Showing results by narrator "Claire Storey" in All Categories

Blackpool, November 1942. Wartime worries fail to dampen the glitz and glamour of the ballroom in the run-up to Christmas. After all, life is for living. Newlywed Pearl's bliss is cut short when her beloved Bernie is called up into the Army. Will dancing at the Tower Ballroom take the edge off her heartache or will it throw temptation her way? Unexpected news of an inheritance presents Joy with a different dilemma. Should she move to Scotland in line with her parents' final wishes or stay in Blackpool to dance with Tommy, the man she loves?

When Cassie Hunt learns that her beloved Aunt Aggie is dying, she rushes back home to be with her during her final days. For as long as Cassie can remember Aggie has spoken about the forgotten world that exists just below their feet, in the tunnels and catacombs of the mysterious Sand House. But on her deathbed, Aggie reveals a terrible secret that she’s buried as deep as the tunnels beneath the old house, and when excavation work begins on the site, Cassie is the only one who can help keep the truth hidden.

She’s not ill. She’s not in imminent danger. But she is sure it’s going to happen. Because many years ago… she’d made a promise to a stranger, in the woods. Elena’s mother was in hospital, after a life-threatening accident. The promise would keep her mother safe, but put Elena’s own life at risk, instead, when she grew up and turned thirty. Elena put the promise to the back of her mind, over the years. But she’s twenty-nine now, and when something happens that puts her life in danger, she remembers. And she knows.

As a Deacon at St. Lawrence parish, Katerina Rowe enjoys a quiet life in the village of Eyam. But everything changes when she discovers the body of a man and a badly beaten woman in the alleyway behind her husband’s pharmacy. Kat is immediately drawn to Beth, the young woman she saved. But in order to keep her safe, Kat finds herself embroiled in a baffling mystery.

This is the story of Josie, a British expat living in New York City. Or rather, it is the tale of two Josies, as her life path split three years ago, when she did or did not meet the love of her life—wealthy, handsome Rob. One Josie is now a single radio show host living in Brooklyn, with a huge crush on her friend Peter; the other is happily married to Rob and living in a fabulous Manhattan penthouse. It’s both Josies’ 36th birthday, and each is set to celebrate when they crash their bicycles at the exact spot where their lives split three years ago.

Despite the fact that her daughter is not cooperating, Caroline, Duchess of Riverton, is determined to ensure every one of her children marries someone they love as much as she loved their late father. William, the widowered Earl of Blackstone, is delighted to have his days of escorting daughters approaching an end.

Holcombe Hall’s enigmatic owner has passed away, and now as the roaring twenties come to an end the upstairs and downstairs residents of Holcombe Hall begin a new era. Parlour maid Florrie Bickerstaff has always endured the quick temper of Lady Charlotte, calmly navigated the formidable housekeeper, Bertha and avoided the officious butler, Mr Arkwright. But it’s all been worth it for Sir Richard.

When DI Tessa Marsden is called to a road traffic accident, she is disturbed by the crime scene she must investigate. She now has a double murder to contend with; two dead girls from the same village. Realizing the murders aren’t linked, Marsden summons the help of the Connection Investigation Agency. When it is discovered that one of the murdered girls was pregnant, the case takes an unexpected turn. Can DI Marsden, with the input of Kat and Mouse, solve the case before another body appears?

Alex would like to believe she’s a woman who has it all. Or that’s what she tells everyone, including herself. But this is far from true. Actually she’s on the cusp of losing her home, her dream career as a writer is in tatters, her ex won’t speak to her, and her mother’s gone forever. But then a chance meeting with a stranger named Hope gives her the opportunity of a lifetime, when Hope jokes that perhaps Alex should take over her job in a cafe while she goes travelling.

June, 1941. When Bobby Bancroft arrived in Silverdale to take a job as a reporter on The Tyke magazine, the sleepy Yorkshire Dales village felt like a little pocket of a past long gone. But war finally seems to have come to Silverdale. The villagers face new hardships when shortages and rationing begin to bite, young men become scarce as more are called up, and Bobby finds herself juggling her job on the magazine with a new role as an ARP warden. Even her surly editor Reg and his wife are doing their bit, agreeing to take two evacuees from London into their home.

Thrown together when their plane conks out and a blizzard rolls in, Morgan Scott and her childhood friend Ali Bradford are on a mission to make it from Glasgow to Devon in time for Christmas. The catch? Roads and trains are up the spout, Morgan’s patience is running low, and Ali has had a secret crush on Morgan since forever. But she can keep a lid on over two decades of unrequited love. Particularly when they keep having to share a bed. Absolutely no problem at all.

October 1940. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Bancroft is working as a typist for a city newspaper, but she longs to be breaking the news herself. When she successfully applies for a junior reporter role at The Tyke, a magazine serving the Yorkshire Dales, she's thrilled – even if she only gets the position because so many men are away fighting. Bobby moves to the sleepy village of Silverdale, but she quickly discovers life in the countryside is a different world.

Fran Bell is a music exec who’s welded to her career. Even when her parents move to a sleepy village called Mistletoe, she still vows to work through Christmas. When she tells the locals, their shock is palpable. One particular local stands out. Ruby O’Connell, a dazzling singer and the last person Fran expects to find as her parents’ neighbor. They’ve crossed paths before in London. It wasn’t pretty. When they’re thrown together to organize a Christmas festival, their relationship starts to thaw.

Early one morning, in the grounds of Chatsworth, a body is discovered by one of the estate groundsmen. DI Marsden and DS Granger battle through snow-covered roads to begin their investigation. Meanwhile, at the Connection Investigation Agency, Doris, Kat and Mouse are busy juggling their caseloads, while trying to show their new trainee receptionist the ropes.

Deacon Katerina Rowe had a quiet life before she discovered her husband’s criminal activities. Now Leon is on the run, and Kat has started a private investigation business with her good friend Beth, who goes by Mouse. It’s plenty for any Deacon to handle—let alone one who’s heavily pregnant. When a widow asks Kat and Mouse for help, the sleuthing duo find themselves searching for the birth mother of the widow’s husband. But when it becomes clear that the widow isn’t telling the whole truth, Kat and Mouse are drawn into a deadly chase where nothing is what it seems.

Hannah Driver's life is on the skids: single, newly jobless, and nursing ambitions of becoming a drag king that make her traditional family baulk. She's at a crossroads. Enter Cordy Starling, the charming and composed pianist who moves in with Hannah, and quickly becomes the nudgeor—or rather, full-on shove—Hannah needs to chase her dreams. The prospect of romance with Cordy twinkles on the horizon like a disco ball, promising glitter but guaranteeing chaos.

As the plane surges up into the clouds, Stevie finds herself clutching the hand of the stranger sitting in the seat next to her. It is a moment that will change everything. But Ned is heading to see his dying mother, and Stevie is returning to France to escape a terrible loss in her past. Neither of them can think about that tiny flame that just flickered between them. But then their paths keep crossing, leading them both to the same beautiful community garden in a small French village; run by a mysterious old man named Zach – a man with many of his own secrets.

It has been a year since Tess had to trade the hustle and bustle of London life for pulling pints and moonlighting as a Cher impersonator in a backwater country pub. The sleepy Yorkshire village of Cherrywood would always be home, but a return to rural life wasn't quite the path she'd paved for herself. Still, being back with her oldest friends, Raven and Oliver, was a definite upside and she was beginning to settle into the slower pace. That is until Clemmie Ackroyd, a stalwart member of the community, is brutally murdered.

The lead-up to Christmas sees the Connection private investigation team planning their festive season. Until a new case arrives. Catapulted into their biggest mystery yet, they are tasked with finding a killer who has been released on parole, and subsequently disappeared. Has he returned to finish the murder he tried to commit before his capture? As he targets his intended victim, his attention is also focused on the private investigators and their police colleagues with devastating effect. With families torn apart, Doris must seek assistance from a colleague from her past.

For book eight of the London Romance series, time-travel back to 1958 for a front-row seat to Eunice and Joan’s epic love story. Watch as they meet, court, and fall head over heels. Feel your heart break as family pressure rips that love from their grasp. Then swoon as a bunch of lost love letters mean they meet again, 60 years later. Their happy ending might not have happened then, but in the present day, Eunice and Joan have another chance at love. Are the pair destined to finally live out their big London dreams?