Showing results by narrator "Karen Bartke" in All Categories

As the fragile negotiations of the international Peace Conference get underway, typist Stella Rutherford throws herself into her work and the mixture of glamour and devastation the City of Light reveals. Anything to escape the grief coming in waves for her beloved brother Jack. Her sister Corran is about to put her academic career to use among the troops in France, a chance to see what the experience was like for countless men, including her fiancé Rob.

Hiding from the world in her little white cottage on the shores of a loch, Annie Jackson is fighting to come to terms with the world of the murmurs, a curse that has haunted female members of her family for centuries. While she is within the ancient, heavy stone of the old dwelling, the voices merely buzz, but the moment she steps outside the door they clamour to torment her all over again, bringing with them shocking visions of imminent deaths. Into this oasis comes her adoptive mother, Mandy McEvoy, begging for Annie's help. Mandy's nephew Damien has gone missing.

Forty years ago, the name Rachel McMahon was synonymous with evil. After killing four men in the most brutal of ways, the world rejoiced as she was locked up. Now Rachel has done her time, repented for her crimes, and is ready to live a quiet life back in Scotland under a new name.

Elena changed everything about the way Meg saw the world and her place in it. By effecting an elaborate escape from Russia to to meet Meg in Ukraine, Elena loosed a bloody vendetta against them. Their only hope was an underground, planet crossing escape, entirely on their own and unsupported, to Meg’s home in British Columbia, Canada. They made it out alive and together by refusing to put their fate in the hands of others and learning to trust, not only each other, but their own hearts.

When the body of 17-year-old Jackie Shaw is found in a shallow grave, it sends shockwaves through her small West Yorkshire community. Rumours of murder and systematic sexual abuse are rife, and the town's MP, Samuel Stokes, is adding fuel to the fire with his campaign against a so-called 'Asian grooming gang'. Probation officer Rachel Collier deals with paedophiles on a daily basis: so when she hears that her teenage daughter, Chloe, has become friendly with 24-year-old Tariq, she's concerned where it might lead. But that's not her only worry.

Five years after leading a strike at the sewing factory, newly pregnant Ellen is rushed off her feet at the Clydebank Clothing exchange, the heart of the community. Ellen is missing her husband James who is away with the Royal Navy, and worried about how to make ends meet. She desperately wants to confide in her best friend Sadie. However, Sadie is hiding a heart-breaking secret of her own which places strain on their friendship.

After a string of failed relationships - romantic and platonic - Lea's had enough of watching life happen without her. When she bumps into Shep, a comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in need of accommodation, it feels like destiny. And voila - Lea now has a lodger and some company. The two get on like a flat on fire, and Lea can't resist falling for outgoing Shep. But she knows it's a mistake that will cost her heart - he's just another guy passing through, after all. And with Shep's stand-up routine edging him closer to his big break, there's no way he'll stick around.

It’s 1964, and 22-year-old Trisha moves into a West Hampstead bedsitter to escape her controlling suburban parents and her boring fiancé, Keith. She’s determined to make it as a swinging, get-ahead girl-about-town, but finds herself struggling with homesickness, loneliness and the challenges of cooking a decent meal on a single gas ring. Then she rescues a grotty wardrobe from her landlady’s attic, and it yields a surprising treasure – a copy of Cooking in a Bedsitter, which becomes her bible.

Ever since being adopted as babies, twins Sinead and Orla have been the only family they've ever known. Orla’s got the big house in Glasgow, the supportive husband and teenage daughter, Molly Rose, while Sinead's struggles have taken her to some very dark places. But all of that changes when Sinead receives a call. Their mother, Janey, is back in their lives. But she's far from what they expected and when the siblings discover their mum is the head of a dangerous gangland firm, their lives are turned upside down.

Janey Hallahan was born into the criminal life. After the death of her father, she became head of the family business - every day making dark decisions that make her family firm richer, no matter how dangerous. While Janey rules gangland with an iron fist, she always sticks to her own code of honour, and the innocent never get hurt. One of her workers, Danny McInroy runs an exclusive club in Glasgow - the kind of place where the ultra-wealthy can fulfil their darkest desires, for a hefty cost.