Showing results by narrator "Juanita McMahon" in All Categories

Set in and around the women's prison at Milbank in the 1870's, Affinity is an eerie and utterly compelling ghost story, a complex and intriguing literary mystery, and a poignant love story with an unexpected twist in the tale. Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London's most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers, and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prison's more unlikely inmates.

Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date – the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace. Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman – door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body.

A stunning story of loss, love and the summer that changed everything from the number one best-selling author of Songs of Love and War. 1958. Celestria, the charismatic daughter of an aristocratic family, lives in Pendrift Hall, a pale stone mansion with gardens that tumble down to the Cornish sea. It is summer, and the weeks ahead hold the promise of self-discovery and the thrilling possibility of illicit love affairs.

The class of ’72, Sara, Ally, Jo and Mitch were as close as sisters, then life intervened and the four friends lost touch. Now in her 60s, Sara has realised - late in the day - that those women were the best friends she’d ever had and is determined to get the gang back together. Ally is facing a huge turning point in her life and Jo, after years of being chief cook and bottle washer, needs to put herself first after a wake-up call. None of them know what happened to Mitch.

As dusk falls, a young man staggers through a park, far from home, bleeding from a stab wound. He dies where he falls, cradled by a stranger, a woman's name on his lips in his last seconds of life. DI Manon Bradshaw can't help taking an interest - these days she handles only cold cases, but the man died just yards from the police station where she works. She's horrified to discover that both victim and prime suspect are more closely linked to her than she could have imagined.

Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the magnificent Tuscan villa near her village. When the owner’s son invites her inside, Floriana knows that her destiny is there, with him. But as they grow up, things begin to change. Miles away on the Devon coastline, Marina’s hotel has fallen on hard times. The arrival of Rafael Santoro, artist-in-residence, seems to bring peace in Marina’s family. But Rafa is not who he seems....

A young man is found hanging from a tree, with nothing to identify him. Was he driven to suicide, or was he silenced? Somebody knows, but they’re not saying. With potential witnesses too scared to talk to her, can DI Manon Bradshaw discover the truth before more innocent people die?

Federica is moved from Chile to Cornwall when her parents separate, and all she has left of the relationship she cherished with her father is a wooden box, which has a secret beauty hidden within. Swiftly embraced into the eccentric Appleby family, it isn’t long before Federica falls for her friend’s older brother, Sam, who barely notices the little girl until it is too late. Years later, from the sanctuary of a seemingly perfect marriage, Federica embarks on a painful journey of self-discovery. Will she finally learn the true lesson of the butterfly box?

The war has ended, and Rita Fairweather is waiting for George Bolton, her childhood sweetheart, to return home to Devon. She wants their future to be a continuing reassurance of their past. But George comes back as a man changed by the horrors he has experienced. Unable to settle back into a small-town life, George decides to travel to Argentina. And Rita promises to wait. But George faces irresistible temptation and an agonising choice. As the years pass, Rita keeps her word, but how long should she wait for the love of the life?

She hardly knew her Italian mother, and her English father acts as if Valentina never existed. She despises country life almost as much as she despises her stepmother and stepsisters. On board the houseboat named after her dead mother, Alba's life is little more than a selfish search for fun and pleasure. But the discovery of her mother's portrait sends the girl back to Italy to find her family - and the truth about Valentina.

In 1960s Marrakech a young girl travels to meet her estranged grandmother. Vicky Baudin steps on to the train through Morocco looking for the truth about the woman who gave her father up for adoption decades before. Clemence Petier lives in a kasbah on the edge of the Atlas Mountains, her background shrouded in mystery. But the past holds secrets that threaten them both. A face from Clemence’s childhood threatens to expose everything she has built a life to hide.

You follow the hidden creek towards a long-forgotten house. They call it Keepsake, a place full of wonder...and danger. Locked inside the crumbling elegance of its walls lies the story of the Butterfly Summer, a story you've been waiting all your life to hear. This house is Nina Parr's birthright. It holds the truth about her family - and a chance to put everything right at last.

A seaside holiday at Shell Cottage in Devon has always been the perfect escape for the Tarrant family. But this year everything has changed. Following her husband's recent death, Olivia is struggling to pick up the pieces. Harriet's looking forward to a break with her lovely husband, Robert, and teenage daughter, Molly. But unknown to Harriet, Robert is hiding a secret - and so, for that matter, is Molly....

Gina is starting her life again, after a difficult few years she'd rather forget. But the belongings she's treasured for so long just don't seem to fit who she is now. So Gina makes a resolution. She'll keep just a hundred items - the rest can go. But that means coming to terms with her past and learning to embrace the future, whatever it might bring…

Laura Hamley has everything: a loving and successful husband, two children and an expensive home. But then she receives a phone call from the mother of a girl Laura bullied at school. As Laura is drawn into the past, she is forced to face the consequences of her cruelty. But, as her secrets are revealed, so too is an even more devastating truth....

The brand new thriller from the award-winning crimewriter. 'Death is a hollow drum whose beat has measured out my adult life.' So writes Jay Macallan Stewart in her latest volume of memoirs. But nobody has ever asked whether that has been by accident or design. Nobody, that is, until Jay turns her sights on newly-wed and freshly-widowed Magda Newsam. For Magda's mother Corinna is an Oxford don who knows enough of Jay's history to be very afraid indeed...

You can't bury the truth forever.... Derbyshire, January 1978. Two girls go missing: Rachel Jones returns, Sophie Jenkins is never found. Thirty years later, Sophie Jenkins' mother commits suicide. Rachel Jones has tried to put the past behind her. But news of the suicide reopens old wounds, and Rachel realises that the only way she can have a future is to finally discover what really happened all those years ago.

Audrey Garnet lives a sheltered life in the exclusive Argentinian community of Hurlingham. That is, until Cecil and Louis Forrester arrive, travelling from England to make their fortunes. Admired by all for her beauty and grace, Audrey quickly catches the eyes of both brothers, but it is talented-but-troubled outsider Louis with his musical flair whom she is drawn to most. Cecil, however, is a better match – a decorated war hero who has charmed the entire community, including Audrey’s parents, forcing Audrey to keep her true feelings a secret.

There is one great love in everyone's life. For Ducky, Princess Victoria Melita, hers was a Romanov cousin, a member of the doomed Russian royal family. Her father is Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son. Her mother is Grand Duchess Marie, the daughter of Tsar Alexander III. Ducky seems doomed to be a pawn on her grandmother's dynastic chessboard. But Ducky is not so easily controlled.

Jane Berry has always dreamed of moving to the country. When she uproots her family and takes them to live in a rural paradise, at first it all seems perfect. But when her marriage comes under pressure the dream starts to fall apart and Jane finds her life spiralling out of control. Then one night a line is crossed that threatens to ruin her and her family forever.