Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

It's 1782. The 13-year-old daughter of a Venetian merchant family is lured naked from her bath by a stray cat and finds herself in the arms of Casanova - the legendary seducer of women. Twenty-five years later Cecilia is in Albania, now a portrait painter of some renown. Enter a young man from England, a troubled poet, looking for adventure at any price - a man who begins his affair with Cecilia.

When Perdita Dylan delivers her baby vegetables to a local hotel and finds that her unpredictable ex-husband, Lucas, has taken over the kitchen, she is horrified - particularly when she discovers he's being groomed as the latest celebrity chef and needs her picturesque, if primitive cottage, and her, in supporting roles. Her life is further complicated when Kitty, her 87-year-old friend, has a stroke. Perdita needs someone to lean on - and Lucas seems so keen to help that she starts to wonder if he's really such a villain.

When Juno Browne returns to the picturesque Dartmoor town of Ashburton after a brief holiday, she’s relieved to find that no one has been murdered while she was away. Though uncharitable friends suggest the quiet was simply due to her absence. Just as she’s settling back into her routine at the antiques shop and as domestic helper and dog walker, the brutal killing of local journalist Sandy Thomas shocks the town.

Weddings, romance, humour ,and happy-ever-after endings. The deliciously romantic new novel from the number-one Sunday Times best-selling author of Recipe for Love, A French Affair, and The Perfect Match.

In a small Cotswold country town, Beth, Lindy, and Rachel are looking for new beginnings. So they set up in business, organising stylish and perfectly affordable vintage weddings.

The first time Annie Sweet sees 43 Stanley Road, the house is so perfect she feels almost as if it has chosen her. She longs to move in, but with her husband increasingly distant, and her daughter wrapped up in childhood, Annie is left alone to mull over the past.

It's more money than the street urchin has ever dreamt of. But who is the rider, and why is there so much interest in his big black horse? And will the boy ever see the money he has been promised? There's highway robbery in the air, but it isn't entirely clear just who is trying to rob who.

The evacuation of Philip Masson's body near Mrs Griffin's cottage resurrects several old ghosts that send the newshounds scurrying to dig in their clippings archives. Rumours, matured with the passing years since Masson's "disappearance" way back in 1978, once more abound. But the investigative team of Ian Robinson and Jenny Fielding are already on a trail of discovery that leads back to the end of the Wilson/Callaghan era.

As young children, Josh Browning and his sister, Dilys, stumbled across a dead body while playing on the outskirts of their Cotswold village. Terrified by what they'd seen, neither of them told a soul. Now, 20 years later, Josh finds the dead woman's charm bracelet among his sister's possessions. Who better to tell than his trusted friend, the man he gardens for, retired Superintendent Alan Markby? As Markby listens to Josh's confession, alarm bells start to ring. The dates and details tie in with a missing person case that was never solved.

Olivia, the eldest daughter, has returned from treating an epidemic abroad and must go into quarantine for seven days. Her mother has decided it's the perfect opportunity to spend some 'special time' together. Her youngest sister wholeheartedly disagrees. Her father isn't allowed an opinion. When no one can leave the house and no one can enter, quaratine for the Birches feels like an eternity. Especially when they're all harbouring secrets. One of which is about to come knocking at their door.

The young Princess Victoria, strictly confined within the boundaries of Kensington Palace, is being moulded for her awesome future as Queen of England. Surrounded by her dolls and closely guarded by her domineering mother and faithful governess, she slowly becomes aware of the bitter conflicts that surround her. The jealous and scheming Duke of Cumberland is a constant threat to her rightful accession …her mother’s sinister friend, Sir John Conroy, makes her uneasy … and the bickering between her mother and the king seems never-ending.

Leningrad, September 1941. German tanks surround the city, imprisoning those who live there. The besieged people of Leningrad face shells, starvation, and the Russian winter. Interweaving two love affairs in two generations, The Siege draws us deep into the Levin's family struggle to stay alive during this terrible winter.

WW1 is over. As a nurse at the front, Clementine has found and lost love but has settled for middle-class marriage. Vincent had half his face blown off and wants more than life offers now. Drawn together by their shared experiences at the Front, they have a compulsive relationship, magnetic and parasitic, played out with blackmail and ending in disaster for one of them.

Abbie loses her cool during an argument with her daughter’s teacher, unaware the conversation is being recorded. Soon, her tirade is shared on social media, and she is fired. Even her children suffer from the fallout. To make matters worse, the public scandal has attracted an old enemy intent on ruining Abbie’s life. As the shaming and outrage intensifies, her children are forced to face some terrible truths. And when lives are threatened, Abbie must ask herself... Will anyone come out of this unharmed?

When in March 1938 Germany invades Austria, all anti-Nazis are immediately rounded up and imprisoned. Prominent amongst these is liberal editor Johann Fehrbach, his Anglo-Irish wife, and his two daughters. But the elder of the girls, seventeen-year-old Annaliese, is separated from her parents and taken into Gestapo custody.

Annie's big birthday is looming. Sixty! She feels half that age, even if the mirror tells her otherwise. Hubby Keith promises her a birthday to remember, and doesn't let her down, but packing his suitcase to shack up with a forty-something isn't quite the memory Annie wants to make. Suddenly she's single and—as an empty nester—very, very alone. The Bucket List she and Keith had promised to work their way through is but a dream, until besties Bella and Caz rally around Annie and whisk her away for a trip that will be remembered for ever.

Hetty Longden's mother thinks that looking after Great Uncle Samuel's crumbling stately home will be just the thing for Hetty's broken heart. Hetty doesn't mind; at least she can be miserable in private. But 'private' is a relative term in a village which revolves around the big house. Particularly when you are expected to thwart Great Uncle Samuel's awful heir and his nefarious plans for his inheritance. Pitchforked into the community's fight to save the manor, Hetty has no time to wallow.

A delicious Christmas feast of short stories from the Sunday Times number one best-selling author of A French Affair and The Perfect Match. Add some extra sparkle to your Christmas by joining Katie Fforde for a perfect, romantic Christmas feast of short stories. Collected together for the first time and including one brand-new story. Make your Christmas wishes come true....

Russia, 1910. Young Valentina Ivanova charms St Petersburg's aristocracy with her classic Russian beauty and her talent as a pianist. But she scandalises society when she begins a romance with Jens Friis, a Danish engineer. He brings to her life a passion and an intimacy she has never known. Unbending in their opposition, her parents push her into a loveless engagement with a Russian count.

When Keira first receives her breast cancer diagnosis, she never expects to end up joining a running group with three women she’s only just met. Totally blind-sided, all she can think about is how she doesn’t want to tell her family or step back from work. Nor does she want to be part of a group of fellow cancer patients. Cancer is not her club. And yet it’s running - hot, sweaty, lycra-clad running in the company of brilliant, funny women all going through treatment - that unexpectedly gives Keira the hope she so urgently needs.

Sunset Hall is a house share for the old and unruly, led by Agnes Sharp. It's an eventful day when this group of idiosyncratic seniors gets a visit from the police to inform them of some shocking news. A body has been discovered next door. Everyone puts on a long face, but they are secretly relieved the body in question is not the one they're currently hiding in the shed (sorry, Lillith). It seems the answer to their little problem with Lillith may have fallen right into their lap.