Showing results by narrator "Melanie MacHugh" in All Categories

Rose Grahame had everything Alex D’Arcy dreams of. A handsome husband, a stunning home and a baby boy with twinkling blue eyes and a smile that would brighten the darkest of days. It’s a stark contrast to Alex’s life - her dead-end job, her borderline addiction to drink and pills, her failed engagement and her cluttered flat. But the women’s lives are about to collide - and nothing will ever be the same again.

May 1941: German bombs drop on Dublin taking Sarah Gillespie’s family and home. Days later, the man she loves leaves Ireland to enlist. With nothing to keep her in Ireland and a burning desire to help the war effort, Sarah seeks refuge with relatives in England. But before long, her father’s dark past threatens to catch up with her. Sarah is asked to prove her loyalty to Britain through a special mission. Her courage could save lives. But it could also come at the cost of her own.

In January 1972, a peaceful civil rights march in Northern Ireland ended in bloodshed. Troops from Britain's 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment opened fire on marchers, leaving 13 dead and 15 wounded. Seven of those killed were teenage boys. The day became known as 'Bloody Sunday'. The events occurred in broad daylight and in the full glare of the press. Within hours, the British military informed the world that they had won an 'IRA gun battle'. This became the official narrative for decades until a family-led campaign instigated one of the most complex inquiries in history.

It’s the summer of 1919, and Ellen O’Brien has her whole life ahead of her. Young, in love and leaving home for her first job, the future seems full of shining possibility. But war is brewing, and before long, Ellen and everyone around her are swept up by it. As Ireland is torn apart by the turmoil, Ellen finds herself facing the ultimate test of love and loyalty. A hundred years later and Clare Farrell has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in County Meath.

Maddy and Leanne are in need of a miracle. Maddy can't bear to wash another pair of her husband's underwear, and if he continues to drone on about golf, she might just scream. Leanne can't stand living with her overbearing mother for a second longer, and she's one disapproving eye roll away from a nervous breakdown. But their luck changes when they win the lottery.

It’s six in the morning during the hottest summer on record when Elizabeth O’Loughlin, out walking her dog, comes across Clare, a victim of a horrific knife attack, clinging onto life at the side of the road. Clare dies minutes later, but not before whispering her haunting last words to Elizabeth. When it becomes clear that Clare’s killer has more than one murder on his mind, Elizabeth has to take drastic action or face losing everything.

When the body of local architect James McCallum is found hanging in the grounds of his former school one cold, dark night, DI Danny Stowe and forensic psychologist Rose Lainey suspect foul play behind his apparent suicide. To their astonishment, the trail leads to a 20-year-old cold case of a missing girl and a teenage party. But what was James’ fascination with the case, and how is it linked to his death? Secrets don’t stay buried forever - but the real killer will stop at nothing to hide theirs....

Someone is hunting Connor. Alone, freezing, in the wilderness of Bodmin Moor, on an elite Special Forces training exercise, he'd be a fool to scorn the kindness of a local stranger. Wouldn't he? At first, Eilidh seems to be an impeccable host. She offers Connor food and a warm bed—he finds it nearly impossible to leave her charming farmhouse. But the choice isn't his to make. There have been others before. None, though, as perfect as him.

For 10 years Estrin Lancaster has fled Philadelphia. From the Philippines to Berlin, she's been a traveler without a destination, an expatriate without a motherland. In each of the cities Estrin favors, she manages an apartment, a job, and a lover and never tarries past the first signs of ennui.

After losing her family to a Nazi bomb attack back home in Ireland, Sarah Gillespie joins the British Secret Services to bring them justice. Partnered with an American undercover agent, Lieutenant Tony Anderson, Sarah embarks on a dangerous mission that takes her from war-torn London into the black mountains of Wales. But when one of her team is revealed to be a German mole, and enemies begin to close in, what price will Sarah have to pay to save her country, and to save herself?

May O'Callaghan has decided that life's too short and she's decided to throw in the towel in her predictable nine-to-five job. Now what? As May fits into her new life we meet her friend Pam and her husband Jack - but why is Pam terrified to tell Jack that she's pregnant? And then there's Denis and Bernard, May's next-door neighbours, going about their business oblivious to the deadly threat that lurks close by. There's Paddy, who lives on his own yet never seems to be at home.

As World War Two rages, MI5 agent Sarah Gillespie is faced with her toughest challenge yet: handling Adeline Vernier, a mysterious double agent from Paris. Adeline’s coded letters could help the Allies defeat the Germans – but, in return, she demands that her boyfriend is rescued from Nazi-occupied France. Adeline is not above threatening to double-cross MI5 to get what she wants, leaving Sarah fearful for the millions of lives at stake.

Hidden away in an isolated cabin on the edge of her farm, seven-year-old Aisling Connolly shivers as the cold night air whistles through her thin jacket. It’s been two days since the men came, since her mammy told her to run like she’d never run before, to not look back. She hasn’t seen her parents since. And she’s terrified. But when Aisling is finally found by the police, she knows instinctively she can trust Detective Tessa Burns.

The little girl stares up at Tessa, trembling so hard her whole body shakes. Her brothers stand clutching her hands, both pale with shock. ‘They told us not to speak,’ she finally whispers. But the terror in her tear-filled eyes tells Tessa all she needs to know… When a cargo ship runs aground off the Irish coast, the police are horrified to find the captain dead at the helm, the crew missing, and three little red-haired children, terrified but unharmed, locked in the galley kitchen. As an expert detective running a child-centred taskforce, Detective Tessa Burns is called in to lead the case.

London, 1941. After losing her family to a Nazi bomb attack back home in Ireland, Sarah Gillespie joins the British Secret Services to bring them justice. Partnered with American undercover agent Lieutenant Tony Anderson, Sarah embarks on a dangerous mission that takes her from war-torn London into the black mountains of Wales. But when one of her team is revealed to be a German mole and enemies begin to close in, what price will Sarah have to pay to save her country—and herself?

‘I’ve come to report a murder,’ the little girl declares, lips trembling, her head only just high enough to see over the police counter. ‘Please, you have to help me.’ When tearful young Ellie O’Farrell walks into a rural Irish police station to report she’s dreamed a murder that hasn’t happened yet, she is gently, but firmly, sent on her way. But the very next night a beloved local grandfather is found dead, lethal knife wounds showing a struggle exactly as she’d described. How did innocent Ellie know what was going to happen?

It’s six in the morning during the hottest summer on record when Elizabeth O’Loughlin, out walking her dog, comes across Clare, a victim of a horrific knife attack, clinging onto life at the side of the road. Clare dies minutes later, but not before whispering her haunting last words to Elizabeth. When it becomes clear that Clare’s killer has more than one murder on his mind, Elizabeth has to take drastic action or face losing everything. But what if she can’t stop a killer determined never to be forgotten?

It's 1897, and young Annie Maguire and her parents are leaving their farm in County Down, Ireland. Driven away by poverty, they're looking for a place to start again. After moving to Comber and settling for a time, once again the Maguire family's lives are turned on their heads when Annie's mother dies and she and her father move on, this time to Cleator Moor, Cumberland, where Annie starts work in Ainsworth's Mill.

May 1941: German bombs drop on Dublin taking Sarah Gillespie’s family and home. Days later, the man she loves leaves Ireland to enlist. With nothing to keep her in Ireland and a burning desire to help the war effort, Sarah seeks refuge with relatives in England. But before long, her father’s dark past threatens to catch up with her. Sarah is asked to prove her loyalty to Britain through a special mission. Her courage could save lives. But it could also come at the cost of her own.

From the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin comes a bold and savage story of the intersection of politics and human relationships, set in turbulent Northern Ireland. Having abandoned Philadelphia for the life of an international nomad, Estrin Lancaster has a taste for hot spots. She now finds herself in Belfast, a city scarred by twenty years of ritualised violence. As the former purveyor of his own bomb-disposal service, Farrell O'Phelan courts the company of destruction.