Showing results by narrator "Diana Croft" in All Categories

Clare is ready for a break. It's been a tough year and now she wants to put her feet up. Arriving at the Italian villa for their summer holiday, she decides it's high time her husband and his family did some of the work. After all, her husband owes her.... Now her brother-in-law Jamie has brought a wife, someone none of them have met before. Ella is everything Clare isn't. Glamorous. Young. Influential. But she knows a secret about Clare. Something that has the power to break the whole family apart.

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she's taken her own life...until her body is found in the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected 15-year-old daughter, Hekla, has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula. Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark. But is the real danger inside...within the family itself?

When a body of a woman is discovered at a lighthouse in the Icelandic town of Akranes, it soon becomes clear that she’s no stranger to the area. Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has returned to Akranes following a failed relationship, and her collegues Sævar and Hörður commence an uneasy investigation which uncovers a shocking secret in the dead woman’s past that continues to reverberate in the present day.

When five-year-old Ava Sawyer goes missing from a birthday party at a local garden center, the police are bewildered by the lack of leads. That is, until two years later, when Ava’s body is found and another little girl, Audrey Briggs, goes missing. Audrey also attended that party. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward. A mother of two teenagers, this case chills her to the bone and is a disturbing reminder of the last job she worked on. One that still keeps her awake at night.

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer's block, Hannah has the feeling that she's doing something wrong. When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in 30 days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður; a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters - for inspiration.

Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly and her buttons done up correctly. Because, Evelyn is a woman with secrets, and Evelyn remembers everything. She can never forget the promise she made to the love of her life to discover the truth about the mission that led to his death, no matter what it cost her.

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside - the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

The small community of Akranes is devastated after a young man dies in a mysterious house fire. When Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case. For the dead man's final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.

On a beautiful island, under the Mediterranean sun, two families enjoy a well-deserved holiday. Then, one balmy evening, Emma's father is found unconscious on the sand. Everyone is hiding secrets. Who will you believe?

Giulia Tofana longs for more responsibility in her mother’s apothecary business, but Mamma has always been secretive and refuses to tell her the hidden keys to her success. But the day Mamma is arrested for the poisoning of the powerful Duke de Verdi, Giulia is shocked to uncover the darker side of her trade. Giulia must run for her life and escapes to Naples, under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to the home of her aunt Isabetta, a famous courtesan.

R. D. Blackmore’s enduring masterpiece Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor is renowned for its beautifully descriptive writing, the cleverly woven plot, and the powerfully drawn portrait of true love. Set in Devon in the late 17th century, it is an enduring masterpiece. First published in 1869, the novel revolves around the story of Devonshire farmer, John Ridd, his family, friends, and community. John tells the story in the first person beginning when he is just a boy and his father is murdered by the Doones.

When 13-year-old Savannah Hopkins doesn’t come straight home from school, as she always does, her mother Jane immediately raises the alarm. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward, whose daughter, Leigh, is the same age as Savannah. Soon Natalie’s worst fears are confirmed when the teenager’s broken body is found in nearby shrubland. Evidence points toward a local recluse, but just as the net is closing around him, one of Savannah’s friends, Harriet, is reported missing.

Corfu, Greece, 1943. Though they don’t know it, five-year-old Matilde and three-year-old Anna have kissed their mother for the last time. The Nazis have reached their sun-scorched home, and they are being taken to a place of safety, on the northeastern tip of the rocky island. They are to be hidden, at great risk, by kindly Agata and her husband, until the terrible war is over. Matilde and Anna’s tears are soothed by Agata’s bedtime stories, but she is always alert.

When the frail body of a teenage girl is discovered strangled in a parking lot, shards of ice form in Detective Natalie Ward’s veins. As Natalie looks at the freckles scattered on her cheeks and the pale pink lips tinged with blue, she remembers that this innocent girl is somebody’s daughter. The girl is identified as missing teenager Amelia Saunders, who has run away from home and her controlling father. Natalie’s heart sinks further when it becomes clear that Amelia has been working on the streets, manipulated by her violent new boyfriend, Tommy. 

Sasha’s 18-year-old daughter Gemma was all she had in the world. Sasha fell pregnant with Gemma when she was still at school, and the two are as close as sisters. So when Gemma’s burned and broken body is found, Sasha’s world ends. Leading the case is Detective Natalie Ward, scarred by her own recent tragedy. When she finds a note in Gemma’s diary from "a secret admirer", she moves quickly, determined to unmask them. But interviews with Gemma’s devastated ex-boyfriend and her charismatic teacher don’t give Natalie the answers she’d hoped for....

When Shadow and Gabe are employed to follow new clues to the fabled lost Templar treasure, they think they’re the only ones looking for it. Until they’re almost killed. Unfortunately, their opponents are devious and underhand, which means Shadow and Gabe need to be, too. However, the team is split, with half of the Nephilim searching for Black Cronos. The path is dark, twisted, and very dangerous.

When Robert Baratheon died suddenly after a boar hunt, all hell broke loose. When Edward IV, King of England, died suddenly after a fishing trip in April 1483, another phase of the Wars of the Roses ensued, the Yorks (Starks) battling the Lancasters (Lannisters). Thwarted Queen is told mainly in the voice of Lady Cecylee Neville (1415-1495), the thwarted queen, but other voices are important to this tale, not least those of the Londoners, who forged their own political destiny by engaging in public debate with the powerful aristocrats of the time

Ten years ago, Penelope Paiget promised she’d wait for Samuel Black. But she was only a genteel, impoverished paid companion, forced into service after her father’s death revealed his insurmountable debts. Now she’s a successful novelist, posing as secretary to the Earl of Wickshire to hide her identity. Ten years ago, Samuel Black chose his own path instead of upholding his family’s legacy as spies. But having fought for the formation of the Metropolitan Police Force, echoes of his past and his true origins remind him how unworthy he is to call himself detective inspector.

As the pace of modern life accelerates, the old ways wither and die. But to the Society for Magickal Heritage, that just isn’t good enough.