Showing results by narrator "Annie" in All Categories

If you can’t trust your family… A family at war. A mother who comes out fighting… Maureen Hutton’s life has never been easy. Married to an alcoholic and stuck on a council estate in East London, she scrimps and saves to bring up her three children alone. Murder, the underworld, drug...

The war is only into its second year, but already it has claimed one victim from the Adams family. Emily, Boots's cherished wife, has died in an air-raid, and the whole family mourns her. But for Polly Simms the prospect of a new life dawns, while the members of the younger generation who are in uniform, and doing their bit for king and country, have their own problems to contend with.

Spiteful and twisted, Bethany Johnson is a woman scorned. After spending the past 20 years exiled, she’s about to set foot on British soil, and there’s only one man in her sights, the man who once rejected her - Tommy Carter. Determined to make Tommy pay, Bethany will stop at nothing to get close to him again. But with his family and business interests in freefall, Tommy hasn’t got time to play Bethany’s warped games. But ignoring Bethany again could be Tommy’s biggest mistake, with devastating results for everyone.

From a tender age little Evie struggled . . . Evie spent her early years left outside on the step. With a drunk for a father and a neglectful mother, all little Evie has ever craved is a safe home and a normal existence. Her young eyes had seen so much but this never tainted her spirit. If it...

Lavender Road boasts a pawnbroker, a pub, two rows of terraced working class homes and, at one end, the big house owned by the local brewer. When war breaks out, the lives and fortunes of the families who live in Lavender Road are changed out of all recognition. For Joyce, it means a struggle to keep food on the family table; for Jen it may mean the end of her dream to become an actress; and for Pam, there is the sickening seesaw of emotions as she fights attraction to her handsome lodger and a growing distance from a husband who is judged not fit to enlist.

Bloodstone Academy is for strong, smart witches to hunt for their shifters, bond with them in the sacred forest, and fight with them in the war when they graduate. Only issue? Most students die from bonding, but that won't stop me. Every generation of my family went to Bloodstone Academy, and it's in my blood to thrive there. The witch war took my family, and I'm determined to help the Umbral Authority win. When I finally get the acceptance marking, I couldn't be happier until I walk through the gothic doors and slam straight into a tall, stunningly beautiful dragon shifter....

Excitement is running high in the Adams family. Mr Finch, after a long career in secret government work, is to be knighted - which means that Chinese Lady will become a real 'Lady'! What with having to find a new outfit suitable for the occasion, and worrying about whether she'll have to curtsey to the king, the redoubtable matriarch of the Adams family scarcely knows if she's coming or going.

June Dawson has come a long way from her rough East End background. She now lives in a nice little cul-de-sac in Rainham with her ultra-respectable husband and a lovely social life. But her world collapses when daughter Debbie announces that she is pregnant by her low-life drug addict boyfriend, Billy McDaid. June feels as though she is being sucked back into the world of villains and thugs she thought she had escaped forever.

A Mother Forever is the moving story of one woman's journey through the hardest trials of her life and how the love of friends and family pulls her through. From the bestselling author of The Woolworths Girls Elaine Everest, this book tells the tale of Ruby and how it all began . . . 1905: Ruby...

For Rose Lucas, a spirited, intelligent girl born into a large family in the slums of pre-war Birmingham, life is hard. But through her friendship with Diana, daughter of a vicar from middle-class Moseley, she learns to aspire to a different and better existence. But life seldom follows dreams, and after losing a love she has fought hard for, and after travelling in Italy, she returns to Birmingham with her hopes shattered. But Rose's powerful spirit will not be defeated.

Torn between two nations, she will risk everything Seventeen-year-old Elise Bouchard has always called Northern France home. But when her English father, Sidney Cooper, is captured by the Nazis, her world is shattered. Fearing for her safety, Elise is forced to abandon the only life she has ever...

Anna Craven grew up captivated by stories of her mother's childhood in Birmingham and of Kate's friend, Olivia. Theirs was a magical friendship and Anna always regretted that, with Olivia's tragic death during the war, she would never meet the woman her mother loved so deeply. But when Kate dies, she leaves her daughter one final story: the whole truth of her life with Olivia Kemp. Anna is shocked to discover how little she really knew about the mother with whom she once felt so close.

When 12 year-old Jared Johnson’s little sister dies, just hours after his mother breathes her last after wasting away so her children could eat, he knows he is on own. Desperate to avoid the workhouse, he does everything he can to survive the inhospitable streets of Birmingham. Jared is blessed with the gift of the gab and soon attracts the attention of the King of the Tatters, Toby McGuire. Recognising a kindred spirit, Toby soon has Jared out on a cart hustling for rags.

1940 - Small Heath, in the heart of Birmingham, is facing the darkest days of the war. Two very different girls from this tight-knit community join up as ARP wardens to do their bit for the Home Front. Violet Simms lives with her controlling, widowed mother who runs the local pawn shop. At just...

The heartwarming historical novel from Sunday Times bestseller, Dilly Court It’s Christmas Eve. Flurries of snow fall on the cobbled streets of Whitechapel and an abandoned baby, swaddled in a blanket, is found on a doorstep in Angel Lane . . . Named after the street on which she was found...

The 1950s are in full swing, and the Adams family is blessed with many new additions. Chinese Lady now has so many grandchildren that even she can sometimes scarcely remember them all. Boots and Sammy are kept up-to-date by the Adams youngsters, some of whom are now working in the family business. But they also welcome newcomers, including the lovely Anneliese, whose German ancestry makes her less than popular with some of her South London neighbours, and Joe and Hortense, newly arrived from the West Indies and working hard for Matt and Rosie on their farm in Kent.

With the odds stacked against her, Samantha Reynold is determined to prove she’s tough enough to be the boss. But when a secret from the past threatens to ruin Sam’s reputation, she suddenly feels very alone in this dark new world. There’s only one man she can turn to—rival club owner, Sebastian Stoker. Seb knows first-hand how secrets and lies can tear a family apart. He wants to protect Sam at all costs, but siding with her could threaten his own position as head of the Stoker family and risk accusations of betrayal.

A Brand New Gripping, Gangland Thriller from Kerry Kaya

As the 1950s progress, several unexpected happenings ruffle the usually calm atmosphere of Adams family life. Sammy and Boots are troubled by the first stirrings of industrial unrest, as the unions start to flex their muscles and old loyalties change, while an attractive new employee causes Sammy some troubles of a different kind.

Sienna Nealon is a broken human being. Her lover is dead, her closest friends have deserted her, and her employers have betrayed her. From the ashes of her desperation, she must master the metahuman powers at her command and finally tame the souls that share her body for one ultimate purpose - revenge against the ones who destroyed her life.