Max is forced to revisit his painful past to find answers to a mystery that seems to make no sense at all. Who is targeting his family and why?

Live every day as if it were your last – that’s the motto Bess has lived by since her father died unexpectedly. As a critical care paramedic, Bess sees every day just how easily life can be taken away. But carefree living has risks, and as Bess’s debts mount, she discovers her actions could have terrible consequences.