Showing results by narrator "Anna Cordell" in All Categories

When We Were Bad is a spellbinding, witty and poignant portrayal of a family in crisi, in love, and in denial. 'As intelligent as it is funny. A beautifully observed literary comedy as well as a painfully accurate description of one big old family mess. A joy' – Observer

A letter and a hand-drawn map arrive at the police station for the attention of Detective Bethany Smith. The map leads them to Shadwell Hill. They search the area and find a human-sized mound of dirt. DS Wilkins recognizes the unearthed victim. It's sixty-five-year-old Margaret Allthrop, a minor royal and local celebrity. But her burial was anything but regal.

Detective Inspector Bethany Smith arrives at the scene of the crime still dressed in her funeral attire. Her head thick with emotion. Her colleagues think she's mad. But she wants to be there. She needs to be there. Even if what she sees makes her skin crawl. The next day another body is discovered. The victim has suffered a similar gruesome fate. Left for dead at the bottom of his garden where the creepy-crawlies can get to him.

From the beginning of their lives, the Olivier sisters stood out: surprisingly emancipated, strikingly beautiful, markedly determined and alarmingly 'wild'. Rupert Brooke was said to be in love with all four of them; D. H. Lawrence thought they were frankly 'wrong'; and Virginia Woolf found them curiously difficult to read. The sisters seemed always to be one step ahead of their time. Margery and Daphne studied at Cambridge when education was still thought by some to be damaging to ovaries.

Deep down she knew she was only dreaming, knew that whatever feelings she cherished for him could never be fully returned. After all, he was the heir to the biggest clay works in all of Cornwall, and she was but the daughter of one of their workmen. For just as an unexpected passion began to blossom between Morwen Tremayne and Ben Killigrew, the fates seemed determined to stifle its growth. A long, bitter struggle between owner and workforce brought about Charles Killigrew’s sudden illness, and with it Ben’s summons to the head of the family firm.

Angelina Green never knew her mother, who left her in a cardboard box by the East London docks on a freezing November night when she was a tiny baby. Saved by a local orphanage, she knows she owes her life to the kindness of others. And she’s determined to repay her debt by working as a nurse. Strong, kind and patient, Angelina is a natural on the ward. But when war breaks out in 1914 and she is sent to The Front, her courage is tested like never before....

Summer, 1929. The Hinton Dysart estate is dying from lack of money, and Kit Dysart, the heir, sees no way out. Then, at his sister's wedding, he meets the vibrant Daisy Chudleigh and her cousin, the heiress Matty Verrall. In love with Daisy but troubled by his family's decline, Kit chooses to marry Matty, though neither Kit nor Daisy is able to forget the other. When Matty, growing increasingly unhappy in her troubled, empty marriage, decides to re-create the estate's garden, she discovers solace and a gift of which she never dreamt.

In a beautiful house in the wilds of Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier is on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Tangled in a self-destructive love affair that threatens to unravel her marriage, she is also distracted by worry for the family friend whose shadow looms over her childhood: J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Daphne tries to escape into writing her new book, but the line between fiction and reality blurs dangerously when her own characters start manifesting before her eyes—in particular a woman called Rebecca who looks suspiciously like her husband's alluring ex-girlfriend.

Sergeant Belinda 'Billy' Kidd is driving home from the airport, jet-lagged and ready to resign from a career that has left her traumatised. Menopause has robbed her confidence too - now she's a traffic cop who's afraid to drive. When brake lights haemorrhage up the motorway, the cars grind to a halt. Moments later she finds a dead driver in a black sedan. He has a metal skewer in his neck. But how? The killer can't have left the scene without being spotted by the dozens of witnesses - so he must still be there, among them.

The day Louisa and James bring their newborn son home from the hospital marks a new beginning for all of them. To hold their child in their arms makes all the stress and trauma of fertility treatment worth it. Little Cory is theirs and theirs alone. Or so they think.... After her mother’s suicide when she was a child, Louisa’s life took an even darker turn. But meeting James changed everything. She can trust him to protect her and to never leave her. Even if deep down she worries that she has never told him the full truth about her past - or the truth about their baby.

Zofia's son, Janek, has vanished without a trace. Leaving behind her native Warsaw, she arrives in London, determined to uncover the truth - and she's certain that a celebrated writer called Steve holds the key to Janek's disappearance. To fund her DIY investigation, Zofia takes on a string of cleaning jobs - a professional trajectory she finds very much beneath her. Armed with little more than her stubborn resolve and a second-hand detective manual, Zofia gathers evidence.

Kitty Cox is adjusting to a new life alone. She’s spent several years caring for her ailing husband but now she’s having to adjust to a life without him.When Kitty’s old friend Vee reappears in the village in desperate need of a place to stay, Kitty quickly sees an obvious solution to both their dilemmas. She invites Vee, her new partner Raf and young son Bear to move in with her for the summer.

Michelle will never get tired of the view from her office window. Jagged mountains—and the wintry streets of Reykjavik, Iceland. It's a perk of her new job at Kimia Pharmaceuticals. Her old life—a dreary 9-to-5 and a cheating ex back in London—already feels a million miles away. Still, there's something strange about Michelle's new colleagues. They're all young, beautiful . . . and aloof. But then Michelle meets Lars, a jittery researcher from the restricted upper floors. She thinks she's alone in the elevator, until he squeezes between the doors. Just in time.

Tracey Curtis-Taylor has created headlines around the world with three epic flights in a 1942 Boeing Stearman biplane. Paying homage to two historic female aviators, she flew from Cape Town to Goodwood in 2013, from London to Australia in 2015 and, two years later, completed a transcontinental flight across the USA, after surviving a plane crash during the expedition. But her daring exploits came at a huge personal cost. Tracey tells, in breathtaking detail, the remarkable story of how she overcame extreme adversity to complete her three epic journeys.

London 1958. Twenty-six-year-old Betty Fisher is one of the first to join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and attend its inaugural meeting, where she meets John Harris. Posted to Berlin towards the end of the war, John has been left traumatised by his experiences in Germany. And, as his initial admiration for Betty shifts into an overwhelming need to protect her, he is plagued by flashbacks and fantasies. John's increasing fragility brings to the surface Betty's own memories. And soon her past, too, begins to unravel...

"There is a fish on the sand; I see it clearly. But it is not on its side, lying still. It is partly upright. It moves. I can see its gills, off the ground and wide open. It looks as though it’s standing up." A few decades into the twenty-first century, in their permanently flooded garden in Cornwall, Cathy and her wife Ephie give up on their vegetable patch and plant a rice paddy instead. Thousands of miles away, ex-pat Margaret is struggling to adjust to life in Kuala Lumpur, now a coastal city. In New Zealand, two teenagers marvel at the extreme storms hitting their island.

The legal speed limit for vehicles traveling along the Old Military Road was 60 miles an hour, and he was breaking it. If a car rounded a corner in the opposite direction, it would end up in a ditch, because this driver was not in the mood to slow down for anyone. The sound of cannon fire blasted from his top pocket, and he reached for his phone. He took his eyes off the road to read the text, grunted, and handed the phone to the person seated beside him. The passenger glanced at the short message, looked up, and saw they were approaching a humpback bridge. "You're going too fast."

A young bride leaves a sleepy town with the man she loves, but within months, he is torn from her life. Returning home, the house is the same, but her whole world has changed. Determined to rise above all that has happened, she accepts a job to sell a huge white elephant located on a forbidding moor. Alone at the vast property, she meets a traveler whose roguish charm hides the truth of what really lies within the former Victorian workhouse. Not realizing the risk she is taking, she tracks down an entrepreneur with a worldwide reputation who is attracted by her business proposal.

The reason for this book is to make you aware of your spirituality and consciousness. The analogy of currency to our basic life’s capital is a representation of the wealth of our spirit and the height of our consciousness. The book will take you on a journey to explore your belief systems regarding a variety of topics, including trust, gratitude, acknowledgment, relationships, sex, energy and presence. You will find exercises which may assist you in evaluating your personal development and increasing and maintaining your spiritual performance.

When Izzie Dean’s beloved nan, Molly Blackshaw, passes away, Izzie returns to the Blackpool bungalow where she grew up, to say good-bye once and for all. When Izzie’s homecoming reunites her with her first love, Justin Swift, every emotion that Izzie has repressed since the day he broke her heart comes rushing to the surface. But then an unexpected discovery changes everything.