Showing results by author "Claire" in All Categories

Arden Beacon arrives in the salt-swept port of Vigil with a job to do. Tasked with using the magic in her blood to keep the lighthouse burning, she needs to prove herself worthy of her family name and her ancestors’ profession. But the coastline Arden must keep alight – battered by a sea teeming with colossal, ancient beasts – is far from the cultured, urban world she knows. It is a place of secrets, rumours and tight-lipped expectations of a woman’s place.

It's taken years, but Natasha Brown's life is finally on track. Running a florist's in the quaint village of Willowbrook, she's put her short-lived marriage to Luc Duval far behind her. That is, until he unexpectedly walks through her shop door, three years after their divorce. Luc reveals that he never told his family about their split, and now his father is desperately ill and demanding to meet Natasha. Luc needs her to come to France and pretend they're still happily married. Natasha is horrified, but when Luc makes her an offer she can't refuse, reluctantly packs her bags.

Magic can be a blessing or a curse. Emma Ayers is about to discover the biggest secret of her life - she's a witch. When tragedy upends Emma's idyllic life, she is taken in by a mysterious woman - the matriarch to Hell's Belles, a secret society of debutante witches in the historic city of Charleston. With Emma's help, they'll try to defeat an enemy that wants all the powers the Belles are gifted with - and who will stop at nothing to get them. Even if it means destroying everyone in the path, including the city they protect.

Lucy Owens’ life was irrevocably changed in a matter of seconds. Life as she knew it was over in the blink of an eye. Moving away from all that she knew, Lucy now lives a solitary life in her cabin on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Filled with guilt and pain, she keeps herself to herself, and for years she manages to avoid immersing back into society.

It began nearly 400 years ago. The Conall clan and all their people were murdered in a surprise attack, their beloved castle and all evidence of who destroyed them burned to the ground with their bodies. In the centuries following, archaeologists searched through the ruins looking for any evidence of what or who had caused the untimely demise of such a powerful Scottish clan. All efforts were fruitless until a spell put in place by an ancient Conall ancestor finally began to work its magic.

Carl has just announced he has bought their first home at auction without telling Natalie where it is, never mind showing her a picture of it. Natalie is horrified to discover that the dream home is mere minutes away from Carl’s ex-wife, Antonia. Antonia is Little Wyford’s Queen Bee, mistress of the book club, organiser of the Christmas Fair and leader of the ladies-who-lunch. No matter how hard she tries, Natalie just doesn’t fit in, and when Antonia insists on referring to Carl as ‘Our Husband’, Natalie’s dreams of happily-ever-after take another nose dive.

What happens when the love of your life turns out to be your teammate? Ranked as the number one wide receiver, Devlin Frank is part of the dynamic duo expected to win the Rangers a championship trophy this season. He's also one of the only openly bisexual players in the league, a fact he never denies, but also doesn't advertise—especially since the only person he’s interested in is his new teammate, Rex Williams. Rex is new to professional football.

Laura Henshaw and Steph Claire Smith are best friends and creators of the massive health and lifestyle brand Keep It Cleaner. You Take Care is their way of sharing their journeys with you—everything they've learnt about taking care of their mental health, bodies, and relationships with those around them, including thoughts on motherhood and a search for progress over perfection. No two journeys are the same, and there will always be bumps along the way. But this uplifting and friendly guide is like having a best friend in your pocket, cheering you on through it all.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil which has already killed nine of her village’s men.

Robertson Bennet returns to Edinburgh after a 25-year absence in search of his parents and his inheritance. But both have disappeared. A quick, routine police check should be enough - and Detective Inspector Helen Birch has enough on her plate trying to help her brother, Charlie, after an assault in prison. But all her instincts tell her not to let this case go. And so she digs. George and Phamie Bennet were together for a long time. No one can ever really know the secrets kept between husband and wife.

Bridget has a passion for safety, and in the world of oil refineries, that makes her great at her job. So when her big promotion goes to someone else, she heads out on the town to forget her troubles. Jack Gibbs seems like the perfect man to distract her. At least until Monday morning when she discovers Jack is her new boss. There's no way she's going to keep seeing him, no matter the connection between them. She's been burned before.

0n a hot summer day at Bellwhether High School in Sydney, Australia, teacher Bill Pagett lies murdered, the hole in his head accomplished with neat efficiency by a Black & Decker drill. Detective Inspector Carol Ashton investigates, bringing with her a formidable reputation for competence. She soon uncovers tangled relationships and motives for murder among the six teaching staff, along with a maze of malicious anonymous letters and threatening phone calls. And then there is yet another corpse.

Meredith Maggs hasn't left her house in 1,214 days. But she insists she isn't alone. She has her cat, Fred. Her friend Sadie visits when she can. There's her online support group, StrengthInNumbers. She has her jigsaws, favourite recipes, her beloved Emily Dickinson, the internet, the Tesco delivery man and her treacherous memories for company. But something's about to change. Whether Meredith likes it or not, the world is coming to her door. Does she have the courage to overcome what's been keeping her inside all this time?

A month before Christmas, and Ballyterrin on the Irish border lies under a thick pall of snow. When a newborn baby goes missing from hospital, it's all too close to home for forensic psychologist Paula Maguire, who's wrestling with the hardest decision of her life. Then a woman is found in a stone circle with her stomach cut open and it's clear a brutal killer is on the loose. As another child is taken and a pregnant woman goes missing, Paula is caught up in the hunt for a killer no one can trace, who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Irene Adler is no ordinary young lady. She's at the top of the ranks in the All Souls cohort, a competitive preparatory class reserved for Oxford's brightest minds. But her peers and professors don't know she's a lady at all. To them, she is Isaac Holland. Keeping up her disguise gets trickier when All Souls students start dying, one by one. Determined to find out who's responsible for the deaths, Irene—as Isaac—teams up with fellow classmate and roommate Sherlock Holmes to track down clues

Marcus Brigstocke leads the cast in this comedic take on a historical radio show, creating imaginative and humorous archive recordings from the past two millennia. The series features funny and occasionally gruesome scenes, reminiscent for fans of Horrible Histories but tailored for a more adult audience.

Elizabeth d’Acron has been a pawn and a prize, pursued for her father’s wealthy holding, and wants only to be desired for herself. Seized again, she vows she will surrender to no man - even the handsome knight who comes to her rescue. And truly, there could be no one more vexing. So concerned with duty that he could be wrought of stone, she does not expect the seductive fire awakened by his touch. But has she fallen in love with a man whose affections are already claimed? Snared between duty and passion, Amaury finds himself beguiled by the lady.

He tried to take my life. Instead I took his. It happened so long ago, I've forgotten the details. But he was desperate, hungry enough to kill. As I was dying, my hand touched his.That's when my first switch took place. I looked through the eyes of my killer just in time to see my own body die. Now switching is easy. I can jump from body to body, have any life, be anyone. All it takes is a touch.

I lost her. No. I threw her away. She was my best friend. I was never supposed to fall in love with her. I was careless. She was heartbroken. I thought I was doing fine. But here she is, years later, forced to work with me, reminding me why I fell in love with her in the first place. And this time I'm going to do everything in my power to never let her go.

Drawing on letters and diaries, some of which have never been published before, this book will reveal Jane Austen's bond with a family servant, the amateur playwright Anne Sharp, how Charlotte Brontë was inspired by the daring feminist Mary Taylor, the transatlantic relationship between George Eliot and the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the underlying erotic charge that lit the friendship of Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield - a pair too often dismissed as bitter foes.