Showing results by narrator "Helen Duff" in All Categories

With her marriage in danger of falling apart, Joanna returns home to the beautiful but dilapidated Mulberry Farm Cottage in Dorset, where her sister Harriet is struggling to keep the farm afloat and cope with their eccentric mother. When Joanna discovers a bundle of love letters in the attic, written by a watercolourist named Emmy, she is intrigued and sets out to discover Emmy's true story. Emmy's letters take Joanna to the picturesque alleyways and bridges of Lisbon, Prague, and the most romantic place of all: Venice - where a whole new magical world seems to unfold in front of her.

Amy had it all money, brains and beauty. And then the accident happened. The Present Day: Left blind and without her family, Amy feels she needs to escape. On a trip along the Camino de Santiago - the Way of St James - she is accompanied by the mysterious and troubled Luke. Having been set up to help Amy by a mutual friend, Luke finds he is running from his past... 1314: A Templar Knight, Luc, is also running. He meets the wife of a former comrade, now blinded in a terrifying attack: Aimee.

One ordinary morning, Laurie's husband, Mark, vanishes, leaving behind his phone and wallet. For weeks, she tells no one, carrying on her job as a cleaner at the local university, visiting her tricky, dementia-suffering father and holing up in her tower-block flat with a bottle to hand. When she finally reports Mark as missing, the police are suspicious. Why did she take so long? Wasn't she worried? It turns out there are many more mysteries in Laurie's account of events, though not just because she glosses over the facts.

England, 1918. As war ends, across the world people are trying to heal and recover. But Eleanor still feels broken. The loss of her beloved brother, killed just days before the Armistice was signed, feels impossibly unjust. Spending her time in the neglected garden behind their house, she fears her heart will never recover. Then her father hires a man to help restore the garden to its former glory.

There are two little girls in the photo. I instantly recognize myself as the small, dark-haired child in the purple dress. But who is the girl with the long, blonde hair laughing at the camera? And why is the photograph here, in a stranger’s house? When I find the tattered picture hidden away at the back of a dusty cupboard in Amy’s house, my mouth goes dry with shock. Though I haven’t known Amy for very long, I love looking after her young children, in her picture-perfect hilltop house with its sprawling wildflower garden and bright, airy kitchen.

Rebecca Bray has moved on from a childhood she wants to forget. She has the dream fiancé, a loving stepdaughter and a career she's proud of. But with a move back to her hometown of Cornwall, everything she wanted to bury starts to surface. And when her stepdaughter goes missing at a New Year's Eve party, Rebecca must finally face the ghosts of her past - or Ava might never come home safely.

On Abeth there is only the ice. And the Black Rock. For generations, the priests of the Black Rock have reached out from their mountain to steer the ice tribes’ fate. With their Hidden God, their magic and their iron, the priests’ rule has never been challenged. But nobody has ever escaped the Pit of the Missing before. Yaz has lost her friends and found her enemies. She has a mountain to climb, and even if she can break the Hidden God’s power, her dream of a green world lies impossibly far to the south across a vast emptiness of ice.

Your life isn’t perfect, but you’re still happy. Your husband has stuck by you, and he’s a good dad. Your daughter, Becca, makes your heart explode with love. And then, in the time it takes to say ‘bad mother’, there’s no longer a place for you in your own family. Your right to see your child has disappeared. Life goes on in your house - family dinners, missing socks and evening baths - but you aren’t there anymore. Becca may be tucked up in bed in Rose Cottage, but she is as lost to you as if she had been snatched from under your nose.

Jenny has too much on her plate, literally - she’s pregnant with only one child, but she’s already eating for three. Not to mention trying to juggle her future life with a baby, a nightmare boss, a know-it-all sister, and a bizarrely laid back husband.

Stepsister takes up where Cinderella's tale ends. We meet Isabelle, the younger of Cinderella's two stepsisters. Ella is considered beautiful; stepsister Isabelle is not. Isabelle is fearless, brave, and strong-willed. She fences better than any boy, and takes her stallion over jumps that grown men fear to attempt. It doesn't matter, though; these qualities are not valued in a girl. Others have determined what is beautiful, and Isabelle does not fit their definition.

In a freezing, isolated farmhouse with ice on its windows, Flora is looking after her sick mother. Since she was a little girl, Flora has been frightened of her mother. And when she discovers a photo of a smiling baby girl she doesn’t recognize, hidden at the bottom of a drawer, her mother grows even more remote, and refuses to talk about it. So, when a visitor arrives from a paradise island of sapphire coves and white sand beaches, and confirms that the baby in the picture is her sister, she should feel joy. But, he also brings the news that Flora’s sister is dying.

A fairytale ending isn’t just for fiction... The Borrow-a-Bookshop is recovering, seven months after the winter flood that destroyed all its wares. When newest resident Joy Foley arrives in Clove Lore with her daughter, five-year-old Radia Pearl, she is set to drag the Bookshop into the 21st century by virtue of her tech expertise. But Joy has a secret. She is on the run from Radia Pearl’s father. She can’t settle down here or anywhere.

It's 1830. Convict girls Friday Woolfe, Harriet Clarke and Sarah Morgan have been transported to Sydney from London. Each of them is struggling to forget the brutal crime she committed, but their fates are no longer theirs to control. Vicious underworld queen Bella Jackson holds the girls' futures in the palm of her hand, biding her time. Once again the girls must join forces to save one of their own.

It’s November 1932, and the peaceful village of Dovecote Hatch is still reeling from the recent murder at Mullings, country estate of the wealthy Stodmarsh family. Now it’s about to be rocked by news of another violent demise. When the body of mild-mannered Kenneth Tenneson is found at the foot of the stairs in his home, the coroner’s inquest announces a verdict of accidental death. However, Florence Norris—the quietly observant housekeeper at Mullings—suspects there may be more to the story than a fall.

Single-mom Samantha moves with her daughter to a quiet village in the Peak District. The post as matron at Hallow Croft, now an exclusive residential home, seems to offer the escape she needs. But away from the TV room and afternoon activities, one of the residents is kept locked out of sight "for their own safety." And nobody will talk about the previous matron. She disappeared, leaving behind only a scuffed diary. Forty years ago, a girl was killed on the grounds of Hallow Croft Manor. Some people even say that began a curse on the home and the family who owned it.

From the number one best-selling author of The Secret Wife, The Lost Daughter is a sweeping, moving story of the tenacity of love and the power of forgiveness. Spectacular, enthralling and romantic, Gill Paul's latest novel will stay with you forever.

March 1933, Dovecote Hatch, England. Florence Norris knows she has found a good man in George 'Birdie' Bird, the landlord of the local pub, The Dog & Whistle. They are set to marry in a understated service at the parish church in their beloved village, Dovecote Hatch. But when a mysterious stranger seeks out George, sharing family secrets and talks of an illegal burial years ago, an ominous dread falls over the happy couple. Soon they are pulled reluctantly into this mystery that uncovers unpleasant truths in this idyllic English village.

Sir Roslind of Aksson, fierce and unyielding, is not the only female knight—but she is few among men who cling to older ways. And while whispers of disdain are so easily heard in a land pushing beyond tradition, whispers of rebellion are more subtle, more insidious, and much more costly to ignore.

On the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote, Helen Pankhurst - great-granddaughter of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst and a leading women's rights campaigner - charts how women's lives have changed over the last century and offers a powerful and positive argument for a new way forward.

It's 1832. Convict girls Friday Woolfe, Sarah Morgan and Harriet Clarke have been serving their sentences in Sydney Town. Each of them has begun to make a life for herself, but when Harrie's adopted child, Charlotte, is abducted, the girls must risk their very freedom to save her. But will Friday's desperate battle with her own vices drive her to fail not only herself but those she loves and all who love her?