Showing results by narrator "Jane McDowell" in All Categories

Some secrets hide in plain sight. Others are stolen in the dead of night... Flora Maguire has everything she could wish for—a beautiful Belgravia home, a devoted husband, and baby Arthur to dote on. But her perfect world is shattered when she accepts an invitation to tour St Philomena’s Children’s Hospital in poverty-stricken Southwark. The conditions are appalling, but the real horror lies in a chilling discovery: children are vanishing from the hospital.

Alba used to live a hectic life, working as a book publicist in Italy, and yet she always felt like a woman on the run. And so one day she decides to stop running and go back to Lucignana, the small village on the Tuscan hills where she was born, to open a tiny bookshop. Alba's enterprise seems doomed from day one but it surprisingly sparks the enthusiasm of many across Italy. And after surviving a fire and multiple COVID lockdowns, the 'Bookshop on the Hill' becomes a refuge for an ever-growing community of people

Naomi and I are best friends. School runs, dog walks, a shoulder to cry on over a glass of wine - we’re inseparable. But now my husband has walked out, I need her more than ever. I know she will help me pick up the pieces. Because she knows about the lie I told to protect her. She knows how much I’ve sacrificed for this friendship. And she’d never let anyone hurt me. Would she?

Patricia Wilson's carefully composed ads for the writers' retreat she runs at her 13th-century Italian castle promise so much. But while the splendour of their surroundings and chef Aldo's melanzane never fail to wow the guests, huge maintenance bills and bad news from the bank threaten to close Patricia down. It's make or break time for the Castello.

This isn't a midlife crisis, OK? For a start I'm not old enough yet to have one of those. I'm calling it a happiness project. I've stolen an entire summer from my life, and by the time it's over I plan to leave this place with a list in my hand. The ten things that make me happy, that's all I want to know. How difficult can it be? They may be small things - a perfect cup of coffee, a day without rain - or bigger ones. It's still the beginning, so how can I know?

Italy, 1932 - Mussolini's Italy is growing from strength to strength, but at what cost? One bright autumn morning, architect Isabella Berotti sits at a café in the vibrant centre of Bellina when a woman she's never met asks her to watch her 10-year-old daughter, just for a moment. Reluctantly Isabella agrees - and then watches in horror as the woman climbs to the top of the town's clock tower and steps over the edge.

Bicklebury is a small village of some 300 inhabitants, a church and a pub, but no shop, no school and certainly no crime - until two ex-cons decide it is the ideal location to pull a robbery. Derek Jarvis and his daughter, Hannah, are home when the two armed men break in, and Derek, fearing for their safety, urges Hannah not to resist. The tactic backfires as one of the men brutally attacks her, leaving her broken and revolted. Derek's marriage and his daughter are never the same again....

Each vanished cop is a clue, each cold case a piece of the puzzle, and for FBI Agent Riley Paige, deciphering the sinister pattern becomes personal when the trail hints at the return of a legendary serial predator. Paige must confront the shadows of her harrowing past to outwit this imitator—or mastermind—before the grip of history tightens around new victims.

*Shortlisted for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize* A Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year A New Yorker Book of the Year Some called it a craze. To others it was a cult. Join...

When the elite are found lifeless in lavish wine cellars, FBI Agent Riley Paige is tasked with decoding a murderous message hidden in the choice of vintage. Can she sift through the sediment of secrets before the social register becomes a hit list?

Perfect for fans of warm contemporary women's fiction from Jo Thomas and Adriana Trigiani, Nicky Pellegrino returns with a perfect summer listen. Janetta has never wanted to live a small, everyday sort of life. She's an adventurer, a food writer who travels the world visiting far-flung places and eating unusual things. Now she is about to embark on her biggest adventure yet - a relationship. She has fallen in love with an Italian man and is moving to live with him in Venice, where she will help him run his small guesthouse.

When Belle started writing to Enrico, she certainly wasn't looking to fall in love! Everything about his life in southern Italy is so different to hers - but somehow, across half the world, a magical friendship forms. And so, when Enrico signs off one of his messages, P.S. Come to Italy, Belle decides to follow her heart!

Assunta has given up on love. She might run her little trattoria in the most romantic mountain town in Italy, but love just seems to have passed her by. Sarah-Jane is finished with love. She's hiring an old convertible and driving around Italy this summer—it's the perfect way to forget all about her hot celebrity ex-boyfriend! But when Sarah-Jane's car breaks down in Montenello, she has to stay longer than she intended! And the trouble is, love is everywhere....

Lilith is the mythological seductress that has been repressed since Biblical times. She is the representative of the essentially motherless form of the feminine self that arose as an embodiment of the neglected and rejected aspects of the great goddess. Written by a Jungian analyst, this material can help modern men and women come to terms with this aspect of the feminine within.

1915. Japanese-occupied Korea. Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, longs to choose her own destiny. When her traditional father seeks to marry her into an aristocratic family, her mother defies generations of obedient wives and instead sends Najin to serve in the King's court as a companion to a young princess. But the King is assassinated, and the centuries-old dynastic culture comes to an end.

In her final year at Thornhaven, Faye Wilderpath emerges as one of their most promising warriors. She uncovers a long-buried secret about the academy's founding and the true nature of Fluxbeasts, a secret that could turn the tide against the Netherkin. As she prepares for her final trial, the solo Netherkin Hunt, Faye must reconcile her desire for vengeance with her duty to protect—as well as her love for not one but two men in her life. The fate of Thornhaven, her loved ones, and possibly the entire world hangs in the balance as Faye faces her ultimate challenge.

As Thornhaven becomes the nexus of an ancient prophecy, Faye Wilderpath must rally her allies and master new magics that blend worlds to defend against the encroaching darkness. With the first brutal assault from the Ancient Ones looming, will Faye's untested forces rise to meet the true horror of their power, or will their sanctuary crumble beneath the shadow of forgotten gods?

My heart is less than 1% of my body, it weighs hardly anything; it's only a tiny piece of me, yet it's the part Helen finds most interesting. Once it was inside her body, a tiny piece of the son she gave birth to. Now her boy is gone and his heart is keeping me alive. Born with a heart defect, Vivienne Clark's life was saved by a transplant. Now a journalist, she doesn't allow herself to think about the donor, the boy who died so she could live; she can't bear to.

Not until she was 16 did Stella Arnold learn the full truth about her father, how handsome, charming James turned out to be a cold-blooded, psychotic extortionist, racketeer and killer. Knowing now what her father was capable of, she decides to study psychology and the criminal mind, and to...

Rome in the 1950s, there's nowhere quite like it. The narrow stone streets, the fountains and piazzas full of life in the heat of the day, the cafes and bars full of music and desire by night. This is where Serafina calls home. Having grown up with her sisters in a tiny apartment tucked in the top of a tumbledown building, she has watched her mother get by on next to nothing, and turn herself beautiful with a sweep of eyeliner and a hand-sewn dress.