Showing results by narrator "Diana Croft" in All Categories

When 13-year-old Savannah Hopkins doesn’t come straight home from school, as she always does, her mother Jane immediately raises the alarm. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward, whose daughter, Leigh, is the same age as Savannah. Soon Natalie’s worst fears are confirmed when the teenager’s broken body is found in nearby shrubland. Evidence points toward a local recluse, but just as the net is closing around him, one of Savannah’s friends, Harriet, is reported missing.

Witches have been living at Moonfell, the sprawling Gothic mansion in London, for five hundred years. The house and gardens are steeped in magic, and at every Yule the family gathers to reinforce the protection spells on the house.

Sixty-year-old widow Ginny Cole thought she’d used up her life quota of bad luck. So she’s dismayed when her move to the quaint village of Little Shaw begins with finding the murdered body of rude and dislikeable library manager, Louisa Farnsworth. Has misfortune followed her cross-country? When suspicion falls on the daughter of her friend Hen, because of a perfectly innocent threatening letter, Ginny’s sure the police are letting the real killer walk free, and together with fellow widows JM, Tuppence, she’s determined to find the truth.

Sasha’s 18-year-old daughter Gemma was all she had in the world. Sasha fell pregnant with Gemma when she was still at school, and the two are as close as sisters. So when Gemma’s burned and broken body is found, Sasha’s world ends. Leading the case is Detective Natalie Ward, scarred by her own recent tragedy. When she finds a note in Gemma’s diary from "a secret admirer", she moves quickly, determined to unmask them. But interviews with Gemma’s devastated ex-boyfriend and her charismatic teacher don’t give Natalie the answers she’d hoped for....

Torwyn burns as Sanctan Egelrath tightens his grip on power. The Draconate Ministry has gathered its forces, determined to eradicate the Guilds, but Rosomon Hawkspur still stands in their way. Her only hope could lay with Lancelin Jagdor, sent to gather allies in their struggle against the usurper. Can even the greatest warrior in Torwyn hope to succeed with so many adversaries determined to stop him? Tyreta returns home with newfound strength and mysterious sorcerous abilities, only to discover it is not the land she left behind.

Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly and her buttons done up correctly. Because, Evelyn is a woman with secrets, and Evelyn remembers everything. She can never forget the promise she made to the love of her life to discover the truth about the mission that led to his death, no matter what it cost her.

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she's taken her own life...until her body is found in the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected 15-year-old daughter, Hekla, has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside - the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

Shadow is an over-confident fey stranded in White Haven after the Wild Hunt is defeated on Samhain. Gabe is a Nephilim, newly arrived from the spirit world along with six of his companions. He has a violent history that haunts him and a father he wants answers from - if he ever finds him. When they set up in business together with the Orphic Guild, they're expecting adventure, intrigue, and money. But their first job is more complicated than they expected.

White Haven is full of visitors making the most of the summer holidays, but when two die in inexplicable circumstances, and unearthly screams resound across the moors, fear descends on the town. The excitement surrounding the upcoming Lughnasadh festival turns to dread as more deaths follow. The witches and Newton scramble to discover the cause, but unfortunately, they have more than just the recent deaths to deal with.

When five-year-old Ava Sawyer goes missing from a birthday party at a local garden center, the police are bewildered by the lack of leads. That is, until two years later, when Ava’s body is found and another little girl, Audrey Briggs, goes missing. Audrey also attended that party. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward. A mother of two teenagers, this case chills her to the bone and is a disturbing reminder of the last job she worked on. One that still keeps her awake at night.

The small community of Akranes is devastated after a young man dies in a mysterious house fire. When Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case. For the dead man's final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.

One beautiful summer’s evening, thirteen-year-old twins Ivy and Erin Westmore snuggle down in a tent in their back garden, giggling and sharing secrets. When their mother goes to wake the girls the next morning, their tent is empty. The alarm is raised, and Detective Natalie Ward is put onto the case. When the twins’ bodies are discovered on nearby marshland, covered with deep pink petals, an icy shiver travels down Natalie’s spine. Everything about the girls’ deaths reminds her of a horrifying case she worked on earlier in her career.

When librarian Ginny Cole discovers a body in Little Shaw’s beloved haberdashery shop, she finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation. The victim? Arrogant shop owner and spring fete judge, Timothy Harlow, found with a pair of sewing scissors plunged into his back. While the police are quick to arrest Milos, a charming young upholsterer, Ginny thinks the case has been sewn up too neatly. Together with her friends – no-nonsense JM, craft-obsessed Hen, and irrepressible Tuppence – Ginny delves into the village’s secrets.

Gathering ten modern masters of the strange and unsettling, Unquiet Guests sets fire to the blueprints and reimagines the haunted house from the foundations up. From dreamlike visions of an abandoned future mansion to a sentient building grown tired of its owners, these rooms echo with whispers of the disenfranchised and the lost.

When Detective Natalie Ward is called to the home of 14-year-old Roxy Curtis she can’t help but empathise with Roxy’s distraught mother Cathy. Roxy hasn’t come home, last seen heading next door for a sleepover with her best friend Ellie. As the mother of two teenagers herself, Natalie knows that this is every parent’s worst nightmare. But when Roxy’s body is found in the basement of a beautiful Victorian mansion on the other side of town, Natalie’s darkest fears are confirmed. What was Roxy doing there? Cathy seems evasive, and Ellie refuses to talk.

When the body of mother Charlotte Brannon is discovered by her husband, Adam, in their bedroom, Detective Natalie Ward is first on the scene. The killer has left a chilling calling card: The word Why? written on the wall in blood. As Natalie begins to delve deeper into the couple’s lives, she discovers that Adam has a dark past he’s been hiding, and she’s sure that the Brannons' teenage babysitter, Inge, has secrets of her own.

When the frail body of a teenage girl is discovered strangled in a parking lot, shards of ice form in Detective Natalie Ward’s veins. As Natalie looks at the freckles scattered on her cheeks and the pale pink lips tinged with blue, she remembers that this innocent girl is somebody’s daughter. The girl is identified as missing teenager Amelia Saunders, who has run away from home and her controlling father. Natalie’s heart sinks further when it becomes clear that Amelia has been working on the streets, manipulated by her violent new boyfriend, Tommy.

On a beautiful island, under the Mediterranean sun, two families enjoy a well-deserved holiday. Then, one balmy evening, Emma's father is found unconscious on the sand. Everyone is hiding secrets. Who will you believe?

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer's block, Hannah has the feeling that she's doing something wrong. When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in 30 days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjöður; a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters - for inspiration.