Showing results by narrator "Fiona Hardingham" in All Categories

It’s spring, and Headmistress Dowling is organizing an orientation day for the students coming to Alfea next year. Stella volunteers to head the committee to welcome the new students, and she insists that her boyfriend, Sky, help out. But Sky is preoccupied with the bad behavior of his moody roommate, Riven. Incoming students Aisha, Musa, and Terra are nervous about orientation day. Aisha is eager to prove that she can hold her own among the magical talents at Alfea.

Nell is 26 and has never been to Paris. She's never even been on a romantic weekend away - to anywhere - before. Traveling abroad isn't really her thing. But when Nell's boyfriend fails to show up for their mini vacation, she has the opportunity to prove everyone - including herself - wrong. Alone in Paris, Nell finds a version of herself she never knew existed: independent and intrepid. Could this turn out to be the most adventurous weekend of her life?

Number one best-selling author Sophie Kinsella returns with an irresistible new stand-alone about family love, family tensions and what you might hear if they didn't know you were in the room.

Three little girls set off to school one sunny May morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead. Fifteen years later, Kitty lives in an institution. She can't speak and has no memory of the accident that put her there, or her life before it. Nearby, Alison, a local artisan, struggles to make ends meet and to forget her past. When a job opens up in a prison as an art teacher, she takes it. Soon, though, she starts to receive alarming notes - followed by a frightening prisoner-on-prisoner assault while her back is turned.

Thrillingly suspenseful and atmospheric, The Quality of Silence is the story of Yasmin, a beautiful astrophysicist, and her precocious deaf daughter, Ruby, who arrive in a remote part of Alaska to be told that Ruby's father, Matt, has been the victim of a catastrophic accident. Unable to accept his death as truth, Yasmin and Ruby set out into the hostile winter of the Alaskan tundra in search of answers. But as a storm closes in, Yasmin realizes that a very human danger may be keeping pace with them.

Emma Holden and her friends are trying to move on from the horrific events surrounding Dan's kidnap. But a shocking revelation drags them back into the nightmare and forces them to question everything they once believed to be true. More secrets will be revealed, more lies will be told, and more lives are under threat. The Emma Holden suspense mystery trilogy has topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and also includes best sellers The One You Love and The One You Trust.

The thrilling conclusion to the bestselling Emma Holden suspense mystery trilogy. Emma Holden, now happily married, hopes that the nightmare is finally over. But the biggest danger is yet to come. Sinister accusations and shocking revelations sow mistrust, threatening to tear Emma and her friends apart. Soon, Emma must fight for her life as the horrifying truth behind Dan's kidnap is revealed. If you think you know the truth, then think again.

In all the years that Elinora Gassbeek has been matron of the Little Tulip Orphanage, not once have the Rules for Baby Abandonment been broken. Until the autumn of 1880, when five babies are left in outrageous circumstances; one in a tin toolbox, one in a coal bucket, one in a picnic hamper, one in a wheat sack, and finally, one in a coffin-shaped basket. Those babies were Lotta, Egg, Fenna, Sem, and Milou. And although their cruel matron might think they're "unadoptable", they know their individuality is what makes them special - and so determined to stay together.

Mark and Steph have a relatively happy family with their young daughter in sunny Cape Town until one day when armed men in balaclavas break in to their home. Left traumatized but physically unharmed, Mark and Steph are unable to return to normal and live in constant fear. When a friend suggests a restorative vacation abroad via a popular house swapping website, it sounds like the perfect plan.

The Chalet des Anglais should be the ideal locale for recently widowed Oxford don Emily to begin cutting through the fog of her grief. With no electricity, running water, or access by car, the rustic chalet nestled at the foot of the snow-topped Alps should afford Emily space to heal. Joining her will be a collection of friends from the university, as well as other fellows, graduates, and undergraduates.

At the nursery she runs with her sisters on the New England coast, Sorrel Sparrow has honed her rare gift for nurturing plants and flowers. Now that reputation, and a stroke of good timing, lands Sorrel an unexpected opportunity: reviving a long-dormant Shakespearean garden on an English country estate. Arriving at Kirkwood Hall, ancestral home of Sir Graham Kirkwood and his wife, Stella, Sorrel is shocked by the desolate state of the walled garden. Generations have tried - and failed - to bring it back to glory.

A train carrying exiled German prisoners from a labor camp arrives in southern France. Within moments, word spreads that Nazi capture is imminent, and the men flee for the woods, desperate to disappear across the Spanish border. One stays behind, determined to ride the train until he reaches home, to find a woman he refers to simply as “her.”

At 38-and-a-quarter years old, Camille has everything she needs to be happy, or so it seems: a good job, a loving husband, a wonderful son. Why then does she feel as if happiness has slipped through her fingers? All she wants is to find the path to joy. When Claude, a French Sean Connery look-alike and routinologist, offers his unique advice to help get her there, she seizes the opportunity with both hands. Camille’s journey is full of surprising adventures, creative capers and deep meaning as she sets out to transform her life and realise her dreams one step at a time....

Beautiful, creative, a little wild...Edie was the kind of girl who immediately caused a stir when she walked into your life. And she had dreams back then - but it didn't take long for her to learn that things don't always turn out the way you want them to. Now, at 33, Edie is working as a waitress, pregnant, and alone. And when she becomes overwhelmed by the needs of her new baby and sinks into a bleak despair, she thinks that there's no one to turn to....

Half sisters Isabelle and Aurora are polar opposites: Isabelle is the king's headstrong illegitimate daughter whose sight was tithed by faeries; Aurora, beautiful and sheltered, was tithed her sense of touch and voice on the same day. Despite their differences, the sisters have always been extremely close. And then everything changes with a single drop of Aurora's blood, a Faerie Queen who is preparing for war, a strange and enchanting dream realm - and a sleep so deep it cannot be broken.

Heir to a chateau with its own village and lands, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and Jean Francois de la Rocque de Roberval—an enigmatic and volatile man Marguerite has never met—becomes her guardian, controlling her future. He sells her property to pay his debts, leaving her destitute, and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends Roberval’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when Roberval discovers Marguerite's deception, his rage is all consuming.

Brighton, 1938: Grace Kemp is pushed away by the family she has shamed. Rejected and afraid, she begins a new life as a nurse. But danger stalks the hospital too, and she'll need to be on her guard to avoid falling into familiar traps. And then there are the things she sees....Strange portents that have a way of becoming real.

Dragon fire no longer blisters the skies over Penterra, but inside the lavish palace, life is still perilous – especially for Tamsyn. Raised in the glittering court alongside the princesses, it's her duty to be punished for their misdeeds. Treated as part of the royal family but also as the lowliest servant, Tamsyn fits nowhere. So when she is tasked with the ultimate sacrifice of pretending to be one of the true royal princesses and marry Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, son to the great dragon slayer, Tamsyn accepts her fate even if it means tricking the deadly warrior.

As a consequence of his actions during the Ludus uprising, Fallon's love, Cai, has been stripped of his decurion rank and cast down to serve as one of Caesar's gladiators. Amid fighting for Cai's freedom, Fallon soon learns Caesar's enemies are plotting against him and planning to get revenge on his fearsome gladiatrices. When Caesar is murdered by these conspirators, Fallon and the girls lose any sort of protection they once had. Fallon also realizes the foreign Queen Cleopatra is now in grave danger.

Daisy and Frederica Linden, having finally found their beloved father, Professor Rudolph Linden, are on the last leg of the journey they began so long ago. The only thing now in their way is the notorious gang of air pirates who haunt the archipelago between Port Townsend and Victoria. Corporal Kent of the Royal Canadian Airborne Police gallantly offers to escort their conveyance in an official airship, hoping against hope that Freddie will fly with him and give him an answer to a very important question.