Showing results by narrator "Julia Barrie" in All Categories

An achingly funny story about how to be your own hero when life pulls the rug out from under your feet. From the author of the bestselling You had me at Hello. Delia Moss isn't quite sure where she went wrong. When she proposed and discovered her boyfriend was sleeping with someone else - she thought it was her fault. When she realised life would never be the same again - she thought it was her fault.

Superintendent Alan Markby and his wife, Meredith, have retired for the night when they are disturbed by a visitor. It's not the first time someone has called at the Old Vicarage in search of a priest, but in this case, having just found a dead body in the churchyard, Callum Henderson needs the police. Accompanying Callum to the graveyard, Alan declares that this has all the hallmarks of a murder scene.

There is something not quite right about the death of her aunt...and psychic investigator Fran Castle is sure of it. The will is missing, and long-lost relatives are obstructing the case, both of which are suspicious on their own, even before the bodies start piling up.... Luckily, nothing is likely to stop Fran's sleuthing partner, Libby, from getting involved to help hunt down the murderer. As the murders multiply and the police take over, can the amateur sleuths keep on the trail?

When Rachel discovers a Twitter message arranging a romantic liaison, she assumes her husband is having an affair and follows him. What she witnesses is so much worse: a hit-and-run using his car. Meanwhile, Rachel’s friend and business partner Suzie is increasingly worried about her fiancé, who’s not been in touch for days. When Suzie learns of huge debts racked up in her name, she fears he has run out on her, but then the threatening calls start, and she thinks something terrible has happened.

When Ellie Quicke's friend, Felicity, witnesses a Pitbull savage a young mother in the park, she goes into shock and calls on Ellie for help. Ellie's enquiries indicate that the dog and its owner are strangers to the neighbourhood, but soon there are other attacks...and after each one, the dog vanishes.

Ellie's friend on the police force asks her to enquire about some deaths which might or might not be suicide. Unbeknown to the police, an elderly lady with dementia has come across some drugs and is using them to ease people in pain out of their misery. At the same time, the project to turn the quirky, turreted Pryce House into a hotel is dogged by problems and suspicion falls on the difficult twelve-year-old boy Mikey who Ellie has taken in.

In April 1915 Dorothea Crewdson, a newly trained Red Cross nurse, and her best friend, Christie, received instructions to leave for Le Treport in Northern France. Filled with excitement at the prospect of her first paid job, Dorothea began writing a diary. 'Who knows how long we shall really be out here? Seems a good chance from all reports of the campaigns being ended before winter, but all is uncertain.'

Traumatized by her final case as a psychologist, Stella only feels truly safe hidden away in the isolated house she shares with her husband, Max. Then Blue appears in the middle of a snow-storm, begging to be let in. As secrets and lies gradually seep out of the young girl, Stella’s tightly controlled world begins to unravel.

You think you know him. Until he's dead.... When Cameron Swift is gunned down outside his family home, DC Beth Chamberlain is appointed Family Liaison Officer: a dual role that requires her to support the family and also investigate them. As the case unfolds and the body count climbs, Beth discovers that nothing is quite as it appears, and everyone, it seems, has secrets. Even the dead....

Ben is still desperately trying to forget that Katy had a one-night stand just before she announced she was pregnant. Nine months later a new baby explodes into their lives, creating utter chaos. Being a stay-at-home dad isn’t as simple as it seems; in fact it’s a disaster. Then help arrives in the most unlikely form: the wife of Katy’s ex-lover. Should Ben tell Katy about his secret rescuer, or is it his turn to keep a secret?

When Jake tells Lyssa it's not working, she knows he's not talking about the toaster. Her immediate reaction is to sob into her pillow and wait for Jake to come to his senses. But slowly Lyssa begins to understand that's not an option. In a bid to escape, she embarks on a trekking holiday in Nepal. Lyssa needs to get away - it never occurred to her that she might fall in love.... When it's time to go home - back to reality and a very sheepish Jake - Lyssa is faced with the hardest choice of her life.

The history of the Spitfire contains many hitherto hidden or little-known stories of the men and women behind the plane - not only the gifted creators and inventors who brought the Spitfire to life or the brave fighter pilots from many countries who triumphed in battle but also the thousands of other people whose lives were affected by their personal connection to it - engineers, ground crew, factory or office workers, and their families. Spitfire Stories recounts the memories and stories of these people, from the birth of the iconic Spitfire in the 1930s to the present day.

Ellie has always disliked the local big estate agent - aka Great White Shark - and is distressed when her daughter Diana announces that she is carrying his child and about to become his fourth wife. But Ellie is soon drawn into the family circle when one of the Hooper children dies in their private gym and another succumbs to a peanut allergy. The police want to write off the deaths as accident and misadventure, but Ellie believes someone is targeting members of the Hooper family. Surely Diana wouldn't… or would she?

Throughout her distinguished career, Ann Granger has penned an array of hugely entertaining and gripping short stories. From a nosy neighbour who trusts no one to a jealous nephew protecting his inheritance, and from a ghostly apparition on a cruise ship to an Oxford undergraduate who cannot escape his past, Ann's short stories transport listeners from the Highlands of Scotland to the rugged coast of Cornwall and from the Victorian era to the present day.

In Katy’s opinion, weddings should follow some basic rules: 1) No-one should ever have sex. Of course. The married couple has the rest of their lives for that, and the guests should be too busy partying. 2) If you are heavily pregnant (as Katy is) you should obviously not be invited to three weddings in the space of one summer. Your husband’s accident-prone best friend, your attention-seeking colleague, your 73-year-old mother’s marriage to her Spanish toy boy - all without even an alcoholic drink to make them bearable.

East Berlin, 1975: When Oberleutnant Karin Müller is called to investigate a girl's body at the foot of the wall, she realises this is a death like no other. It seems the girl was trying to escape - but from the West. The Stasi want her to discover the identity of the girl but assure Müller the case is otherwise closed. This is not a regime that tolerates a curious mind, and Müller doesn't realise that the trail she's following will lead her dangerously close to home.

The body of a teenage boy is found weighted down in a lake. Karin Muller, newly appointed Major of the People's Police, is called to investigate. But her power will only stretch so far, when every move she makes is under the watchful eye of the Stasi. Then, when the son of Muller's team member goes missing, it quickly becomes clear that there is a terrifying conspiracy at the heart of this case, one that could fast lead Muller and her young family into real danger. Can she navigate this complex political web and find the missing boy, before it's too late?

A blaze at an abandoned chapel in impoverished Manorclough turns out to be more than just arson when the body of a man who has been shot twice is discovered in the ashes. For the Manchester Metropolitan police team it’s the start of a gruelling and complex case that exposes the fractures and fault lines of a community living on the edge. DC Rachel Bailey, recently married, is trying to come to terms with her new status and deal with the fallout from her chaotic family.

It seemed the clouds that had darkened so much of Maisie’s early life had finally cleared away. Freed at last from a disastrous marriage, she had also become a best-selling author with her very first book - all about Hamilton, the remarkable horse her imagination conjured for solace through the long years of an unhappy marriage. Hamilton proved to be a real guide, philosopher and friend over many years. Now she was to be married again, and Hamilton marked the occasion by taking a wife himself - a mare called Begonia.

The sixth Inspector Ben Ross mystery. On a cold November night in a Deptford yard, dock worker Harry Parker stumbles upon the body of a dead woman. Inspector Ben Ross is summoned from Scotland Yard to this insalubrious part of town, but no witness to the murder of this well-dressed middle-aged woman can be found. Even Jeb Fisher, the local rag-and-bone man, swears he's seen nothing.