Showing results by publisher "Orion" in Literature & Fiction

Marguerite had been living a comfortable but dull existence in a suburban town with her straitlaced lawyer husband. When he dies, she realises that life has passed her by. Marcel had been in a loving relationship with Nora since they left Algeria 60 years before. Now that he has lost her, he has lost his way. Marguerite and Marcel live in two very different worlds - one rich, one poor. They never should have met. And yet their paths cross at a retreat, and a connection forms....

'Are you waiting for Monsieur Bellivier, madame?' Helena Folasadu should of course say no. She doesn't know the man talking to her, she doesn't know Monsieur Bellivier, and she certainly isn't waiting for him. But, bored of life, and sparked by a whim, she says yes. The go-between leads her to a deserted floor in an office building and offers her a large sum of money to sit at a computer and forward emails to Monsieur Bellivier.

Billy Shaw lives in a palace. Potter's Pleasure Palace, the best entertainment venue in Yorkshire, complete with dancing and swing-boats and picnickers and a roller-skating rink. Jasper Harper lives in the big house above the valley, with his eccentric mother, Edie, and Uncle Charles, brother and sister authors who have come from London to write in the seclusion of the moors. When it is arranged for Billy to become Jasper's companion, Billy arrives to find a wild, peculiar boy in a curiously haphazard household.

After caring for his mother in her last days, Alex has gone off round the world - with no plan other than to travel and maybe recapture some of his lost youth. Beginning his travels in Indonesia, the idea of finding himself sounds appealing...but soon he finds himself in real trouble. It starts with a bus crash on a terrifying mountain road. Lucky to escape with his life, Alex loses everything else - even his identity. But then he meets Domino, a beautiful girl who takes Alex under her wing.

Heathcote, England, 1984. A mysterious figure is sneaking into homes through backdoors and open windows. Known locally as 'the Fox', he knows everything about everyone, leaving curious objects in their homes or taking things from them. When beloved Anna disappears, everyone believes the Fox is responsible. For the villagers, finding Anna will be difficult - but stopping the Fox from exposing their darkest secrets might just be impossible.

During the oppressive heat wave of 1976, a young journalist, Ed Peters, finds an Edwardian photograph in a junk shop in the Brighton Lanes. It shows an alluring dark-haired girl, an actress whose name was Leda Grey. Leda Grey is living still, in a decaying clifftop house once shared with a man called Charles Beauvois, a director of early silent film. As Beauvois' lover and his muse, Leda often starred in scenes where stage magic and trick photography were used to astonishing effect.

The second in a trilogy of World War Two sagas featuring Evie, a new teacher in a Devon primary school, and a supporting cast of characters destined to become as familiar as old friends. After having her heart broken not once but twice, Evie has sworn off men and is putting her energy into her now more permanent job as a teacher at the village school.

England, 1911. Reverend Albert Canning, a vicar with a passion for spiritualism - and his naive wife, Hester - led a happy existence in the sleepy parish of Cold Ash Holt, Berkshire. As summer dawns, their quiet lives are changed forever by two new arrivals. First comes Cat, the new maid; a free-spirited and disaffected young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the suffragette movement and with the law.

Newly married to dashing RAF officer Tom, Irene Farley leaves behind her safe countryside life to move in with his family by the docks in South Shields. Little prepares her for the devastation the Jerry bombers have wreaked on the Sixteen Streets or that they would be living under her mother-in-law's roof, alongside Tom's three brothers and two wives!

The island has a way of calling you home.... Ten years ago, Emily Watson was on top of the world: a best-selling novel, a husband plucked from the pages of a magazine, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after. Now her perfect life has crumbled, and Emily is left to pick up the pieces. So when her great-Aunt Bee invites her to spend the month of March on her beloved Bainbridge Island, Emily accepts, longing to be healed by the sea.

1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, good night and leaves with a heavy heart to work the night-shift at a local hotel. The next morning she emerges to discover an unseasonable snowfall has blanketed the city, and her son has vanished. Outside their home, she finds his beloved teddy bear lying face-down on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks, or the perpetrator's.

When 18-year-old Joshua Mayo takes a man's life in a terrible accident, he leaves the scene without reporting the crime to the police. He hopes to put the awful night behind him and move on with his life. But, of course, he ends up telling his mother, Karen, what happened. Karen has raised Joshua on her own in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - and she'd thought they'd finally made it. He was doing well in school and was only months away from starting college at his dream school. After hearing his dark confession, she's forced to make a choice no parent should have to make.

Gary Foster's life is finally heading in the right direction. After years of trying, his wife, Beth, is pregnant, and he recently opened a business with his brother. But one phone call changes everything. After collapsing suddenly, Beth is rushed to the hospital. Tests reveal a devastating diagnosis: an inoperable brain tumour. Their only hope is an expensive experimental treatment available abroad, with a cost that's out of their reach. And Beth's time is running out.

Can friendship save them in their time of need? A heart-warming World War Two family saga of friendship and hope in the face of adversity, perfect for fans of Maureen Lee and Lyn Andrews.

What if your best days ever happened when you were 11? It's not easy being the only cast member of a 1990s song-and-dance show who didn't become famous. When Holly Danner was 11, she used to do anything for a laugh on Diego and the Lion's Den. Only for her childhood best friends to grow up and dominate the worlds of pop, film, and TV while she had a few near misses and a nanny gig for her niece. She even made peace with the whole thing years ago. But when she finds out there's a 25th anniversary for the show and she wasn't invited, it's time to set the record straight.

When Lily Bell is sold by her father to a Professor of Ghosts to settle a bad debt, she thinks she is about to hit the London stage as an actress. But little does she know that the professor intends her to be his very own ghost, part of an elaborate illusion for a fascinated audience. Obsessed with perfection, the professor covers all bases to ensure his illusion is realistic and when Lily comes across her own obituary in the paper and then her own headstone in the cemetery, she soon realises that she is trapped, her parents think she is dead and soon her fate is to become even darker.

Your partner has had a mysterious accident, leaving them with no memory. They don't remember anything: how you met, your first kiss, not even your wedding day. An experimental medical treatment promises a cure. A chance to relive the memories. Going through with it might bring you back together. But discovering the truth about the accident will tear you apart. Do you walk away? Or open Pandora's box?

Ever wanted to get away from it all...? Wanda lives in the middle of nowhere. On a farm on the edge of a hill that's not quite high enough to be a proper mountain, in a little village that's seen better days. She's always dreamed of escaping, of travelling the world, but life has got in the way. When her mother ends up in hospital and her sister is preoccupied and pregnant with twins, Wanda has to take responsibility for the farm and the campsite on its green fields.

When struggling photojournalist Harper tries to return a dress she bought that morning for a job that's fallen through something catches her eye: the same little girl who was waiting there that morning is still there. The sales assistant doesn't know whose she is. The security guard at the mall hasn't had anyone come looking for her. Same goes for the local police, and the media. In fact, no one seems to be looking for little May at all....

Her grandmother's final words are just the first chapter. Catriona Robinson - the country's most beloved children's author - worries about her granddaughter, Emily. Ever since the car crash that claimed both her parents' lives and left her with life-changing injuries, Emily has been voluntarily mute and refuses to leave the house. When her grandmother dies unexpectedly, Emily is in danger of retreating from the world even further. But Catriona was always too cunning to ever let that happen....