Showing results by narrator "Catrin Walker Booth" in All Categories

Sam and Daisy have been best friends since university. Back then Daisy was a wild, Fleetwood Mac-obsessed girl descended from the Yorkshire Moors, while Sam’s youth was misspent traipsing around Liverpool on shopping trips and nights out. But as they lean against each other on a wooden bench in the tired garden of their beloved local pub, gazing out at Sam’s wedding, they have no idea that their paths are about to truly diverge for the first time.

Arthur and Gwen married young. Twenty years on, Gwen's got it all: wealth, beauty, a famous husband who's the founder of Britain's most successful tech company, stables full of horses, millions of followers on Instagram, an unstable lover, a wayward son, a hoard of secrets, an aching heart, and a cyberstalking blackmailer who calls himself The Invisible Knight. As the Wiltshire town of Abury prepares to celebrate the fortieth birthday of its favourite son, Morgan, Gwen's former best friend, is on her way back to Abury after two decades away.

When artist Eloise Ford hears that human remains found in an abandoned mine are believed to be those of long-missing teenager Elizabeth King, the shock sends her reeling. It can't be true. Eloise knows this for a fact because... she is Elizabeth King. Now, her carefully curated life in Cornwall is falling apart. Her husband is acting strangely, her children aren't speaking to her and she can't sell a painting for love nor money. But much more worrying are the signs that someone knows exactly who she is... and why she had to vanish thirty years ago.

Kirsten Meredith is a successful, rich and beautiful woman who seems to have it all. But she is also a woman haunted by her past which threatens to ruin her life—a lingering past of loneliness and rejection. And most dangerous of all, of burning vengeance. Lawrence McAllister is the man who walked out on her and broke her heart. Yet he is the only man who can help her fight her worst enemy—Dyllis Fisher, a woman who has vowed to destroy Kirsten's life at all costs. And in a world where bitter vengeance will know no limit, Kirsten needs all the help she can get.

Following the battles of Kohima and Imphal in mid-1944, the tide was turning against the Imperial Japanese Army. By the end of that fateful year, the Allies were preparing to launch an offensive in the Arakan region of Burma, to deliver a knockout blow to the increasingly desperate Japanese 28th Army. This fascinating new history details the actions of 3 Commando Brigade, who would spearhead this attack in a series of daring amphibious landings into the depths of the Burmese jungle, culminating in the brutal fight for Hill 170.

The county of Barsetshire is aflutter with preparations. With the wedding of Lucy Marling and Sam Adams fast approaching, and Lucy's brother Oliver brooding over his ill-fated tendre for glamorous Jessica Dean, Mrs Marling calls for reinforcements. Help arrives in the form of charming writer Isabel Dale, still mourning the loss of her fiancé on D-Day - who might just be the cure for a bruised heart.

A phonograph cylinder that plays on a loop for eternity, casting out ghostly spectres of violence; a centuries-old stew made of severed body parts; a bigoted woman working at an ossuary, the bones she watches over her only remaining friends; three siblings who set out to scatter their father's ashes, a man none of them could stand; and a hag stone sitting in the pocket of a witch. Uncanny and unsettling, wild and wyrd, the ten stories in this collection showcase the best of folk horror.

You will find a bothy in the mountains or the wilderness, remote huts you can’t reserve, usually without electricity or other mod-cons, running water or a marker on the map. And it’s there that you’ll meet Kat Hill – kettle on, feet up and pen out. Leading us on a gorgeous journey around the UK, Kat reveals the history of these wild mountain shelters and the people who visit them. With an historian’s insight and a rambler’s imagination, Kat lends fresh consideration to the concepts of nature, wilderness and escape.

Cornwall, 1786. For years, the villagers of Mirecoombe have turned to their Keeper, the old and battle-scarred Lord Pelagius Hunt, mediator between the worlds of men and fey, for help. But this is a time of change. Belief in the old ways, in the piskies and spriggans, has dimmed, kindled instead in the Reverend Cleaver's fiery pulpit. His church stands proud above the mire; God's name is whispered, hushed, loved. And now, death stalks Mirecoombe on the moor. There are corpses in the heather. There is blood in the gorse.

In 1824, Lyme Regis is as tumultuous as the sea that surrounds it. When twenty-four-year-old Ada Winters - poor, peculiar and brilliant - uncovers a set of unusual fossils on the cliffs, she believes she has found the answer to her scientific frustrations and her family's financial struggles. Meanwhile, Doctor Edwin Moyle has come to Dorset in search of the discovery that will place him amongst the greatest geologists of the age. What he finds instead is a strange young woman who seems to hold the key to everything he desires.

Meet Ivy. She's not just a hot mess, she's a walking disaster. The only man in her life is the pizza delivery driver and she puts more effort into binge-watching Netflix than her dead-end job. But that was the old Ivy. Because last night she switched her phone off, peeled the salami from last night's drunken takeaway off the carpet and made a list. A list that changed everything.

From the beaches of Orkney to the Welsh mountains, and the Derbyshire peaks to the Cornish moors, Britain is home to many strange creatures of folklore. Some are ancient, as enduring as the forests and mountains they inhabit. Others live among us, in our cities, creating new legends as they scuttle through the shadows. And none of them are to be trusted.

Charlotte Morgan knows how it feels to desperately want a baby. As a child, seeing her mum devastated by losing her longed-for babies, Charlotte wished another woman could give her mother what she so craved. Now Charlotte’s a mum herself and knowing how much love her daughter, Alice, brings into her life, she vows to help others achieve their dreams of becoming a parent. When she meets Malcolm and Brenda on a surrogacy website, it seems she's found the perfect couple. In their late 40s, they have wealth and an enviable life, but there’s one thing missing – a child of their own.

Romy Kaplan has vanished from her home. Or has she? When Romy begins posting on her social media accounts asking everyone to stop looking for her, the police are certain she is safe. But Romy's nearest and dearest are far from convinced. Her husband died in the bath under inconclusive circumstances six weeks ago. And Romy would never disappear without telling someone where she is going. As true crime podcast host, Cristy Ward, picks up Romy's case… she has the whole world asking… Where is Romy now?

As the sun sets on a feverishly hot July evening, a young woman spies on her teenage neighbour, transfixed by what looks like an occult ritual intended to banish an ex-boyfriend. Alone in a new town and desperate to expel the claustrophobic memories of her own ex that have followed, the narrator decides to try to hex herself free from her past. She falls in with the neighbour and her witchy friend, exploring nascent supernatural powers as the boundaries of reality shift in and out of focus.

Emily has worked hard to be the chic city girl she always dreamed of being. She's definitely not still thinking about Andy, her last boyfriend who ghosted her completely out of the blue. She's got her eyes on the new guy at work. He's much better suited to her new image. When a séance goes haywire, Andy barges back into her life, switching off lights, moving through furniture and moaning about his untimely death. He didn't ghost her, he died...and he's a bit miffed she's trying to move on. And if Emily is going to stop Andy's ghost ruining her love life, she's got to get rid of him.

Jinnifer Blue opens her eyes to find herself in a nightmare. Her plan to expose the horrific truth behind the government's secret Second Species programme has failed, and now she's being turned into a weapon by her worst enemy...her mother. At the other end of the galaxy Caspian Dax, ferocious space pirate and Jinn's sometime lover, is facing an even more terrifying fate. He's being forced to fight in the arena on Sittan, a pitiless, ruthless alien landscape where blood is the only prize that matters. They will use him, destroy him, change him.

2187. Earth is cold, dead and divided. The rich hide away while the rest will do anything to survive. Humanity have only one hope: crossing hostile alien territory to reach a habitable planet. Jinnifer Blue is on the run. An expert pilot, she apprehends criminals on behalf of the government and keeps her illegal genetic modifications a closely guarded secret. But when a particularly dangerous job goes south, Jinn is left stranded on a prison ship with one of the most ruthless criminals in the galaxy.

After their dreams of starting a family are crushed, Philippa and her husband Marco need a fresh start. Focusing on repairing the crumbling walls and leaking roof of the Cotswolds house they impulsively bought seems easier work than repairing their relationship. When Philippa finds a hidden memorial hidden deep in the garden, the discovery only pushes them further apart. But as Philippa determines to uncover the truth behind the memorial, could the secrets it reveals be the key to finally putting their heartbreak to rest?

When Daniela Cain returns to her small hometown after seven years’ absence, she finds that flooding has left the village all but deserted. She’s there to collect something she left in her childhood home, then she plans to leave. But upon entering the old house she discovers her younger sister’s body half-submerged in the water. As Daniela tries to work out what happened to Auryn, she uncovers dark secrets from her childhood as one of four sisters in the household, when the Cain’s and another local family begin to turn on each other with devastating results.