Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

Charley would do anything to keep her wages coming in to support her impoverished sisters and nephews -even if that meant working in Italy for the demanding and commanding Duke Raphael Della Striozzi. Raphael couldn’t see how a woman so artistic would be seen dead in her cheap high-street clothes. It was straight off to a designer boutique for her! But it was in Raphael’s bedroom that Charlotte’s complete transformation took place - from shy, dowdy virgin to confident, beautiful...mistress!

For children’s book author Imogen, an idyllic life in the English countryside seems like the perfect fit for her and her husband. But when tragedy strikes, Imogen is left widowed, and finds herself moving into Storybook Cottage alone with only her monstrously narcissistic cat for company. After discovering she is pregnant, Imogen grows determined to embrace a new start in Middlemass, with its duckpond, cricket matches and village fêtes. The only thing Imogen can’t seem to shake is her neighbor—a brooding, artisan blacksmith named Gabriel—who she can’t quite decide is friend or foe.

The Welsh borders, 1870s. On the cusp of adulthood, Eliza Mace is battling for her independence. Stuck in a crumbling manor house on the fringe of a small town, she is thwarted by powers that conspire to protect, control and deceive her. But when her father goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Eliza’s determination to uncover the truth is unstoppable. Joining forces with the charismatic new police constable, Dafydd Pritchard, she sets out to solve the case, but that’s no easy task. Her father has run up debts in town and beyond, and there are many who bear him a grudge.

After the horrors of the past, Louisa Williams is desperate to make a clean start. Her husband, Sam, is dead. Her children, too, are gone, victims of the car accident in which he died. Sam said that she would never get away from him. That he would hound her to death if she tried to leave. Louisa never thought that he would want to harm their children, though. But then she never thought that he would betray her with a woman like Sophie. And now Sophie is determined to take all that Louisa has left.

At the beginning of the Second World War, medical experts predicted epidemics of physical and mental illness on the home front. Rationing would decimate the nation's health, they warned; drugs, blood and medical resources would be in short supply; air raid shelters and evacuation would spread diseases; and the psychological effects of bombing raids would leave mental hospitals overflowing. Yet, astonishingly, Britain ended the war in better health than ever before.

In the dark days since the sudden death of her surgeon husband, Julia’s main worry has always been Tash. Her student daughter was broken - she worshiped her father. But six months on, Julia thinks the light is returning. She is about to find out that she’s wrong. When she saves the life of a boy who’s been hanging around her beach cottage, the questions start. All she has to go on is the butterfly tattoo on his wrist, but who is he? What was he doing there? And why was her late husband’s watch in his bag? Julia wants to believe it’s a casual theft.

Primrose Hill, London. Criminal profiler Ziba MacKenzie arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder with a disturbing sense of déjà vu. Nine days earlier, another woman’s body was found: same location, same MO, same physical appearance. For the police, it’s clear a new serial killer is on the loose. But for Ziba, it’s even more sinister—because the victims look just like her. Ziba has been the focus of a killer’s interest before and knows that if she gets too close again this case could be her last.

Sadie McQueen has leased a double-fronted space in a small cul de sac in a culturally diverse corner of central London. The cobbles muffle the noise of double-deckers roaring past the arched gates. Turn right and you are in a futuristic maze of corporate glass monoliths. Turn left and you see a wide street with many different houses. Towering above the mews are the degenerating tower blocks of an infamous estate.

Jude is the owner of a unique antiques shop in Cambridge. She makes it her mission to match customers with the special something that they are missing, a talisman to bring them what their heart desires. Unfortunately, Jude’s life is not overflowing with love. However, when she 'inherits' a niece that she never knew existed, doubling her meagre family overnight, Jude's life is soon set to get a lot less lonely and a lot more interesting.

Frail butterfly enthusiast Maggie Muir has lived a lonely life in her huge remote house on the Cornish cliffs for many years. Once a mother with two beautiful children, the sudden death of Maggie’s daughter, forever a little girl in her fairy nightdress, ripped the family apart and caused her son Lucas to flee to the other side of the world. But now, Maggie is dying, and there is something she needs her son to know.

The story of Emma and Carl Jung's highly unconventional marriage, their relationship with Freud and their part in the early years of psychoanalysis. Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland when, aged 17, she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome, penniless medical student. Determined to share his adventurous life and to continue her own studies, she was too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive the dramas that lay ahead.

Everyone thinks Lexi is crazy when she falls in love with Hollingsworth House, a crumbling old Georgian mansion in Yorkshire – and nobody more so than her husband, Dylan. But there’s something very special about the place, and Lexi can sense it. Whilst exploring the grounds, she stumbles across an old diary, and within its pages she meets Allie, an Australian nurse who worked in France during the First World War. Lexi finally realises her dream of buying Hollingsworth, but her obsession with the house leaves her marriage in tatters.

Madeleine Frost knows she has to get away from her partner Liam. His behaviour has become increasingly controlling and Maddie fears for her safety and that of her young daughter Poppy. Desperation leads Maddie to the hotel owned by her estranged father – the extraordinarily beautiful Wrea Head Hall. The reunion is tense, but Maddie’s father agrees to her staying. Maddie’s whereabouts must stay a secret; but as she spends time getting to know her new home, she discovers the house has its own shocking past and secrets of its own. Secrets that could cost her dearly.

Raegan Kent-Walters is living the high life. Thanks to her husband’s salary, she enjoys the elite Surrey housewife existence of luxury holidays, exclusive gym memberships and skinny lattes. But then the high life comes crashing down, and, whilst reeling from the discovery that her husband wasn’t the man she thought he was, Raegan is also confronted with the reality that she and her daughter, Sabrine, will have to make some major life changes.

Meet Carmen, Polly and Dana - all happy and successful women, with very different views on relationships. Carmen has made a life with Elliot for the past eight years. She's ready for the next step, but a proposal seems to be as far away as ever. Polly is devoted to her family. But after her parents' bitter divorce, she's wary of marriage - even after sharing 20 years and one son with Fraser. Single mother Dana longs for companionship, despite her dedication to raising her son, Luke.

In a forgotten nook of Cambridge a little shop stands where thousands of sheets of beautiful paper and hundreds of exquisite pens wait for the next person who, with Clara Cohen's help, will express the love, despair and desire they feel to correspondents alive, estranged or dead. Clara knows better than most the power a letter can have to turn a person's life around, so when she discovers a cache of wartime love letters, she follows them on a profound journey of her own.

Suzy and Demi were carefree twenty-somethings. They had fun! They didn’t have responsibilities! And then they decided to have a baby. Goodbye lazy weekends, hello sleepless nights, arguments and an addiction to industrial-strength hot chocolate. Follow Suzy on the ultimate make-over - from nervous-wreck new mother to happy families. In this hilarious and refreshingly honest account for parents who prefer the realistic to the utopian, Suzy debunks the myths and takes us all along for the (bumpy) ride.

Care assistant Sophie loves the holidays, and nothing makes her feel more festive than helping 82-year-old resident Bea keep in touch with her old friend Greta. In their Christmas letters, the women update each other on their lives – Bea’s in the quiet residential home in London, Greta’s in the heart of Vienna and the grand Wynter Hotel. But everything changes when Bea passes away before Sophie’s had a chance to post this year’s letter.

As the youngest of four unmarried vicar's daughters, Frederica feared her destiny was to die of boredom in the sleepy village of Barton Sub Edge. Her looks were deemed unfortunate, and her wilful manner labelled her difficult. She never dreamt the arrival of a stranger would be a twist to her fate. But Frederica and the worldly gentleman from the city, Lord Granton, had something in common: boredom. So it was that the two formed a secret friendship.

Isobel arrives in the quiet Cornish town of Fallenbay determined to find peace - and answers - after her most intimate secrets have been splashed across the Internet. Cleo thinks she's happy running a small coastal café but has no idea of the trouble her children are getting themselves mixed up in. Sarah has finally put her horrible ex behind her and found the man of her dreams. Or has she? All three women have no idea how powerful their darkest secrets can be and how they will change the town of Fallenbay forever.