Showing results by narrator "Gemma" in All Categories

Nova Kumalisi would do anything for her closest friend, Mal Wacken. She owes him her life. So, when he asked her to be the surrogate mother for him and his wife, in spite of her fears about how it would alter their friendship, Nova agreed. Eight years later, Nova is bringing up their son alone, and she and Mal don't speak. Months into the pregnancy, Mal's wife changed her mind about the surrogacy agreement. Already suspicious of how close Nova and Mal were, Stephanie realised her strained marriage was in serious trouble when she found a text from her husband to Nova.

Masquerading as a widowed French comtesse, Gabrielle de Beaucaire returns to England to destroy the man responsible for her lover's death and sets out to seduce Nathaniel Praed, Britain's greatest spymaster, into letting her become a secret agent.

Berkeley Silver, one of the richest men in the Earth empire, lies dead in the penthouse suite of the Galileo space-hotel. Law enforcement officers Detective Captain McGinnis and Detective Sergeant Mead are called in to investigate - but it seems to have been the perfect crime. Even when subjected to a memory scan, everybody in the space-hotel has an alibi for the murder. Which means it can have been the work of only one woman.

Waking up in a rickety hospital bed, the sweet ten-year-old girl with soft blonde hair and flushed cheeks is lucky to be alive. But all she can remember is the screech of the air raid siren. The nurses call her ‘Rosie’, and hope someone will save her. But no one does, and without a family, she is taken to Blakely Orphanage in Scotland under the supervision of the strict Miss Black.

Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories of ghosts and strange happenings. Now eight best-selling, award-winning authors, master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales.

A laugh-out-loud romance from the best-selling author of the Shopaholic series. Meet Audrey: an ordinary teenage girl with not-so-ordinary problems. Aside from her completely crazy and chaotic family, she suffers from an anxiety disorder which makes talking to her brother's hot new best friend a bit of a challenge. But Audrey has a plan to help her face her fears and take on the world again. First stop: Starbucks.

Known as The Flame for her fiery red hair and fierce clan leadership, Flanna MacGowan has sworn vengeance against the thieving Forbes clan. And to avenge her clan, she’s captured one of their warriors…a blue-eyed devil in disguise.… Roderic Forbes, known as Roderic the Rogue, is powerful, arrogant, and…never has Flanna met a more charming enemy. Try as she might, Flanna cannot deny the attraction between them.…

The police say it was suicide. Anna says it was murder. They're both wrong. One year ago, Caroline Johnson chose to end her life - a shocking suicide carefully played out to match that of her husband just months before. Their daughter, Anna, has struggled to come to terms with her parents' deaths ever since. Now with a young baby herself, Anna feels her mother's presence keenly and is determined to find out what really happened. But as she looks for answers, someone is trying to stop her.

Quarry Lake, twelve years ago: Three young women are attacked, all with long, dark hair. The attacker wears a yellow jacket. One is murdered; one is left in a coma; one escapes; a small town lives in fear.

Schoolgirl detectives Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are at Daisy's home, Fallingford, for the holidays. Daisy's glamorous mother is throwing a tea party for Daisy's birthday, and the whole family is invited, from eccentric Aunt Saskia to dashing Uncle Felix. But it soon becomes clear that this party isn't really about Daisy at all. Naturally, Daisy is furious.

Amy Hamilton is a good girl. She always did exactly as society demanded, kept her eyes downcast, never spoke out of turn, and hid the myriad of questions swirling in her brain. In return for shutting off her intellect, she landed an abusive fiancé and was cast aside by the ton. Disgraced, she seeks refuge at the Lyons' country estate. There she is given a bracelet made from a unicorn's tail and told it contains enough magic to grant one wish.

Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached. Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us.

From the author of Murder Most Unladylike. Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are taking a holiday on the world-famous Orient Express - and it's clear that each of their fellow first-class passengers has something to hide. Even more intriguing: there is rumour of a spy in their midst. Then, during dinner, there is a scream from inside one of the cabins. When the door is broken down, a passenger is found murdered, her stunning ruby necklace gone. But the killer has vanished - as if into thin air.

An idyllic wellness retreat has opened on an island off the coast of Devon, promising rest and relaxation—but the island itself, known locally as Reaper's Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it's rumored to be cursed. A woman is found dead below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But DS Elin Warner soon learns that the victim wasn't a guest—she wasn't meant to be on the island at all. The longer Elin stays, the more secrets she uncovers.

To secure her family's alliance with the powerful Clan Mackenzie, Stella Morrison has no choice but to wed the notorious Kade Mackenzie. Unable to ignore the whispers that surround him, she resigns herself to a marriage in name only. Yet as the fierce warrior strips away Stella's doubt one seductive touch at a time, burgeoning desire forces her to question all she holds as truth. Leading a rebellious army should have been Kade's greatest challenge... but conquering the heart of his reluctant bride becomes an all-consuming need.

Now Alice has become a member of the clandestine Collectors' Society, and the impossible has found her again in the form of an elusive villain set on erasing entire worlds. As she and the rest of the Society race to bring this mysterious murderer to justice, the fight becomes painfully personal. Lives are being lost. Loved ones are shattered or irrevocably altered. Each step closer Alice gets to the shadowy man she hunts, the more secrets she unravels, only to reveal chilling truths.

Gwendeline Gregory doesn't know what to think when she encounters the dashing Alex St. Audley, Earl of Merryn. She's in over her head in London Society, trying to fend off a scoundrel who will stop at nothing to ruin her. On the brink of a devastating scandal, the earl arrives just when she needs him most. But are his motivations trustworthy? And can he avert ruin for both of them?

A new term spells disaster for Mildred!After a disastrous first year, Mildred is determined to lose her embarrassing reputation as the worst witch the Academy has ever seen - but things rapidly get out of hand when her arch-enemy Ethel turns her into a frog ...

Allies, once inseparable, splinter until they break apart. An insidiousness carves its way through Wonderland, challenging the land's very existence. Battle lines will be drawn as pages, long languishing in darkness, are finally illuminated. Swords will clash, blood will be spilled, and lives will be lost. For what is written can still be erased.

It is a truth universally accepted that well-bred members of society are not beleaguered with magic. For Elsabeth Dover and her sisters, that truth means living in a perpetual state of caution, never using their sorcerous gifts in public. Elsabeth chafes under the stricture, although not enough to risk the possibility of good marriages for her sisters...until she meets handsome, arrogant Fitzgerald Archer