Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

It is 1940, and, as the Battle of Britain takes to the air, Hope Stapleford is recruited to join the Special Operations Executive. On her way to Scotland, she is pulled from a train and driven to spymaster Fitzroy's stately home. She is his intelligence operative, and he wants to send her to a Scottish airfield where Harvey is already stationed undercover as a mechanic. At the airbase, Hope and Harvey find a community in turmoil. Pilots talk of strange sightings in the air, and local mechanics report mysterious scratches appearing on the wings and fuselage of the aircraft.

In her pioneering audiobook, now fully updated to mark its 40th anniversary, Dickson draws on her long experience of in-person training to give all women the tools we need to assert what we feel and want, manage difficult conversations, avoid being sidetracked by culturally learned behaviours, say ‘No’ and find self-acceptance.

Nestled in the quiet countryside sits the cosy village of Little Monkham, home of the Star and Sixpence, a renovated pub owned by sisters Sam and Nessie. As the locals welcome the new season, it appears that change is afoot in their tiny community, and not all of it for the better...Nessie is moving in with her boyfriend, leaving Sam alone in the pub. But with the arrival of new chef Gabriel causing a flutter among the women of the village, it seems that Sam might not be so lonely after all.

The incomparable Inspector Alan Grant returns in the latest addition to our enormously popular Josephine Tey series. As well as all the usual delights of Tey’s writing and the Inspector himself, To Love and Be Wise also features one of the most cunning and surprising twists of any of Tey’s novels – making it an absolute must-listen for any Golden Age crime aficionado.

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.

Emily Klein doesn’t know she has killed her husband until the day of his funeral. At first, signs point to a tragic accident. Yet, as Emily pieces together the events before his death - events which led to her own memory loss - she begins to suspect that her husband’s death may have been the result of more than a terrible twist of fate.... But the accident is only the beginning. Because while Emily’s physical scars will heal, the trauma of the accident has awakened old ghosts. She hears strange sounds, catches things that can’t possibly be there in the corner of her eye.

When I met Malik my life changed in the blink of an eye. We were set up - Chris and Simon called it a blind date - and I suppose they could see that I was lonely, that I needed someone in my life to make it more exciting. And they were right. He was so good to me. He seemed to know exactly what I needed to feel safe and loved again. We’d talk and laugh into the night, and I haven’t had someone on my side since my divorce. But soon the honeymoon period was over. It started with my car’s tyre being slashed and strange calls at the radio station where I work.

Young Lady Jane Fitzmaurice had everything that Regency society approved of - flawless beauty, perfect breeding, and a respectable fortune. But she also had a mind and heart of her own that set heads shaking and tongues wagging.

Karin and Kai are looking for a pleasant escape from their busy lives when they accept an offer to stay in a luxurious cabin in the Norwegian fjords. Instead of finding a relaxing retreat, their trip becomes a reminder of everything lacking in their own lives, and when they meet the couple from the neighbouring cabin, Karin tells a little white lie – a lie that grows ever bigger, entangling her and Kai in a nightmare series of deceits with absolutely no means of escape.

Sadie is a single mum, nursing a broken heart. Her best friend from childhood, Cat, is burned out from working long hours as a chef in Paris. In need of a change, they decide to invest in their dream - running their own handmade biscuit shop in gorgeous Castle Court, a three-storey food court tucked away behind Chester's bustling streets. They soon discover that Castle Court has its own community - a little haven of delight against the stresses of the outside world. But not everyone welcomes the new business.

England, 1919: Rose and Ivy board a ship bound for Australia. One is travelling there to marry a man she has never met. One is destined never to arrive. Australia, 2016: Amongst her late-grandmother's possessions, Molly uncovers a photograph of two girls dressed in First World War nurses' uniforms, labelled 'Rose and Ivy 1917', and a letter from her grandmother, asking her to find out what happened to her own mother, Rose, who disappeared in the 1960s.

After a lifetime of living for her friends, family, even strangers, Lady Lucy Westmont knows something must change or she’ll lose herself forever. An invitation to visit her free-spirited and scandalous aunt in the wild Scottish countryside is the perfect opportunity to discover how to live the life she wants. James Pembroke just learned that not only is he the new Earl of Rossbury, he’s also inherited his late uncle’s debts and a manor house deep in Scotland.

Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York - for her first London season. But no sooner has Frances begun her new life than the ghosts of her old one make an unwelcome appearance....

When Laura’s bride-to-be sister, Polly, organises a surprise reunion for her fiancé and his long lost American friend, Laura grudgingly agrees to help keep the secret. And when the plain-spoken, larger-than-life Hunter McQueen steps off the bus in her rainy Devon town and only just squeezes into her tiny car, it confirms that Laura has made a big mistake in going along with her sister's crazy plan.

When Cate Rivers leaves her husband in the middle of the night with their young daughter, Eliza, she has no idea what the future holds. Taking a live-in position at Hollow House on the Dorset coast, she determines to make a new life for her and Eliza. But Cate's new boss, fossil hunter Charles Thorner, could do without the problems of a couple of runaways under his roof. He's got enough worries of his own, including a painful past which still holds him prisoner today.

The hotly anticipated wedding of Iris Devonshire, ravishing teenage daughter of celebrity couple Mia and Leo, is to be held in the gardens of their grand Palladian pile alongside the Thames. But Mia and Leo worry that she's rushing into the marriage. Just ask their best friends since college, Simon and Laney de Montmorency, whose relationship is on the rocks again - and they've already married each other twice.

This book is a transformational guide to finding the care, courage and audacity to bring your full self to your work and life. In this powerful new vision, Alina Addison - a pioneering corporate leader, Emotional Intelligence expert coach, and mother to a son on the autism spectrum - combines personal experience with deep research to present the eight fundamental principles of audacious leadership.

Each featured novelist, playwright or poet has biographical entries tracing the friendships, loves and rivalries that inspired each individual and influenced their work, revealing insights into the larger-than-life characters, plots and evocative settings that they created. This audiobook introduces the key ideas, themes and literary techniques of each writer, revealing the imaginations and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems and plays.

Sisters Cleo and Robyn may be close in age but their attitudes to life could not be further apart. While Cleo's a fully-fledged adult with a family, a business and a signature scent, Robyn is still waiting for the instruction manual to Adult Life and success is keeping her houseplant alive. Skating by at her job as an estate agent, she's adept at avoiding housework, ignoring admin, and evading her mother's anxious questions about her love life. But then Robyn's fired in the most publicly humiliating way imaginable - and her chaos catches up with her.

Frances and her husband, George, have two points of interest in Paris. One is an impromptu holiday to visit the Paris Exposition. The other is personal. George's Aunt Julia has requested her nephew's help in looking into the suspicious death of renowned artist Paul Ducasse. Though Julia is not entirely forthcoming about her reasons, she is clearly a woman mourning a lost love. At the exposition, swarming with tourists, tragedy casts a pall on the festivities. A footbridge collapses. Julia is among the casualties. However, she was not just another fateful victim.