Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Strevens" in All Categories

1925. London's fashionable Bright Young Things have descended on Wychbourne Court, the Kentish stately home of Lord and Lady Ansley, for an extravagant fancy dress ball and midnight Ghost Hunt. Chef Nell Drury knows she's in for a busy weekend - but she doesn't expect to encounter sudden, violent death. When a body is discovered in the minstrels' gallery during the Ghost Hunt, Nell is determined to unmask the killer among them. Could the Wychbourne Ghosts hold the key to the mystery?

From the instant his fingers touched her back the little cat knew. The boy was someone she would trust. Homeless and hungry, Magnificat is desperate for someone to take her in, so when she sees a kindness in local boy Ben, she is happy to give herself over to him. But a cat isn’t something Ben wants. He’s got enough problems with a prickly relationship with his mum and an absent father; besides, he’s a dog person. He wants an exuberant, loyal, doting companion, not a gentle, self-contained cat.

Vita longs to write plays and poetry - but as a high-born girl in Roman Londinium, her fate is sealed: marriage and children. Then her father is murdered, her mother and brother disappear, and Vita flees from a shadowy enemy. Disguised as a slave at the gladiators' arena, she forges an unlikely bond with Brea, a native Briton gladiatrix - and her wolf. Together, they resolve to discover and bring the killer to justice before Vita's identity is revealed.

At the time of his death Eric Hobsbawm was the most famous historian in the world. He not only wrote history was also witness to it, from the Communist uprising in Europe to revolution in Cuba where he was Che Guevara's interpreter. He was instrumental in the birth of New Labour and was also a jazz journalist for The New Statesman.

Mayfair, 1910. At the age of 90, Florence Nightingale is frail and no longer of sound mind. After a celebrated career as a nurse, writer and statistician, she now leads a reclusive existence. One summer evening she is astonished to receive a visitor – a young man named Silas Bradley, who claims to have met her during the Crimean War 55 years ago. But how can this be? And how does the elusive Jean Frawley connect their two lives? Nightingale is a luminous tale of faith and love, bravery and care, and the vitality of women's work.

1926, Kent. Lady Ansley's old Gaiety Theatre group are reuniting at Wychbourne Court for the weekend to perform the Follies. But, as Chef Nell Drury observes, Lady Ansley is worried. And rightly so, for as the group of actors and actresses - from the pompous Hubert Jarrett to the dashing Neville Heydock - prepare to take the stage, simmering tensions, old scores, fears and buried memories begin to resurface. What happened to Mary Ann Darling, the young Gaiety actress who disappeared 30 years ago? As the performance draws to a close, the real drama is only just beginning....

In February 1887, Caitriona Wallace and Emile Nouguier meet in a hot air balloon, floating high above Paris. But back on firm ground, their vastly different social strata becomes clear. Cait is a widow, forced to chaperone two wealthy Scottish charges. Emile is expected to take on the bourgeois stability of his family's business and choose a suitable wife. As the Eiffel Tower rises, a marvel of steel and air and light, Cait and Emile must decide what their love is worth.

Shauna Vincent has just learned that the job she set her heart on has gone to a well-connected rival. Devastated, she accepts an offer from an old family friend, and soon Shauna is deep in the French countryside with endless hours to explore the magical landscape around her. But can the charming Laurent de Chemignac, owner of the local chateau, help her untangle the secret that this little French castle amongst the vines might be hiding?

Inspired by her uncle, Lisa Samson has communed with trees since her childhood. Tragically, a disease from mainland Europe now poses a very serious threat to the ash tree’s survival. Epitaph for the Ash explores how barren our landscape could become without the ash’s familiar branches...

London, 1941. Livy makes her way through Blitz-torn London to the Mirrormakers’ Club, the only place that makes her feels safe, where she finds herself drawn into the mystery of a missing diamond and torn between two men with competing claims on her. London, 1841. Charlotte is helped from the scene of an accident by a man who shows her a building he is working on and whose kindness unlocks a hope she has long kept buried. But that man is not her husband.

In 1939, a young girl sits alone in a station waiting room in Marseilles. Half-Jewish Ilse has been sent out of Nazi Germany to safety in Morocco by her mother. But her journey takes her back to France, where she cannot escape the Nazi occupation. Blown about by circumstances beyond her control, she must grow up alone in a demi-monde of refugees, whores and freedom fighters.

Sentenced to death for a simple confidence trick, Mary Jebb escapes the gallows...but her reprieve is harsh: seven years in the unforgiving penal colony of Botany Bay. Yet Mary is determined not to be forgotten, sending two pennies, engraved with a promise, to the two men who sealed her fate.

Your worst nightmare just went viral…After being involved in a severe car accident and a vicious roadside assault, Beth Jordan wakes briefly to discover a coach party of students recording the aftermath with their phones. Beth furiously attacks the crowd before being restrained and lapsing into a coma. When she wakes in hospital, Beth is horrified when she’s told the video clips have been shared online and that millions of people around the world have now seen the incident.

The first book about ten-year-old FRANKIE FOSTER – the girl who wants to help, but ends up causing chaos! Frankie Foster loves fixing people's problems. Her help might not always be welcome – and she might cause the odd total disaster – but Frankie always fixes things. Eventually! It all...

Wimbledon, England, 1889. When Theodore Crozier is found dead the neighbourhood hopes the cause may be suicide, if only to spare further pain for both his dutiful wife, Laura, and beloved brother, Titus. However, there is more to the matter - a whisper of murder.... Inspector John Joseph Lintott of Scotland Yard is sent in to investigate, and the further he delves into the mystery the more tangled it becomes. Is Laura the pious, meek wife she appears to be? Could the rumours be true about her unnatural relationship with Titus? Was Theodore Crozier murdered by someone in his household?

Chloe Canton has settled into life on the island, so when her friend Maria asks her to help with a celebrity wedding, Chloe is delighted. Reality TV stars Lara Turner and Eddie Bristol want a beach wedding and a golden horse, and Chloe is happy to oblige. But she is unprepared for the celebrity circus that surrounds them, or the unwelcome appearance of her ex-husband, Mark. No sooner have the happy couple arrived on the island than a body is found floating in the crystal ocean waters.

For two people who run competing arts centres in Cornwall, Sybill Helyer and Coren Penhaligon get on rather well. So well, in fact, that Sybill often wishes the owner of Pencradoc Arts Centre would look up from his spreadsheets for a minute and notice her. Unfortunately, even that is too much to ask from workaholic Coren. However, when the pair join forces to run an exhibition on the wild and wonderful life of Elsie Pencradoc, a talented artist who lived at Coren’s estate in the early 20th century, they’re in for a surprise.

When Lisa Blake’s life in London falls apart, she returns to her hometown rebranding herself as 'the purrfect pet sitter' - which may or may not be false advertising as she has a rather unfortunate habit of (temporarily) losing dogs! But being back where she grew up, Lisa can’t escape her past. There’s her estranged best friend Flick and her first love, Nathan Baker, who, considering their history, is sure to be surprised by her drunken Facebook friend request....

Ginnie Holmes has found something she never intended to find - an overwhelming passion for a man she should not be with. At an abandoned boathouse hidden on the riverbank of the Thames, Ginnie steps into a world that’s just a little bit brighter than her ordinary life. Then, in a single terrifying event, the lovers' secret becomes a deadly catastrophe, and Ginnie finds herself in the path of extraordinary danger.

When recently divorced Chloe Canton is gifted her grandmother’s house in Bermuda in her will, it seems a perfect time for a fresh start. Her chance at paradise comes with a rundown business, a neighbour who is putting pressure on her to sell up for development and another who quickly makes herself comfortable in Chloe’s house. Chloe discovers a dead body on the local riding trail soon after she arrives and finds herself dragged into a murder investigation.