Showing results by narrator "Prendergast Colleen" in All Categories

When single mum Ruth has a brief fling with Rob, she's mortified to discover that he lied to her. He lied to her, because he's married. Worse still, he's the husband of Janine, head of the PTA at the primary school where Ruth works as secretary, and when the truth of their fling is discovered, Ruth suddenly has a lot of enemies at the school gates. Threatening texts begin to arrive, rumours abound and the staff room becomes hostile.

A missing boy. A missing book. A missing husband. A woman who must find them all to find herself. On the night Bernadette finally has the courage to tell her domineering husband that she's leaving, he doesn't come home. Neither does Conor, the little boy she's befriended for the past five years. Also missing is his lifebook, the only thing that holds the answers.

It all started with the email. Rachel didn't even mean to look. She loves Jack, and she's pregnant with their child. She trusts him. But now she's seen it, she can't undo that moment. Or the chain of events it has set in motion. Why has Jack been lying about his past? Just what exactly is he hiding? And doesn't Rachel have a right to know the truth at any cost?

Halifax, 1876. On the death of her mother and sister, Isabelle Gibson is left to fend for herself and her brother in a privately run workhouse. After the matron's son attacks her, Isabelle decides to escape by agreeing to marry a farmer she has never met. But Farrell is a drunkard and in constant feud with his landlord, Ethan Harrington. When he deserts her, Isabelle and Ethan are thrown together. But both are married and must hide their growing love.

Mara lives with her father in a drought-stricken village, where rain comes at a price controlled by powerful cloud-makers. Without enough water, the village crops, animals and people will continue to suffer. When Mara’s father’s illness takes a turn for the worse, she sneaks to The Cloud Factory in the hopes a healthy cloud will help him. But stealing a cloud isn’t simple, as Mara soon finds – and she begins to discover the secrets behind The Cloud Factory.

London has not been kind to Lottie Allbright. Realising it’s time to cut and run, she packs up and moves back home - but finds her family in disarray. In need of a new place to stay, Lottie takes up the offer of a live-in job managing a local vineyard. There’s a lot to learn - she didn’t even know grapes could grow so far north! Butterworth Wines in the rolling Derbyshire hills has always been run on love and passion, but a tragic death has left everyone at a loss. Widowed Betsy is trying to keep the place afloat but is harbouring a debilitating secret.

Molly McKenzie is only eleven years old when her abusive father beats her to within an inch of her life. Escaping from the hovel she calls home, Molly is found by kind fisherfolk, sick and near death. With them she experiences the love of a family for the first time and, even though life is hard, she is content. Time passes and Molly’s looking ahead to a future with the boy she loves, but then a terrible tragedy rips her life apart. Once again she’s cast adrift in an uncaring world, but Molly is made of stern stuff and is determined to survive.

A takeaway, TV and tea with two sugars is about as exciting as it gets for 30-something Sophie Stone. Sophie's life is safe and predictable, which is just the way she likes it, thank you very much. But when a mysterious benefactor leaves her an inheritance, Sophie has to accept that change is afoot. There is one big catch: in order to inherit, Sophie must agree to meet the father she has never seen. Saying yes means the chance to build her own dream home, but she'll also have to face the past and hear some uncomfortable truths....

Parenting may be our most important and rewarding task, yet dealing with the everyday pressures of family life is a constant challenge. Mindfulness is the number-one tool for staying present and calm amidst the chaos. So how can we parents be more mindful when raising our children? In this personal yet extremely practical guide, Amber Hatch will show you what mindfulness is, how you do it and how it will help you rise to the challenges of parenthood.

Holly Evans and her over-protective mother, Josie, are living a hand-to-mouth existence, moving constantly from one squalid dump to the next. When they move into an illegally sub-let council flat in Manchester’s rough Lansdowne Estate, Holly finally feels settled for the first time in her life - even if she is forbidden to go out, or even open the front door to callers when her mum’s at work due to fear of eviction. Increasingly cut off from friends at school, she soon feels isolated and alone in the world.

This is how it begins. Lone women terrorised and their helpless families forced to watch - in a sick game where only one player knows the rules. And when those rules change, the new game is Murder. Living with her parents in the dank beach community of Limeburn, ten-year-old Ruby Trick has her own fears. Bullies on the school bus, the forest crowding her house into the sea, and the threat of divorce. Helping her Daddy to catch the killer might be the key to keeping him close. As long as the killer doesn't catch her first...

Down a winding lane lined with honeysuckle and wild flowers, there’s a beautiful orchard beside the rushing River Wye. There, in a little farmhouse in the furthest corner, a young woman has a difficult and life-changing decision to make... Life on Appleyard Farm is all Freya Sherbourne has ever known. Having spent her childhood playing between the blossom-heavy apple trees, Freya can’t imagine calling anywhere else home. But times have been hard since her father’s sudden death, and now that she’s being forced to put the farm up for sale, her world is about to come crashing down.

Someone had once told Emma Molinero, the daughter of an itinerant carnival performer, that she was made for trouble. Her earliest memories were of life with a travelling show - part fair and part circus - that toured the shires at the dawn of the Victorian era. But at the age of seven she found herself an orphan who, in accordance with her Spanish father's dying wishes, must now leave the warm and friendly community to live with an unknown English grandmother far to the north in County Durham. With her she took the whips and knives used with such dexterity by her father for his act.

When a health scare forces Orla, 29, to move in with her secretive father, she decides it's time to swap family drama for sun-soaked Greek beaches. After checking into a charming B&B, she realises the turquoise sea isn't the only eye-catching sight. Her neighbour, brooding writer Georgios, is in dire need of inspiration – and Orla seems to be the muse he's been waiting for. But over candlelit dinners and Greek wine, he persuades Orla to share her past. As soon as she does, however, Georgios abruptly ends their rendezvous.

A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years.

The second instalment in the thrilling middle-grade Emily Lime Mystery series by best-selling author Dave Shelton! It's a new term at St Rita's School for Spirited Girls and there are new mysteries for Emily, Daphne and George to solve! Who has stolen a painting from Pilkington Art Gallery? (And why? It’s not even a very good one!) How can they get rid of a new headmistress who threatens the very future of the library? And why are there cows all over the sports field? Expect the unexpected as Emily Lime investigates!

Stranded on the outskirts of Ironopolis, nickname to a lost industrial Middlesbrough, the Burn Council Estate is about to be torn down to make way for regeneration. For the future... But these streets know many stories, some hide secrets... Jean holds the key to the disappearance of a famous artist... Jim's youth is shattered during the euphoric raves of '89... A brutal boyhood prank scars three generations of Frank's family... Corina's gambling addiction costs her far more than money....

1867: Nicola Douglas attends a lecture given by Miss Maria Rye, the founder of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, which inspires her to change her life. With no family, but a good education, she boards a ship to Australia with high hopes of a fresh start in a new country as a governess. Sydney is full of young women with similar ambitions and poor prospects - but when a wealthy benefactor appears, she finds a foothold. What she never anticipated was the attention of two suitors: Nathaniel, a privileged and attractive English gentleman; and Hilton, a beguiling American.

Sheffield, 1892. Patrick Halliday rules his family with a rod of iron. He’s hard on both his wife and his elder daughter, Flora, but he spoils his youngest, Mary Ellen, because she reminds him of his beloved mother. When Mary Ellen, aged seventeen, finds that she is pregnant, Patrick throws her out of the family home and Flora goes with her. After wandering the Derbyshire countryside for miles, they find shelter on a farm, working for their keep. When Flora must return to her job as a buffer girl in Sheffield’s cutlery trade, she is reunited with her friend, Evelyn Bonsor.

When Alexis ‘Lexi’ James falls out with her best mate Nicole over ‘bad boy’ Ryan King, it’s just the beginning of a chain of events that go from bad to worse to deadly. Returning home one night to her high-rise flat, she is faced by a terrifying scene that changes her life forever, and matters are made worse when she is put into care in another town. Years later, Lexi has left school and is back in Manchester. A chance meeting with Nicole and her so-called ‘other half’ Ryan ends in disaster, and she vows never to see them again.