Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

In the early years of the last century, a desperate young girl changes her name and flees the confines of her brutal, dominating gangland family in London. Now calling herself 'Diamond Dupree', she goes to Paris to become an artist's model, but the world there is different to what she had supposed it would be, and she soon falls on hard times. When she manages to escape at the end of the First World War, she leaves behind her a mystery - and a dead man. 

For NHS Nurse Lucie Burrows, it's time to put the past behind her and embrace Greek life. Finally free from the UK restrictions, Lucie is excited for the summer of 2021. When her best friend, Gavin, finds the perfect Greek island getaway, Lucie is sure that this holiday to Corfu is going to be one to remember. But when a landslide puts the village into a local lockdown, Lucie is thrown together with Michalis Andino, the super sexy village doctor. It's not quite the escape she had planned, but things could certainly be worse.

When Ella wakes up in a hospital following a hit-and-run incident, she is scared and confused. Close to tears, her eyes fall on a get-well-soon card on the window sill, and the nurse reassures her that her loving husband will be back soon. But Ella has never been married. In fact, she has lived alone her whole adult life; working hard, rarely socializing, quietly harboring a terrible secret from her past.

Marriage to Joss Wycliffe was the obvious solution to Eleanor de Tressail’s problems. She had no other way of keeping her grandfather’s debt-ridden estate intact, and she had promised that she would never part with Easterhay. But she hesitated.... For one thing, Joss’ proposal was more of a demand. For another, he made it clear that he was marrying her for the sake of her aristocratic background and not because he wanted her - or even liked her!

The Isle of Wight has always felt like a safe place to live for keen dog-walker and reluctant sleuth Susan. But after being involved in the investigation of a troubling crime near her old home, Susan decides to move to the peaceful village of Bishopstone. Susan loves the sense of community and immediately throws herself into village life, volunteering at the local primary school and joining the choir of St Jude’s. So, when there is an altercation at the meeting of the choir committee, followed by a shocking accident, Susan is dismayed to realise her powers of deduction may be needed again.

The first rule of Sunday Lunch Club is...don't make any afternoon plans.

Every few Sundays, Anna and her extended family and friends get together for lunch. They talk, they laugh, they bicker, they eat too much. Sometimes the important stuff is left unsaid, other times it's said in the wrong way.

Sitting between her ex-husband and her new lover, Anna is coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy at the age of 40. Also at the table are her ageing grandmother, her promiscuous sister, her flamboyantly gay brother and a memory too terrible to contemplate.

Until, that is, a letter arrives from the person Anna scarred all those years ago. Can Anna reconcile her painful past with her uncertain future?

Juliet Ashton weaves a story of love, friendship and community that will move you to laughter and to tears. Think Cold Feet meets David Nicholls, with a dash of the joy of Jill Mansell added for good measure.

Fashionable society regards Sir Benjamin Wright with the utmost honour and respect. Yet Lady Emma knows that her husband is, in fact, a drunken, jealous brute who delights in humiliating her both in and out of the bedroom. So, his unexpected murder is a blessing, she thinks - that is, until the constable's accusing finger points to her as the murderer. But it soon becomes apparent that her late husband hid many secrets and enemies.

From relics of Georgian empire-building and slave-trading, through Victorian London's barged-out refuse to 1980s fly-tipping and the pervasiveness of present-day plastics, Rag and Bone traces the story of our rubbish, and through it, our history of consumption. 

Self-made man Aidan Iverson has seen more closed doors in his 30 years than he’s ever cared to count. As a member of the elite Duke’s Den, he has all the money he could possibly need, but the one thing he can’t purchase is true power. If roguish Aidan can’t buy his way into society’s hallowed halls, he’ll resort to a more extreme measure: marriage.

Nicholas Lyon gambled his way into a fortune and ownership of the most opulent, notorious gentlemen’s club in England. But when Nick’s cruel brother dies, he inherits a title he never wanted. The sooner Nick is rid of the estate that has always haunted him, the sooner he can return to the life he’s built in London. But there’s one obstacle - the exquisite Thomasina Thorne.

Marketing for Growth is a guide to how the marketing function within a business can and should become its most important driver of growth. Marketers play a crucial role in generating revenue and they can play an equally important role in how revenues translate into profit. Growth is also about becoming a better business by being smarter or more efficient, and growing in a sustainable way. This involves developing and improving products, processes and standard of service.

It deeply irritated Leonora that she was always being caught in awkward situations with the village's new doctor, James Galbraith - especially since she was engaged to Tony. But James proved a sturdy support as she did her best to keep her parents' decrepit but much loved manor house running smoothly. There was little point in admitting her growing feelings for James, since he showed so little sign of caring for her....

Against the backdrop of pre-WWII Berlin, British pianist Audrey James and her best friend Isle face the imminent threat of Nazi oppression. When Ilse's family disappears and Nazi officers confiscate their home, Audrey becomes their housekeeper and Ilse is forced into hiding in the attic-a prisoner in her own home. As borders close and rumours of death camps swirl, Audrey makes the life-changing decision to join the covert resistance and risk everything to protect her loved ones.

When Hope loses her husband, she fears her happiest days are behind her. With her only connection to London broken, she moves home to York to be near her family and to begin to build a new life. Taking a job at the antique shop she has always admired, she finds herself crossing paths with two very different men. Will, who has recently become the guardian to his niece after the tragic death of her parents. And Ciaran, who she enlists to help solve the mystery of an Egyptian antique. Two men who represent two different happy endings.

Rhys Forester, the new duke of Claremont, lives his life by four words: Enjoy all, regret nothing. He’s devoted to the pleasure of his wild soirees, reckless behavior, and shocking the ton with his interests in trade. The debts that come with his title don’t fit the carefree lifestyle he’s created, and when he’s forced to return to his family’s estate, he’s also forced to confront his one and only regret: the beautiful girl he left behind.

When I met Malik my life changed in the blink of an eye. We were set up - Chris and Simon called it a blind date - and I suppose they could see that I was lonely, that I needed someone in my life to make it more exciting. And they were right. He was so good to me. He seemed to know exactly what I needed to feel safe and loved again. We’d talk and laugh into the night, and I haven’t had someone on my side since my divorce. But soon the honeymoon period was over. It started with my car’s tyre being slashed and strange calls at the radio station where I work.

Adultery, murder and dangerous love collide in Jessie Keane's gritty debut thriller set in London's East End. Perfect for fans of Martina Cole and Lynda La Plante. For longer than she cares to remember, Annie Bailey has lived in the shadow of her older sister, Ruthie. Now Ruthie has her hands on Max Carter, the much feared head of the Carter family and a top class villain. Seducing Max wasn't a problem, but the guilt, shame and anger of rejection afterwards was.

At 16, Courage Bingham had been innocent and unawakened, but her body had been passionately responsive when she felt strong, youthful hands caress her in the dark of her family's summerhouse. Shame and guilt had tormented her ever since, combined with an equally aching need for this unknown - unseen - stranger. Now, Courage worried that her senses were playing tricks on her. Gideon Reynolds, her harsh-featured, merciless new boss, could arouse her as only one other man ever had.

The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy—the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.

Lara Perryman has spent her whole life travelling for her busy corporate job, so it's a relief when she takes early retirement and settles in a leisure village in Wiltshire. She quickly makes friends with the other residents and finds herself entangled in the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies of her new community.