Showing results by narrator "Candida Gubbins" in All Categories

When the charred remains of Rupert Millington are found inside a burning effigy, no one knows how they got there, but there are plenty of rumours about whodunnit. Detective Tess Fox and her con-artist sister Sarah Jacobs have a knack for solving impossible crimes. They’re confident they have the skills to unmask the true killer. But will this puzzling mystery prove beyond even their talents?

Travelling home from a European holiday, Iris Carr ends up alone at the station after a quarrel with her friends. Struck by a mysterious assailant and waking up just in time to board the train which will take her on her journey to London, things seem to be looking up after a chance meeting with the affable Miss Froy. But when Iris passes out and reawakens, Miss Froy is nowhere to be found. The other passengers deny any knowledge of her existence and as the train speeds across Europe, Iris spirals deeper and deeper into a strange conspiracy.

When an anonymous parcel turns up at the shop where Sophie works, she’s surprised to find a beautifully bound classic novel, one that eerily seems to chime with her own story. Enigmatic Harry lives in a crumbling manor house, spending solitary days patching up leaks in the roof. The subject of unwelcome gossip in the village since his return from London, he prefers to keep to himself. As Christmas draws near and the gifting season arrives, Sophie attempts to get to the bottom of her mysterious parcel.

As a kid, Nina O'Brien spent all her summers at her grandparents' cabin by the beach at Stepping Stone Bay. Long, sunny days full of fun and laughter with her best friends, Leo, the boy from the boatyard next door, his older brother, Adrian, and local girl Maeve - and, as Nina grew older, the magic of falling in love with Leo. But one summer night changed everything, and those glorious days came to an abrupt end for them all.

After the death of her husband, Sarah Cooper becomes betrothed to Robert Billings and moves her family back to Colchester. But with Robert away on-board ship, somehow Sarah must hold the family together and pray that her man will come back to her. Struggling with family life, Alfie Nightingale leaves to be a policeman in London. But back on the dangerous city streets, Alfie has a life changing decision to make for himself and the family that he has abandoned. Will the Nightingales finally find the home and family they have been searching for?

When her beloved grandmother, Marnie, passes away, Laurel is left with a small inheritance and a note telling her to follow her dreams. As she and Marnie always did in difficult times, Laurel turns to her ABBA albums and her favourite film, Mamma Mia! Without pausing for thought, she grabs her passport, dons her best dungarees, and jets off to Skopelos for her own Meryl-inspired adventure....

Sylvie Cloutier, art lover and former antiques dealer, is trapped in her loveless marriage to the bullying Henri like a bird in a gilded cage. Meanwhile, security guard, hopeless romantic and bookworm Philippe Moreau cycles through the streets of Paris in his crumpled uniform, late (again) for his night shift at the Louvre. When Sylvie begs her husband to let her go to work, he gets her a job as an evening cleaner at the Louvre, thinking such a menial position will dispel any ideas about independence she might have. But his plan backfires when she falls in love with kind, gentle Philippe.

When her family is struck by a terrible tragedy, Sarah Nightingale is forced to go into service at Grey Friars House as an under-nursery-maid. Although the situation wasn’t of her making Sarah thrives there, but life for her younger brother Alfie is not as easy. Desperate to avoid being sent to the workhouse, Alfie runs away to London to seek his fortune. But young and inexperienced with the dangerous streets of London, Alfie is tricked and sold to work as a slave on a coal barge. Sarah misses her brother terribly but knows she must find a way to survive if she ever wants them to be reunited.

It’s May 1941, and the war is in full swing. Yet in the quiet village of Woodville in rural Kent a happy event is on the horizon, as Faye Bright interrupts her training with the British Secret Service to return home and marry her true love, Bertie Butterworth. But as preparations get underway, a ghostly premonition throws a spanner in the works. Who is the Corn Bride, and is her burning visage a warning, or a threat to the happiest day of Faye’s life?

When Miriam Lea falls on hard times, an advertisement calling for private agents catches her eye, and within weeks she finds herself in Mr Bazalgette's employ as a private detective, travelling on a train to Hamburg in pursuit of an audacious fraudster. What follows is a journey through some of the great cities of Europe - and eventually to South Africa - as Miss Lea attempts to find her man.

After the death of his wife, Sarah Nightingale marries Dan Cooper and becomes mother to his three little boys. They move to a fine house of their own and Sarah has never been happier with a family to finally call her own with maybe a baby of her own on the way…When Alfie Nightingale has a dalliance with a young girl called Betty, he’s obliged to do the right thing by her when she learns she's with child. Now there will be another baby in the family. But when one disaster follows another, Sarah and Alfie have dreadful choices to make if they and their families are to survive.

Sarah Nightingale is a strong young woman who keeps her head high and faces every new adversity with courage. So when Daniel Cooper, a happily married man with three children, offers her a position taking care of his children and poorly wife, she jumps at the chance. Perhaps life is finally looking up for Sarah? Meanwhile, Sarah’s brother Alfie is also prospering in London after escaping his life of servitude. But when a personal tragedy strikes, Alfie decides to leave London and go home to look for his sister.

Lady Georgiana Pendlebury is no stranger to breaking the rules of polite society. But when a so-called ‘friend’ invites her to a clandestine party, Georgiana is shocked to discover the event is more scandalous than even she could have imagined. So when a mysterious stranger offers help, she accepts, not realising their encounter will turn her life upside down.

The Daughter. My father is innocent. He’s spent almost four years behind bars, but now he’s getting out. I gave up everything to be there for him, just like he was always there for me. The Girlfriend. As soon as I opened the paper that day and saw that picture of Sandy, I didn’t care about the story surrounding it. There’s no way he hurt that girl. Now he’s out, we’ll get married and I’ll finally get to meet his daughter.The Other Woman. No one knows what happened all those years ago, and the life I built depends on no one finding out.

Penguin presents The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen, a sensational new crime writing talent from the same Swedish editorial team and publisher as Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. Read by the actress Candida Gubbins. Ingrid Olsson returns home from a Stockholm hospital to discover a man...

Brought to you by Penguin. One bad date too many calls for desperate measures . . . Nora is well and truly fed up. After more painfully bad dates than she can count, she’s had enough of leaving it to fate to find her perfect match – but she's not quite ready to give up on her love life just...

When DI Tess Fox arrives at her first murder scene there are already two big problems. First, the victim was thrown from the balcony of an apartment locked from the inside. Second, Tess knows the victim, and a clue left at the scene means the killer knows that too. Only one person knows about Tess’s link to the victim and has the skills and criminal background to mastermind a locked-room murder. But Tess’s half-sister Sarah is a con-artist, not a killer. And Tess is going to need her expertise if she’s ever going to crack the case.

For Esther, it’s proving hard not to feel bitter watching Lucas enjoying his successful career, not to mention the attentions of his gorgeous, intelligent, and predictably younger lover. She meanwhile is struggling to forge a new life for herself, navigating the pitfalls of modern dating, while trying not to despair at the cost of living as a single woman of a certain age. Then Lucas faces a shattering accusation at the same time as their children Dylan and Lily, start to implode.

When Brighton tattoo artist Marni Mullins discovers a flayed body, newly-promoted DI Francis Sullivan needs her help. There's a serial killer at large, slicing tattoos from his victims' bodies while they're still alive. Marni knows the tattooing world like the back of her hand, but has her own reasons to distrust the police. So when she identifies the killer's next target, will she tell Sullivan or go after the Tattoo Thief alone?

Norse chiefs meet Christian kings on Midgard's battlefields, as Loki's army of the dead clashes with Odin's golden shields on Asgard. An ancient premonition of death hangs over all. Only two are free to choose their paths, to prevent the annihilation of the Nine Worlds: Ragnar, a storyteller who holds all fates in his hands, and Hilda, a warrior with no fate at all.