Showing results by narrator "Sarah Lambie" in All Categories

Seventy-seven-year-old Dorothy Darling has lived in Shelley House longer than any of the other residents, and if you take their word for it, she’s as cantankerous as they come. But Dorothy has her reasons for spying. And none of them require justifying herself to Kat Bennett. Twenty-five-year-old Kat has never known a place where she felt truly at home, and crumbling Shelley House is no different. Her neighbors find her prickly and unapproachable, but beneath her tough exterior, Kat’s plagued by a guilty secret from her past.

Despite the arranged marriages of her two sisters ending in misery, the Duke of Cumberworth insists that his beautiful daughter, Lady "Ila" Lavinia marries the rich and aristocratic Marquis of Rakemoore, his most serious rival at Race Meetings. Ila is appalled. Not only is she determined to marry for love, but she hears that the Marquis is only asking for her hand to avoid an arranged marriage to a German Princess. She decides to run away. Fleeing through the woods near her home, Ila witnesses a young boy being dragged away by his spooked pony and heading towards a cliff edge.

Imperious, handsome and gallant in battle, the Duke of Kingswood has stolen the hearts of many society belles but he is determined never to marry. To continue the family line, he is counting on his cousin and heir presumptive, Richard, to marry well and produce a son. To the Duke’s horror, Richard falls for society siren and acclaimed beauty Lady Delyth Maulden and disaster turns to tragedy when Richard finds his beloved in the arms of another, shoots him and turns his gun on himself.

The murders have begun. Across England, a string of murders is taking place. Each different in method, but each horrifying and brutal. Jess Ambrose is plunged into the investigation when her house is set ablaze. With her husband dead and the police pointing at her, she runs. Her only hope is disgraced detective Nate Griffin, who is convinced Jess is innocent. Soon, Jess and Griffin discover the unthinkable: this murderer is copying the world’s most notorious serial killers. And now, imitation isn’t enough. The killer dubbed the Echo Man is ready to create his own masterpiece.

The dashing Duke of Selchester is on his way to visit Lord Upminster at Copple Hall when a stagecoach crashes into his own travelling carriage, buckling its wheel. Worse still, his beloved pedigree stallion, Salamanca, needs re-shoeing. Arriving on foot at the nearest village, he finds a beautiful Verena Winchcombe, who agrees to take him to the local blacksmith. It transpires that she has been awaiting the arrival of someone she calls 'the Odious Duke', who is due at Copple Hall.

Julia Blythe is starting again. After blowing the whistle on a fellow surgeon at her hospital, resulting in him being let go, she found herself illegally bullied from the job by her male colleagues who closed ranks against her. No longer willing to endure their campaign of smears and intimidation, she packs her family up and moves to Devon, to start a new life in a new hospital. To Nathan Sloan, who abuses his role as a surgeon as fully and freely as he can, she couldn’t be more perfect.

Comforted by the gentle hum of the beehives at the bottom of the garden, Grace drains the last of her tea and walks slowly back towards the little hillside house she adores. Her marriage is over, but is it too late to start her life again? Beekeeper Grace thought throwing out her cheating husband would be the hardest thing she ever did. But when she opens the door to a property developer one morning, it’s clear that keeping her beautiful home and garden – her only sanctuary throughout her miserable marriage – will be the greatest challenge of all.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë—the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist—is a true classic. It transports us with a deft hand straight into 19th-century Haworth, Yorkshire and crafts an extensive account of Brontë’s life, quoting throughout from letters she sent and received. From her challenging, isolated childhood to her death shortly before the age of 39, newly married and pregnant, the enigmatic author of Jane Eyre is portrayed with enormous care.

Deep underground, 39 women are kept in isolation in a cage. Aboveground, a world awaits. Has it been abandoned? Devastated by a virus? Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time and only vague recollection of their lives before. But, as the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the 40th prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them aboveground.

Daydreamer and book-lover, Zosina, the eldest daughter of the Archduke Ferdinand of Blitzstein, is reluctantly obedient when her father announces that she must marry King Gorgy of neighbouring Dorsa to create an alliance between the two nations. On her first visit to Dorsa, Zosina is greeted by the beguiling and handsome Prince Regent. By contrast, her betrothed, the King, is wild and disagreeable. For the sake of her people, Zosina must go ahead with the marriage with a hope that someone warmer hides beneath the King's hard exterior.

In August 1939, 30-year-old Hetty Cartwright arrives at Lockwood Manor to oversee a natural history museum collection whose contents have been taken out of London for safekeeping. She is unprepared for the scale of protecting her charges from party guests, wild animals, the elements, the tyrannical Major Lockwood and Luftwaffe bombs. Most of all, she is unprepared for the beautiful and haunted Lucy Lockwood.

It was meant to be a fun reunion, a chance for six friends to reconnect and relive the adventures that brought them together in the first place. But from the moment they arrive on their island home for the weekend, Lyndsey, Sonia, Bobbie, Amanda, Juliet and Val realise that their paradise is filled with peril and there are consequences when you try to outrun the ghosts of your past. As everything starts to fall apart and the friends begin to turn against one another, deep, dark secrets are revealed and an unimaginable horror is unleashed.

Tessa Keswick first travelled to China in 1982 and immediately fell in love with its history, culture and landscape. Over the next 30 years, she travelled extensively in China, visiting its temples and landmarks, the sites of its most famous battles and the birthplaces of its best-known poets and philosophers. She also witnessed China's transformation, as hundreds of millions were lifted out of poverty and the country emerged as an economic superpower in waiting.

The view across the valley takes her breath away; everywhere she looks tiny patches of colour – ochre, chestnut, lime and purple. The farmhouse behind her glows pink in the morning sun. Finally, Flora has the home of her dreams... but is she about to lose it? Free-spirited Flora Dunbar is heartbroken at the news that she must close down her beloved little flower shop on the high street. As she packs away her pretty pots and vases and locks the door for the very last time, the only spark of hope is an offer from Ned.

Travel agent Hester Monday has been keeping a secret. Thanks to her fear of flying, she hasn’t been on a plane in years. Now Hester wants to make a good impression on her newest client, Jake Oakenfield, who was heroically injured saving an old lady and is now laid up in a luxury hotel. For Jake, unable to return to New York, binge watching Netflix just won’t do. He wants Hester to invent the ultimate escape and re-create her most magical holidays abroad from the confines of his hotel room.

Kyra Cal’Adra has spent the last four years on the Main, living in exile from her home, her people, her lover and her past. A highblood commrach—the ancient race of the Isle, dedicated to tradition and the perfection of the blood—she’s welcome among the humans of the Main only for the skill of her rapier, her preternatural bladework. They don't care which of the gleaming towers she came from, nor that her grandmother is matriarch of one of Corso’s most powerful families.

Rachel's boyfriend Frank is different from other people. His strangeness is part of what she loves about him: his innocence, his intelligence, his passionate immersion in the music of JS Bach. As a coder, Frank sees patterns in everything, but as his theories slide further towards the irrational, Rachel becomes increasingly concerned for his wellbeing. There are people Frank knows online, people who share his view of the world and who insist he has a unique role to play. In spite of Rachel's fears for his safety, Frank is determined to meet them face to face.

32-year-old Iris is adrift: newly single, living at home with her mother and working a dead-end job. Her life changes when she meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives at a women's commune on a remote farm hidden in the Kent Downs. At the farm, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, under the leadership of the gargantuan Blythe. Drawn to Hazel and the possibility of a new start away from a world of men who have only let her down, Iris throws herself into this alternative way of life, seizing on new experiences and hidden desires.

Daisy Turner has worked at Buchanan’s Family Jewellers since the day she finally escaped her troubled home. With a unique talent for matching the perfect piece of jewellery to any romantic milestone, she painstakingly polishes each stunning creation every morning and safely locks them away each night, longing for the day she’ll have a love story to call her own... But everything changes one day in December when the owner announces she is retiring. She will leave the shop to whichever of her three sons creates the perfect piece of Christmas jewellery for Daisy.

When Leila Jones loses her precious charm bracelet and a stranger finds it, she has to tell the story of how she got the charms to prove she’s the owner. Each and every one is a precious memory of her life with Jake. So Leila starts at the beginning, recounting the charms and experiences that have led her to the present. A present she never could have expected when she met Jake nearly 20 years ago.