Showing results by narrator "Emma Powell" in All Categories

1891. Spindrift House, Cornwall. Talented painter, Edith Fairchild, is poised to begin a life of newlywed bliss, and artistic creation, with her charming husband Benedict. He recently inherited Spindrift House near Port Isaac, and Edith is inspired by the glorious Cornish light and the wonderful setting overlooking the sea. But then happiness turns to heartbreak. In great distress, Edith turns to an artist friend for comfort, and after a bitterly-regretted moment of madness, she finds herself pregnant with his child. Too ashamed to reveal her secret, Edith devotes herself to her art.

While her older sister is being presented to London Society for the season, Lydia Bramwell is sent to her Aunt Camilla in the Sussex countryside. High-spirited Lydia expects a very dull visit, but her sojourn to the village of Diddlington is not as idyllic as she anticipates . . . A charred and bludgeoned corpse is found in the woods, and suspicion falls on Lydia's aunt's suitor, an intriguing Frenchman. Convinced of his innocence, Lydia enlists the help of her new friend, John Savidge, to catch the real killer.

When a customer of William Doughty's Bayswater chemist shop dies of strychnine poisoning after drinking medicine he dispensed, William is blamed, and the family faces ruin. William's daughter, Frances, determines to redeem her ailing father's reputation and save the business. She soon becomes convinced that the death was murder, and, unable to persuade the police, she turns detective. Armed with only her wits, courage and determination, Frances uncovers a startling deception and solves a 10-year-old murder.

Four people's lives are dramatically torn apart by a single terrifying event. Two days before Christmas the express train to Strasbourg crashes into a local train in the winter darkness outside Paris. On board is Gilles Malroux, a man with a shady past and a strong reason to avoid the police. In the mayhem of the crash he is badly injured but to avoid capture by the police he swaps identity papers with one of the other victims of the impact. Gilles tries to flee in the dark but finds himself taken to the house of a woman he doesn't know but who calls him Davide.

Impulsive and intrepid psychotherapist, Juliet Grey, can't resist responding to an anonymous text message telling her to go to Hammersmith Bridge at dawn. But it isn't simply the dead body in the water that disturbs her, it's the way something uniquely personal to Juliet has been left on the corpse.

Elizabeth Thornton has every reason to want to escape from home — a ramshackle farm in the middle of nowhere on the wilds of Dartmoor. Since her father's death, she's been trapped here, in the clutches of her lascivious uncle. When a position opens up at Rosebank Hall, she jumps at the chance. She will be a domestic drudge at the beck and call of the house's cantankerous master.

When William the Conqueror wished to reward his armourer, he made him a grant of land - land worked by freemen and already belonging to a Saxon lord. But the men of the Conquest had no time for the niceties of land tenure and legal possession. Rolf, the armourer, hacked his way through the Saxon defiance and savagely claimed his royal bequest.

Edith Fairchild, deserted by her feckless husband, Benedict, eight years before, has established the thriving Spindrift artists' community by the sea and found deep and lasting love with Pascal. They have accepted that they cannot marry, but when Benedict returns unexpectedly to Spindrift House, all Edith and Pascal's secret hopes and dreams of a joyous life together are overturned. Benedict's arrival shatters the peaceful and creative atmosphere of the close-knit community.

When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel's familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder. Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can't return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can't trust them to find her sister's killer.

Having survived the deadly virus that endangered her new community, Quin is devastated to learn that the same sickness threatens The Beck. With Adams and his Shadow Patrol in charge, Cam and her friends are in mortal danger.

On a normal day, in a normal house, on a normal street, wife and mother Fran has had enough. She packs a case, leaves a note for her bullying husband, Pete, and one for her beloved 21-year-old son, Harry, and heads to the airport - and freedom. In another house, on another street, Helena is desperately baiting her husband, Jack, into a fight. These days it feels like the only way to get Jack to take notice of her. Passionate, volatile, increasingly fragile, Helena is fast running out of hope.

When nine-year-old orphan Georgia James is unexpectedly fostered by the kindly Celia and her bank manager husband, she can hardly believe her luck. But then - on her 15th birthday - she suffers the cruellest betrayal of all at the hands of her foster father and is forced to run away, leaving everything she loves behind.

I'm a protector of the ley lines, and I'm also the direct link to warlock magic. No wonder I'm amazingly amazing right now. Although, this amount of magic is making me shaky. Is any paranormal creature built to hold so much? Fighting the urge to use my magic every waking hour, I throw myself into the unfinished case of the Scottish mob coven and their poisoned drugs. My ignorance led me to believe I'd wrapped everything up with a bow. And yet, when our original culprit throws blame on the mob leader, we have to find evidence.

Since inheriting the link to the main source of warlock magic, the bounty on my head has quadrupled. If I don't find a way to disconnect from the powerful source, the warlocks will hunt me down. Banished to the city of Edinburgh for protection, I throw myself into a new case. Magic drugs are on the rise, and the agency is tasked in bringing down the coven responsible for pushing contaminated batches. But with a powerful witch mob leader protecting our culprit, we may run out of time. In an effort to prevent further deaths, I use my magic...and bring the warlocks back onto my trail.

When a friend is forced to consider a marriage of convenience, Lady Amelia Staunton is determined to rescue her. But her plans trap her in an illicit seduction, and Amelia must marry him herself. Malcolm's all-consuming kisses and devilish humor might make up for her lost freedom, but she believes he will force her to abandon the Gothic romances she yearns to write. Since she can't escape him, she must distract him from her secret.

The Hunted Witch Agency is hot on the heels of the leader of the witch slave trade. I'm determined to bring them down, even though they're closer to home than I realize. Gerard, the only male keeping me sane, is ready to put them down for good. Until I'm kidnapped. The witch who takes me has a personal vendetta. She can torture me all she likes, but she'll never make me give up my mission to end her enterprise. And her. I'm witch royalty, I'm a warlock disgrace. And now, I'm kidnapped. However, my magic is under control. For now. How long can I keep avoiding the inevitable?

If magic could kill, it would, or at least it would kill Devon Jinx. Half-warlock, half....well, it used to be half-witch, but I'm not so sure anymore. Ever since I defeated a powerful witch, my magic isn't what it used to be. And yet, I still hunt the ring leaders of the witch slave trade until a more unsavory plot appears. Gerard, my agent partner, works with me to unravel the mystery of the warlock and witch gatherings. Apparently, they want to do a lot more than party. They're prepared to create half-breeds, like me, to keep the warlock coven safe from the witches who threaten it.

Maddy fled the market town of Havenbury Magna three years ago, the scene of a traumatic incident she revisits most clearly in her dreams. Even so, when she is called back to help at the Havenbury Arms when her godfather, Patrick, suffers a heart attack, she is unprepared for the welter of emotions her return provokes. Psychologist and ex-army officer Ben finds himself falling for her. Then Maddy's mother, Helen, arrives, and Patrick himself must confront a few uncomfortable truths about his history and the pub's future.

Three years on from her fairy-tale country wedding to the deliciously handsome Charlie Wellbeloved, Bella's life is far from the 'happily ever after' she dreamed of. Now, heading for the big three-oh at horrifying speed she has gained a couple of stone from boredom and comfort eating, her fledgling interior design business is succumbing to infant mortality, she talks to her black Labrador Dolly more than she does her own husband, and now her close friend Maddy has announced that she's expecting a baby. How can Bella be happy for them when she pines for a family of her own?

December, and the river is rising. The village of Ledwardine has never been flooded in living memory. Within days it will be an island. There's no electricity. The church is serving as a temporary mortuary for two people who drowned. Only one man feels safer. An aggressively-atheist author has been moved, for his own safety, Rushdie-style, into a secluded house just outside the village. Fundamentalist Christians have hated him for years. Now he's offended the Muslims. Bad move.