Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

A stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that threaten to jeopardise the imposter's plan and his very life.

Beneath the sea cliffs of the south coast, suicides are a sad but common fact. Yet even the hardened coastguard knows something is wrong when a beautiful young film actress is found lying dead on the beach one morning. However, it soon becomes clear that darker motives were afoot, and potential suspects in the death of Christine Clay stack up at a rapid pace. As the case grows murkier, the man who spent the last week of Clay’s life living with her in a remote cottage goes on the run, and Inspector Alan Grant must race to uncover the truth.

Does anxiety have a hold on you and your life? Do panic and worry tend to dominate every moment? You’re not alone—Making Friends with Anxiety is here to help. In this friendly and supportive little book, best-selling author Sarah Rayner draws on her own experience of living with an anxiety disorder and shares the life-changing coping techniques that have helped her manage her anxiety and panic at home, at work, and in all areas of life.

After a year of country living, Rachel is finally getting into the swing of things. Her kids are happy and content at the village school, and she’s managed to navigate the choppy waters of the playground mafia. Or...so she thought. When playground mum Penelope moves herself and her kids into Rachel’s home, after discovering her husband has been having an affair, Rachel knows she must ask them politely to leave. The problem is, Penelope never takes no for an answer. As Rachel deals with Penelope, she also meets new mum Melanie.

Single mother Sally Lachlan has a secret that has haunted her for a decade, although perhaps it is time to let it go. A chance meeting with a fellow scientist, the charismatic geneticist Anthony Blake, reawakens her desire for love. But as Sally finally lets down her guard, her teenage daughter, Charlie, begins to ask questions about her late father.

It's 1910, and archaeologist Amelia Peabody heads for Palenstine hoping to prevent an English adventurer called Morely from causing damage during his search for the vanished treasures of the Temple in Jerusalem. The War Office fears increasing German influence in Palenstine and insists Morley is working for German intelligence.

On the eve of her marriage to George Hazelton, Frances has a great deal more on her mind than flowers and seating arrangements. The Connors and the Doyles, two families of American robber barons, have taken up residence in London, and their bitter rivalry is spilling over. At the request of her brother, Alonzo, who is quite taken with Miss Madeline Connor, Frances has invited the Connor family to her wedding. On the day itself, Frances is relieved to note that Madeline's father is not among the guests. The reason for his absence, however, turns out to be most unfortunate.

Miss Laura Haver is a spinster and a seamstress ... and a woman bent on revenge. After her brother was killed while seeking the identity of a notorious French smuggler, Laura suspects the smuggler's true identity is none other than the wealthy and commanding Keefe Leighton, Earl of Hamilton. How to capture such a rogue? By arriving at his estate and claiming to be his bride, of course. But her plans go awry when Hamilton arrives and discovers her ruse ... and does everything in his considerable power to make her his bride in truth!

Juliet has returned to the Isle of Wight from years abroad to visit her sick father and to be reunited with her three sisters - Cassie, a professional musician who seems to have lost her way in life; Mira, who is profoundly deaf, is married to the local vicar but their relationship is falling apart, and Rosalind, glamorous and charming but now deeply unhappy and secretive about her life. As Juliet’s father lies dying, he issues her with a warning. There is a killer on the loose, and they may be closer than she can ever imagine.

When Lettie’s parents call her and her brother back to Hollyhock Farm on the island of Jersey, the last thing they expect to be told is that their childhood home is up for sale. Back on the island, with its rolling hills and golden sands, Lettie immediately remembers what it feels like to breathe in the fresh air in the green fields, and be part of this tight-knit community – a far cry from the life of events and high fashion she leads in London. But she surprises even herself when she suggests that she instead could take over Hollyhock Farm.

A heartbreaking and deeply compelling debut, Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a compulsive pause-resister about thwarted love, dashed hopes, and family secrets - book-club fiction at its best. Roberta, a lonely 34-year-old bibliophile, works at The Old and New Bookshop in England. When she finds a letter inside her centenarian grandmother’s battered old suitcase that hints at a dark secret, her understanding of her family’s history is completely upturned.

"I am always with you. I will always be here." This was the promise Ella’s mother betrayed thirty years ago when she walked into the sea, leaving her five-year-old daughter alone in the world. Ella’s been angry ever since, building up a wall to protect herself. But that all changes the day she opens a newspaper and finds those ten little words printed in a classified ad. Ella refuses to believe her mother could still be alive - that would mean she did want to live, just not with her daughter. So she throws herself into finding out exactly what happened all those years ago.

Italy, 1935. Alessandra Durante is grieving the loss of her husband when she discovers she has inherited her ancestral family home, Villa Durante, deep in the Tuscan Hills. The terms of the will are that she must live in the Villa Durante for at least 12 months, so, longing for a new start, she moves to Italy and sets about rebuilding her life. But the shadow of war hangs heavy over the Tuscan hills, and life will never be the same again.

After calling off her engagement, Hayley, the Wynthorpe Hall housekeeper, wants nothing more than to return to her no-strings fun-loving self, avoiding any chance of future heartbreak. Little does she know, Wynbridge’s latest arrival is about to throw her plan entirely off course.... Moving into Wynthorpe Hall to escape the town’s gossip, Hayley finds herself immersed in the eccentric Connelly family’s festive activities as they plan to host their first ever Winter Wonderland. But Hayley isn’t the only new resident at the hall....

To her new colleagues at the lifestyle brand Beautiful You! Jade Fisher is the perfect employee. She's fun, easy to get on with, and knows her stuff. She's also harboring a dark secret… A secret so devastating that if it came out, it would destroy the company and its influential founder, Rebecca Burton-Webb. At least, that's what Jade's hoping for… First, she needs proof. She needs to get close to Rebecca. To get inside her life. As Jade becomes embroiled in Rebecca's world, she realizes there is more to the enigmatic older woman than meets the eye.

Every queen had ladies-in-waiting. Her confidantes and chaperones, they are the forgotten agents of the Tudor court. Ever present and yet hidden behind the scenes, these women held the secrets and the hearts of some of the Tudor period's most powerful men and women. Experts at survival, negotiating the competing demands of their families and their queen, the ladies-in-waiting of Henry VIII's wives were far more than decorative 'extras': they were serious political players who changed the course of history, and four of them became queen themselves.

In the early years of the last century, a desperate young girl changes her name and flees the confines of her brutal, dominating gangland family in London. Now calling herself 'Diamond Dupree', she goes to Paris to become an artist's model, but the world there is different to what she had supposed it would be, and she soon falls on hard times. When she manages to escape at the end of the First World War, she leaves behind her a mystery - and a dead man.

When Daisy’s mother falls ill she is forced to return home. With her twin sons in tow, she moves back to Half Moon Farm, her family’s ancient hop farm. But a new life in the Kent countryside isn’t necessarily as idyllic as it might seem. Daisy’s relationship with her mother is complicated and the tumbledown farm isn’t the only thing that needs rebuilding. Daisy and her sons must adjust to life with estranged family, a leaking roof, and no WiFi. Luckily for Daisy, she might yet find some distraction.

In lucid and energised prose, Emily Mayhew summons the four horsemen of the apocalypse; the collective threat to humanity bearing the names of war, pestilence, famine and death. As they began in Revelations and have remained in human consciousness ever since, spanning time and space and evolving as new scientific discoveries and advancements in technology alter the world.

December 1838. A storm is raging outside Kenilworth Hall. Inside, Lord Kenilworth's wife is in agony in the middle of a difficult labour. Lady Kenilworth doesn't survive the birth, but, against all odds, her baby daughter does. Baby Storm grows into a headstrong and adventurous child, close to her sister, Eloise, and their neighbours at Chislestone Manor - her best friend, Cissy, and Cissy's handsome older brother, Hunter, who has promised to marry Storm when she's older.