Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

For children’s book author Imogen, an idyllic life in the English countryside seems like the perfect fit for her and her husband. But when tragedy strikes, Imogen is left widowed, and finds herself moving into Storybook Cottage alone with only her monstrously narcissistic cat for company. After discovering she is pregnant, Imogen grows determined to embrace a new start in Middlemass, with its duckpond, cricket matches and village fêtes. The only thing Imogen can’t seem to shake is her neighbor—a brooding, artisan blacksmith named Gabriel—who she can’t quite decide is friend or foe.

Susan has always taken comfort in the peaceful rhythm of life on the Isle of Wight. But when her daughter Zoe invites her to a Halloween ghost walk at a remote castle, Susan has a sense of foreboding she can’t quite shake. It’s meant to be a bit of fun for the group of old school friends, the thrill of an overnight stay behind the castle’s ancient gates. But when one of them is found dead, the weekend away takes a sinister turn. With the castle locked down and the group trapped inside, it soon becomes clear the killer would have been amongst them.

It was supposed to be the perfect reunion: six university friends together again after twenty years. Host Ali finally has the life she always wanted, a career she can be proud of and a wonderful family with her college boyfriend, now husband. But that night her best friend makes an accusation so shocking that nothing will ever be the same again.

1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. It’s a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape.

In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing father for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest—the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day.

It's the start of another school year at St. Ambrose. While the children are busy in the classroom, their mothers are learning sharper lessons. Lessons in friendship. Lessons in betrayal. Lessons in the laws of community, the transience of power...and how to get invited to lunch. The Hive is a wickedly funny and brilliantly observed story about female friendship, power plays, and the joys and perils (well, mainly perils) of trying to do one's part.

In Flora Thompson's semi-autobiographical series Lark Rise to Candleford, she explores the Oxfordshire country life of her protagonist Laura in the 1880s and 1890s. This collection includes all three works in the trilogy, Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green.

Recently widowed, Charlotte Pennyworth is relishing her independence and it rankles to have to rely on a man to help her with a sinister stalker. Former Yardman, Elliot Baker, is reluctant to take on Charlotte''s case but despite himself and his history with another woman, he is drawn to the bright, attractive widow. Sparks smolder between the PI and his client but neither is looking to form an attachment. Elliot thinks Charlotte is hiding something. Charlotte has no desire to marry again, especially to a private investigator, no matter how handsome, brave and kind he is.

We prefer not to talk about it, but we should. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable. Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do - and don't - deal with their own waste.

The four Grace sisters love their quiet life in the country village of Chevis Green. To some, their insular world might seem dull, but the sisters never seem to run out of conversation, jokes, and pleasant ways to pass the time together. They truly are the happiest of families. That is, until Aunt Rona comes to town. Rona intends to stay with the Graces indefinitely, and her meddlesome attitude immediately sets the sisters' teeth on edge. Throw in another unexpected houseguest, some potential suitors and a case of mistaken intentions, and the members of the Grace family suddenly find themselves quite out of their element.

Kitty Underhay hopes for plain sailing as she caters a 21st birthday party for the chief constable’s daughter aboard a luxury paddle steamer. So her heart sinks when she learns that the man her fiancé Matthew has been tailing on orders from Whitehall, Gunther Freiburg, is aboard. And she’s even more horrified when she steps below deck to discover Gunther, dead in the engine room. One of the chief constable’s party must be responsible for his demise, but who, and why?

The Josephine Tey Collection includes unabridged recordings of all 6 of the novels in the Inspector Alan Grant series.

Hitler’s Girl is a groundbreaking history that reveals how, in the 1930s, authoritarianism nearly took hold in Great Britain as it did in Italy and Germany. Drawing on recently declassified intelligence files, Lauren Young details the pervasiveness of Nazi sympathies among the British aristocracy, as significant factions of the upper class methodically pursued an actively pro-German agenda.

Ruby Wood is perfectly happy playing the dating game – until she has a red-hot dream about her very attractive flatmate, Nick. He might spend every day saving lives as a junior doctor, but he’s absolutely the last man on earth that fun-loving Ruby would ever date! The solution? Focus on all of Nick’s bad points. And if that fails, up her dating antics and find herself a man. So what if she manages to make disapproving, goody two-shoes Nick jealous in the process…

In this beautifully evocative essay, Virginia Woolf transforms a simple errand—a trip to buy a pencil—into a mesmerizing exploration of city life, memory, identity, and the quiet drama of everyday existence. As she drifts through the winter streets of London, Woolf captures fleeting moments, passing faces, and the rhythm of urban solitude with her signature lyricism and insight.

Forget hygge - it's time to blow out the candles and get out into the world! Journalist Katja Pantzar did just that, taking the huge leap to move to the remote Nordic country of Finland. What she discovered there transformed her body, mind, and spirit. In this engaging and practical guide, she shows listeners how to embrace the "keep it simple and sensible" daily practices that make Finns one of the happiest populations in the world, year after year. The Finns have a word for that, and this empowering book shows us how to achieve it.

Anna, Henrik and Milena's annual hiking trip is just around the corner. This year, however, Anna and Henrik have a hard time saying no when Milena asks if her boyfriend, Jacob, can tag along. The hike soon spirals into mayhem when the three friends come to realize that taking Jacob was a decision that could change their lives forever. From the austere mountaintops of northern Sweden, this highly anticipated thriller traverses through the unexplored wilderness—here, there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

The Virginia Woolf Complete Collection brings together 6 of her published novels, from her very first published work, the excubrantly youthful The Voyage Out, to the modern masterpieces of Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, as well as the hugely ambitious and ever-relevant Orlando, alongside other wide-ranging and ever-inventive works of fiction.

Coco Chanel was an extraordinary inventor, conjuring up the little black dress, bobbed hair, trousers for women, contemporary chic, bestselling perfumes, and the most successful fashion brand of all time. But she also invented herself, fashioning the myth of her own life with the same dexterity as her couture; and what lies beneath her own glossy surface is darker, more mysterious, and far more intriguing.

Summer 1923. Lady Eleanor Swift is finally persuaded by her butler, Clifford, to take a villa in the south of France for the season. She plans to do what a glamorous lady abroad should: long lunches on the balcony followed by lazy afternoons lounging by the pool. But when Clifford examines the wine cellar, he discovers there are no decent reds, but there is a very dead body. The victim is famous American movie-star Rex Armstrong. Poor Rex seems to have been stabbed with a sword from the film set. So how did he end up in Eleanor’s villa?