Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Genre Fiction

Forensic investigator Reilly Steel is back in Florida, hoping that a relaxing stay at the home of her old FBI mentor, Daniel Forrest, will help her. But Reilly soon finds herself drawn into a local investigation, a gruesome murder where the body of a woman has literally been torn in two. And when another disturbing killing occurs, Reilly can't help but feel that she has come across something like this before. But where?

Emily Parker is set to have the worst Christmas ever! Her flatmate's moved out, she's closed her heart to love and she's been put in charge of the school original Christmas show - with zero musical ability. Disgraced superstar Ray Stone is in desperate need of a quick PR turnaround. Waking up from a drunken stupor to a class of 10-year-olds snapping pics and Emily looking at him was not what he had in mind. Ray needs Emily's help to delete the photos, and she needs his with the show. As they learn to work together they may just open their hearts to more than a second chance.

The town of Little Woodford seems peaceful and picture-postcard beautiful, with its marketplace, ancient church and immaculate allotments. But behind the tranquil facade, troubles are brewing. Olivia Lewthwaite, former town councillor, pillar of the WI and all-round busybody, has been forced by her husband's gambling debts to sell their house - her pride and joy. She hates the new estate they've moved to and knows she needs to humble herself to apply for a job.

Cullrothes, in the Scottish Highlands, where Innes hides a terrible secret from his girlfriend, Alice, a gorgeous, cheating, lying schoolteacher. In the same village, Donald is the aggressive distillery owner, who floods the country with narcotics alongside his single malt; when his son goes missing, he becomes haunted by an anonymous American investor intent on purchasing the Cullrothes Distillery by any means necessary. Schoolgirl Jessie is trying to get the grades to escape to the mainland, while Grandpa counts the days left in his life.

After the untimely death of their biological father, triplets Eva, Rosa and Hannah find themselves the unlikely owners of Heatherly Hall, the vast manor house overlooking their home village of Westenbury. But the beautiful house comes with almost as much baggage as it does land, not least high running costs and expectations. It's up to the sisters to find a way to keep Heatherly Hall going and, most importantly, in the family. But with drama in their private lives and secrets about to emerge, can the sisters stick together to focus on the task at hand?

Barely half of the Bomber Command's aircrews survive a full tour, but wireless operator Billy Angell has beaten the odds and completed his 30th - and final - mission. Now, Billy is due two-weeks leave, a posting to a training squadron and a six-month exemption from active duty. Except that MI5 need an airman to drop into Nazi-occupied France. MI5 are interested in Hélène Lafosse, a Frenchwoman keeping unusual company in her small family château in the depths of the Touraine.

On the goldfields of 19th-century Australia, two very different girls are trying to escape their past. Violet Hartley has fled from England after a scandalous liaison; now she is angling for a rich husband and a new life. Little Cat is fleeing from her home in Southern China after killing the powerful old man who tried to rape her. Disguised as a boy, she joins the huge Chinese workforce on the goldfields of Victoria. But the son of the murdered man is on her trail, intent on vengeance. Love, sexual desire, violence and financial ambition entwine in this mesmerising saga.

It’s 1:23 in the morning when Kate gets the call. News at this time is never good, but this call is one of the worst. A body has been found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Birmingham. It’s badly decomposed, but forensic psychologist Kate Hanson is sure she knows who it is. Nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Williams disappeared a year ago. She was a good student who simply vanished off the face of the earth.

When a factory girl and a Jewish businessman fall in love it seems that the whole world is against them. Manchester, 1939. On the eve of war Gracie Earnshaw is working in Rosenberg's Raincoat factory - a job she hates - but her life is about to be turned upside down when she falls in love with Jacob, the boss' charismatic nephew. Through Jacob, with his ambitions to be a writer, Gracie glimpses another world: theatre, music and prejudice. But their forbidden romance is cut short when Jacob is arrested and tragedy unfolds.

Sophie van Riijn needs access to the highest spot in her village to report accurate weather readings. Fascinated by Dierenpark, an abandoned mansion atop a windswept cliff, Sophie knows no better option despite a lack of permission from the absent owners. Quentin Vandermark intends to put an end to the rumours that have plagued his family by tearing down the mansion. But when the secrets of the Vandermarks are no longer content to stay in the past, will tragedy triumph, or will hope prevail?

In 1950s Bengal, Henna Rub, a precocious, wayward teenager, brings off a brilliant marriage to a wealthy romantic, Ricky Karim, trapping him with a web of lies that she has spun with her wheeler-dealer father. And so on his wedding night, believing himself married to an educated, sonnet-reading, tennis-playing soul mate, Ricky is horrified to discover that his new bride is in fact a lazy, illiterate, shopkeeper's daughter.

Little Woodford has a sleepy high street, a weekly market, a weathered old stone church and lovingly tended allotments. A peaceful, unexciting place, the very heart of middle England. In Little Woodford no one has fingers in more pies than Olivia Laithwaite, parish councillor, chair of the local WI, wife, mother and all-round queen bee. So of course it's Olivia who is first to spot that The Beeches has been sold at last. Soon rumours begin to swirl around the young widow who has bought this lovely house. Why exactly did she leave London with her beautiful stepdaughter and young sons?

Alice finds herself suddenly widowed in her early 40s. Laura and Evie, her 20-something daughters, announce their separate and unexpected news, which ploughs Alice straight out of grieving and into the prospect of planning a wedding and becoming a granny to three grandchildren. Frank, an old family friend, returns to give his godchild, Laura, away at her wedding. A whole host of secrets unfold and set Alice free to finally begin a new, exciting chapter of her life.

"Why do you want to be a boat builder?" "Because," said Morwenna, "I like the way the boats grow." Morwenna and Corwin are eight years old, wind-swept and salty-haired twins growing up on the Devon coast. In the soft autumn light they play as their grandfather, Matthew, watches the boats come in. But it is a day unlike any other.

Jessica has just had the wedding of her dreams, and now she's setting up a new home with her lawyer husband, Matthew. Even better - they are expecting a child. But as they paint the nursery and shop for the baby, Jessica keeps waiting for the excitement to kick in. Why isn't she transformed by maternal feelings? Where is the all-consuming love she's supposed to feel for her child?

In the shadow of loss, disgrace and ill-health, unmarried mother Netta Nichol must watch her child being brought up by her farming father and stepmother. Exiled from her beloved Galloway, she seeks refuge in a Yorkshire mill town where she finds solace in sewing for her son. With the help of local friends, she makes her dream of creating beautiful wedding dresses come true, believing this is the one dress she may never get the chance to wear - in a time of rationing and shortages, no small achievement.

As I stare at the girl, I feel my heart pound inside my chest. There she is, my daughter, right in front of me after all this time. I have to reach her, to hold her, before I lose her all over again. I have experienced what no mother should: I have lost my child. Many years ago, after my divorce, my daughter moved in with her father, and then went missing. For years, I searched everywhere for my darling girl, but she had vanished without a trace. But even on my darkest days, when my heart felt truly broken, I kept a hope alive inside—a hope that my little girl would find her way back to me.

Val, a widow living in Weston-super-Mare, spends lonely evenings dressing up as the movie star Elizabeth Taylor. It seems to be a way of coping with the loss and sadness she has experienced in her life. One day, when Val sees a pram left unattended on the seafront, on a whim she kicks off the brake and walks away with it.

The brand new novel from bestselling author of The Village Affair, Julie Houston, follows vicar Rosa Quinn as she navigates the highs and lows of being the parish priest of the village of Westenbury, alongside her triplet sisters, Eva and Hannah.

Simone is one of the Glitterati, the elite living lives of luxury and leisure. Slave to the ever-changing tides—and brutal judgements—of fashion, he is immaculate. To be anything else is to be unfashionable, and no one wants to be unfashionable, or even worse, ugly. When Simone accidentally starts a new fashion with a nosebleed at a party, another Glitterati takes the credit. Soon their rivalry threatens to raze their opulent utopia to the ground, as no one knows how to be vicious like the beautiful ones.