Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Strevens" in All Categories

Rosie Bunting has spent her life caring for others, often at the expense of her own hopes and dreams. But when she overhears somebody describing her as ‘boring’, she decides it’s time for a change. Little does she realise that the outdoor pursuits weekend brochure handed to her at the local Art Café will kick start a summer that will see her abseiling down a Welsh cliff face in ‘eye watering’ leggings, rediscovering her artistic side and unexpectedly inheriting an old fire engine.

Detective Samson O'Brien is ready to settle down to a nice cup of tea, but it's not long before he's called on for help with a new case. In order to execute a recent will, solicitor Matty Thistlethwaite requires a copy of a death certificate for a young woman who died when Samson was a child. It should be straightforward, but things in Bruncliffe rarely are. Particularly when Matty insists that Delilah Metcalfe, with her wealth of local knowledge, works alongside Samson on the sensitive investigation.

Uniquely disturbing and deeply erotic, this collection confirms Sarah Hall as one of the greatest writers of her generation. From the heathered fells and lowlands of Cumbria with their history of smouldering violence, to the speed and heat of summer London, to an eerily still lake in the Finnish wilderness, Sarah Hall evokes landscapes with extraordinary precision and grace.

Frank isn't much looking forward to the school visit to a local stately home. Still, not even in his worst nightmares did he expect anything like what actually happens! When "Not-Sheba", the servant girl from the picture, just walks out of her frame and demands Frank's help to find out her true identity, Frank realises that there is no escape. Charlie the celebrity-mad mummy doesn't help much either and nor do the Indian statues.

That’s the question single mum Jo Morris has to ask herself when she collides with local bike mechanic Ed Griffiths on a rainy Welsh hillside. Working at the Art Café, Jo hears the gossip and is all too aware of Ed’s reputation. But whilst he’s certainly no angel, there is something about Ed’s daredevil antics that Jo can’t ignore. And as she gets to know him better and watches the kind way he deals with her young son Liam, she begins to wonder - is there more to this 'bad boy' than meets the eye?

At the time of his death Eric Hobsbawm was the most famous historian in the world. He not only wrote history was also witness to it, from the Communist uprising in Europe to revolution in Cuba where he was Che Guevara's interpreter. He was instrumental in the birth of New Labour and was also a jazz journalist for The New Statesman.

Practical and proven masterclasses for simple and effective small business marketing. This straightforward, practical book cuts through the morass of marketing theory to reveal the practical steps that small businesses can take to achieve phenomenal marketing results.

A moving tale of laughter and loss from best-selling Cathy Hopkins. Emily and her dad have been on their own since her mum left. But Emily has a secret: she still sees her mum, and people are beginning to worry about her. Because Emily's mum isn't coming back.... But as her friendship with Mark starts to develop into something more, can Emily find the strength to start letting go?

A best-selling novelist since 1921, Georgette Heyer is known across the world for her historical romances set in Regency England. This is the ultimate, definitive guide to Georgette Heyer's novels, her heroines, her villains and dashing heroes, the shops, clubs and towns they frequented, the parties and seasons they celebrated, how they ate, drank and dressed, socialised, shopped and drove. An utterly delightful and fun read, compelling in its historical detail, this is a must-hear for any Georgette Heyer fan.

When Eleanor waves her daughter off for a gap-year trip, she finds herself stuck as a satellite wife, spinning in faithful orbit around her domineering husband, with only her clever but judgemental father, Conrad, for comfort Andrew isn’t mastering the art of growing up either. But when he finds his belongings dumped in bin bags on the drive, even he can see that his girlfriend is hinting he should move out. With no other options, he moves back in with his parents.

London, 1941. Livy makes her way through Blitz-torn London to the Mirrormakers’ Club, the only place that makes her feels safe, where she finds herself drawn into the mystery of a missing diamond and torn between two men with competing claims on her. London, 1841. Charlotte is helped from the scene of an accident by a man who shows her a building he is working on and whose kindness unlocks a hope she has long kept buried. But that man is not her husband.

When Angel Tempest finds out that her best friend, Zac, has inherited a Scottish mansion, Taigh Fallon, from his great aunt, she immediately offers to go and visit it with him. It will mean closing up her jet jewellery shop in Whitby for a few days, but the prospect of a spring trip to the Scottish Highlands is too tempting. Then Kyle, Zac’s estranged and slightly grumpy Canadian cousin, unexpectedly turns up at Taigh Fallon, and events take a strange turn as the long-kept secrets of the old house begin to reveal themselves....

Harriet and Matthew Rowsley, the housekeeper and estate manager of Thorncroft House in Shropshire, have to cut short their successful trip to Oxford when they receive a telegraph: a decapitated and mutilated body has been found on the estate. While trying to help the strangely slow police investigation, the couple face an unsettling threat to their livelihood: after years of searching, a legitimate heir of Thorncroft estate has been found!

One winter's afternoon, Sonia, 43, married and respectable, answers the door to 15-year-old Jez. He’s come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn't going to let him leave. As Sonia's desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth.

Sergeant Louise Nightingale is content in the knowledge that a psychopath has been put behind bars for a very long time. She is unaware that he was just a student of a much more deadly opponent - a nameless, faceless terror who is intent on proving his prowess on the killing field. It soon becomes clear that Louise is his ultimate goal. Desperately trying to find Nightingale before the killer does, DCI Andrew Fenwick wonders if her continued silence means he is already too late.

Edith Wight can't wait to stay with her uncle - vet to magical animals and beasts - for the Christmas holidays. She's expecting to be reunited with all her friends, both animal and human, and celebrate the holidays together. But one of the few phoenixes left in the world is missing and in peril. The Secret Animal Society heads to a remote part of Bavaria to track down the bird, only to encounter a new foe more deadly and dangerous than they could have possibly imagined - who is using phoenix ashes to create new hybrid beasts to sell to the evil Syndicate.

Chloe Canton has settled into life on the island, so when her friend Maria asks her to help with a celebrity wedding, Chloe is delighted. Reality TV stars Lara Turner and Eddie Bristol want a beach wedding and a golden horse, and Chloe is happy to oblige. But she is unprepared for the celebrity circus that surrounds them, or the unwelcome appearance of her ex-husband, Mark. No sooner have the happy couple arrived on the island than a body is found floating in the crystal ocean waters.

Oxfordshire, 1947. Exhausted by the war and nursing a tragic secret, Kit Smallwood flees to Wickam Farm to recuperate. There she throws herself into helping set up a charity sending midwives to India. Then Kit meets Anto, a handsome, complicated but charming trainee doctor nearing the end of his English education, and she falls utterly in love. But when Anto informs his family that he is to return home with an English bride, his parents are appalled.

On May 3rd, 1942, fifteen-year-old Alma Braithwaite and her fellow boarders at Goldwyn's school huddle in an air-raid shelter as bombs rain down on Exeter. When the girls emerge, the school is in ruins. Twenty-one years on, Alma lives alone and teaches music at her old school. The arrival of a new student takes Alma back to that summer and the long shadow it cast on her life.

Ginnie Holmes has found something she never intended to find - an overwhelming passion for a man she should not be with. At an abandoned boathouse hidden on the riverbank of the Thames, Ginnie steps into a world that’s just a little bit brighter than her ordinary life. Then, in a single terrifying event, the lovers' secret becomes a deadly catastrophe, and Ginnie finds herself in the path of extraordinary danger.