Showing results by author "Rees" in All Categories

1899. Josie has never questioned her life in a mining village on the South Yorkshire coalfield. But everything changes when she meets Tommy from the neighbouring village. Tommy has been destined for a life underground since the moment he was born. But he has far bigger dreams. Josie and Tommy become fast friends, united by their desire for something better and by their fascination with the local gentry who have their keeping. Wealthy and glamorous, the Sedgewicks of Silvermoor inhabit a world that is utterly forbidden to Tommy and Josie.

It's 2014. Sensible Nora has always taken success for granted until suddenly her life begins to fall apart. Troubled by anxiety and nightmares, she finds herself drawn to the sweeping beaches of Tenby, a place she's been only once before. Together with a local girl, she rents a beautiful townhouse and slowly begins to settle in to her new life. But Tenby hides a secret, and Nora will soon discover that this little town by the sea has the power to heal even the most painful memories.

Kitty Roberts spends her days searching for the perfect home for two...until her boyfriend dumps her. Devastated, she flees to a tiny seaside village called Pennystrand, where she spent golden summers as a child, before her family fell apart. At first, Kitty’s dramatic escape proves to be exactly what she needs—golden sunsets over warm, sandy beaches, lovably eccentric new neighbors, and even a blush-inducing run-in with Cory Hudson, a floppy-haired local surfer with a heart-stopping smile.

Tisha McClain’s attorney, Sam resents having a spoiled, rich-bitch heiress dropped onto his plate. The sexy, blonde male at the airport is an intrusive buttinski, but appealing. Without revealing identities they share a wild, one-time fling. Unraveling her family’s sordid past, Tisha exposes deception. Proper, business-woman, Mom performed as a stripper and ran a brothel. Dad had managed strip clubs, associated with gangsters, and his brutal execution remains unsolved.

Florrie Buckley is an orphan living on the wind-blasted moors of Cornwall. It's a hard existence, but Florrie is content; she runs wild in the mysterious landscape. She thinks her destiny is set in stone. But when Florrie is 14, she inherits a never-imagined secret. She is related to a wealthy and notorious London family: the Graces.

Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes - good and bad - are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and best-selling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.

Orphaned at the age of 10, Archie Ledbetter is forced to live with his uncle in his very grand house. Uncle Walter seems emotionless, exhibiting little feeling towards the young lad. If it wasn't for some of the staff at Huntington Hall, Archie's life would be a complete misery. There's a dark secret that Cook hints at as to why Archie's mother left her lavish lifestyle behind and ended up settling in the East End of London, scraping a living selling cakes and confectionery from the back of a barrow in the marketplace. Archie's never known his father and wonders who he is.

It’s 1946 and the dust of war has settled over Europe. But for Edith Graham, an ordinary woman living an ordinary life, her journey is only just beginning.... Escaping her humdrum existence, Edith is swept into war-torn Germany and recruited to draw elusive Nazis out of hiding. But the closer she gets to the truth, the more blurred the line between good and evil. In a shadowy world of shifting loyalties, where no-one is quite who they seem to be, who can Edith trust?

Down in the watery blue depths of the ocean is Tingle Reef - home to young mermaid Rani and a whole host of fishy friends! It's an underwater world of magic and mystery - where Rani's adventures are about to begin.... Rani has always known that she's different from the rest of her family. Her flowing red hair and glowing amber eyes stand out from the other mermaids, who have golden hair and eyes like the sea. But Rani's about to find out that she's more different than she realised - she's got magic powers!

A rural Welsh community is beset by a series of cruel murders... Putting his wedding plans on hold, Detective Winter Meadows resolves to unmask the serial killer on his patch. The only connection between the victims is the stick dolls left by their bodies. That and the fact they don’t seem to have been particularly popular. People are ruffled. Scared. Meadows must isolate the killer fast but the evidence is brittle. The key to unravelling the mystery is in the stone church, in the creaking homes, and in the slowly thawing fields.

After the death of her father in a mining accident, Megan and her family had no choice but to move to the local workhouse. Separated from her mother and five siblings, young Megan must learn how to stand on her own two feet. But one day she meets a young boy who's stealing apples from the local market and together, they set out on a path to find a better life for themselves...

It's Alys Pugh's birthday and her mates are organizing a little surprise for her. When she doesn't show up, they realize something's wrong. Later, her body is found in the cold waters of Llyn y Fan. On searching Alys' house, detectives discover an array of seaside objects and suspect they are some sort of message left by the killer. With everyone seemingly harboring a secret, tempers fray and suspicion grows. And when similar trinkets are found in another of their houses, those underlying tensions bubble to the surface. Then someone else in the group is killed.

1884 - When Betsan Morgan’s mother succumbs to a devastating illness, she doesn't think her life could get much worse. But then her father moves in his new beau, an unserious flitty woman and coincidentally also the bargirl in the pub he works in, and she soon learns her house is no longer a home. All she can do is sit in the attic and stare at the portrait of her mother. Her new stepmother, Elinor, couldn’t even let them have the grace of keeping it in the hallway.

There were a lot of things you could call Stacey Evans. And many of them would be true. And unprintable. But did she deserve to be murdered? DI Winter Meadows has no doubt of the answer when he takes the case. The crime was violent. The victim helpless. But the motives are many, and the only clue is a word left on Stacey’s body. DI Meadows struggles to pierce the secrecy surrounding the teenager’s love life. But as each suspect is excluded, Meadows is convinced that something sinister is afoot. When another body is found, a veil of silence descends like a fog upon Gaer Fawr.

It’s meant to be the most wonderful time of the year but 30-year-old Holly Hanwell doesn’t really feel like celebrating…not after the bombshell news her boyfriend is leaving her to have a baby with someone else. So Holly’s organised a quiet Christmas in her cosy little house and plans to avoid the traditional village festivities, and anything resembling a man, at all costs.

A baby girl, just a few months old, is discovered wrapped up in a shawl on a wooden bench at Itchy Park, Spitalfields. It's a frosty December evening just before the Christmas of 1861. The infant is rescued by a lady called Bessie Harper. Bessie names the young child, Lucy, and in later years, deceives the child by telling her that her mother died years ago. Bessie has no idea who the child’s mother really is but clutched tightly in the baby's hand, she discovers a silver locket which has the name "Adella" inscribed on it and a lock of hair inside.

Evie gets a wonderful surprise when she goes to stay at her grandma's house. Fairies appear in the night. They are dream fairies, and they live at the bottom of Evie's bed. Even better, Evie can go and have magical adventures with them in fairyland! Soon Evie discovers that Grandma can see the fairies, too. But will they still be there when Grandma returns from hospital? And how can Evie make sure that their special brand of fairy magic will stay with Grandma forever?

A free-wheeling philosophical essay, Hypochondria is expansive in its range of references, from the writings of Franz Kafka to original yet accessible readings of theorists like Lauren Berlant. Whether he is discussing Seinfeld, John Donne, or his own hypochondriac past, Rees reveals himself to be a wry and perceptive critic, exploring the causes—and the costs—of our desire for certainty. With wit and erudition, Hypochondria demonstrates both the rewards and the perils of reading (too) closely the common but typically overlooked aspects of our everyday lives.

A gently entertaining and charming fairy story that also deals cleverly with a young child's real problems and emotions. Connie is not a child who likes books. So she's not too pleased when she's sent to stay with her eccentric author aunt. But then Connie meets Ruby - a book fairy - in the dusty old library. Ruby is in trouble: she has broken fairy law by trying to take something - a piece of jewellery - back to fairyland through the gateway of a fairy-dust-sprinkled book.

Seren James longs for a child, to fill the emptiness left by a husband who has little care for her. But as the years go by, Seren begins to fear that she is almost out of time to have the one thing she wants most. But when Seren meets Anwen, a local woman who offers help, there is a problem: Anwen is suspected by the locals of witchcraft. Is the cost of association too high for Seren to pay, or can her problems be solved another way?