Showing results by narrator "Antonia Beamish" in All Categories

In The Incidental Feminist: Friend, foe, femme fatale: The truth about Thatcher, Tina Gaudoin investigates the complexities of the woman behind the tropes. Drawing upon explosive new material from the archives and interviews with her contemporaries, Gaudoin reveals how Thatcher triumphed over rampant misogyny and class prejudice to normalize female power and manipulated her femininity, sexuality, and intellect to become the most powerful woman in the world.

Charlotte and I argued so badly the last time we spoke. I was just worried about her, but she refused to hear me out. And now she’s lying pale, still and silent in a hospital bed. I’m convinced this was no accident: the police should be questioning her boyfriend, Freddie. I never thought he was good enough for her, but did he hurt my daughter? Guilt floods through me again and again. If we hadn’t argued, she wouldn’t have been with him today. If we hadn’t argued, I could have been there for her.

Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she steps into the archive of memory, deftly stitching together her dedicated study of fashion with the story of her own life lived in and through clothes. From her mother's black wedding suit to the swirling patterns of her own silk kimono, her memoir unfolds in spare, luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear.

Emmy and her little sister Dani are sleeping in their bedroom upstairs. Their parents are in the kitchen. A knife is jammed to their mother’s throat. Their father has a stack of kitchen plates balanced on his back. The intruder rasps, ‘Don’t be breathing too hard now. I reckon smashing plates is the sort of noise that’ll wake a child. Have them coming down to see what’s going on. There can’t be witnesses ...’ What Detective Maddie Ives will find in that nice family kitchen will horrify even this most hardened cop. And she knows the victim ...

Young Irish nurse Ellen arrives at May Day House, tasked with helping the men there rehabilitate. But there’s something strange about the house, surrounded by water, on its own island in the Thames. And then there are the men: traumatised by their experiences of war, and subject to troubling methods in a desperate race to get them back to duty. As Ellen gets drawn into the world of May Day House, she starts to realise this will be no place to hide away from her own troubles…

Violet Hamilton is no ordinary lady…She is a Lady Detective, who spends her time solving mysteries and unveiling scandals in the bustling seaside town of Hastings and St Leonards, a popular spot for the Victorian middle classes. But when the body of a local woman is found on the beach, Violet’s efforts to investigate are blocked at every turn.

Britain is awash, the sea creeps into the land, brambles and forest swamp derelict towns. Food production has moved overseas and people are forced to move to the cities for work. The countryside is empty. A chorus, the herd voice of feral cows, wander this newly wild land watching over changing times, speaking with love and exasperation. Jesse and his puppy Mister Maliks roam the woods until his family are forced to leave for London.

Don't miss the brand new emotional WW2 evacuee tale from the author of An Orphan's Story and The Lost Evacuee… Finding a place of safety is just the start of his journey… When Georgie Greene is evacuated to the English countryside to keep him safe from the London Blitz, he can’t think of...

By the time she was 18, Caroline Jones had lived in five different African countries as well as Pakistan. Her father worked for the UN, and the family followed him to countries in or on the border of civil wars and famines. It was a childhood full of adventure, but it was also transient and impermanent. At 16 she went to boarding school in England and then on to Oxford University. At 17 Caroline developed bulimia, a disease that became like a lover to her, her map through darkness.

There are many secrets in the dark places of the Old World. From the cities of the Empire, where men huddle together in defiance of the darkness that sweeps across the land, to the vast, savage forests that house all manner of terrible beasts, everywhere you look there is a dark tale or ancient legend waiting to be unearthed. For the vampire Genevieve Dieudonné, several of these ancient horrors and blood-soaked nightmares are about to come to light, as she is plunged into battles for her life and her very soul across three linked novellas.

Time to die… The explosive new thriller featuring Kate Maddox from the writers of Catch Your Death and Killing Cupid. Two years on from uncovering a terrifying conspiracy of rogue scientists, all Kate Maddox wants is to lead a normal life with her partner Paul and son Jack. But then a face...

A man's body is found on a canal towpath. In his pocket, a magnetic letter in the shape of an E. Days later, a second victim is murdered, this time with the letter V tucked into her clothing. When the letter E is located near to a third victim, DI Allie Shenton and her colleagues are sent into full alert. Is their killer spelling a word, a name or are the letters an anagram? One thing's for certain as the body count rises—the eerie, childlike clues point to a pattern that doesn't look like stopping.

During Britannia's tribal age, vengeance is brutal, bloody and will come for even those who think themselves invincible. Family feuds must be settled, whatever the cost. Both Seeress Meddi of the Eorlingas and Wærmund of the Gyrwe have old scores to settle. Meddi for her tribe to survive and thrive, and Waermund to cast himself from his father's shadow once and for all. But unbeknownst, Meddi and Wærmund share a common enemy who threatens them both – the elusive Elen and her ally is someone Wærmund has travelled the breadth of Britannia to outrun.

He Will Get You is the new breathtaking thriller from best-selling author Charlie Gallagher. Detective Maddie Ives faces the most twisted serial killer of her career. He’s one step ahead of them. He’s watching their every move. And his next target is one of their own. You might know who the killer is, but can you work out why? The body count is rising, and each murder is more unpredictable than the last. Detective Maddie Ives races against time to work out the killer’s real motive. Full of twists and turns until the fiendish climax.

For Julia Engelhorn life divides into the Before and After. There was a time Before, when her life was filled with the joys and struggles of parenthood, when she was run off her feet trying to take care of a seven year old and three year old twins Octavia and Maximo. And then there was a time After, when her world was encased in darkness, when there was only one child left and she had become a member of a club that no one wants to join.

When one of the notorious Johnson brothers is murdered and a bag of money goes missing, a deadly game of cat and mouse is set in motion. Detective Allie Shenton and her team are called in to catch the killer, but the suspects are double-crossing each other and Allie has little time to untangle the web of lies. As she delves deeper into the case, things take a personal turn when Allie realises she is being stalked by the very same person who attacked her sister seventeen years ago and left her for dead.

As a young civil servant, Caroline Slocock became the first ever female private secretary to any British Prime Minister and was at Margaret Thatcher's side for the final 18 months of her premiership. A left-wing feminist, Slocock was no natural ally, and yet she became fascinated by the woman behind the Iron Lady façade and by how she dealt with a world dominated by men. As events inexorably led to Margaret Thatcher's downfall, Slocock observed the vulnerabilities and contradictions of the woman considered by many to be the ultimate anti-feminist.

Could you stay quiet about a murder? Killed on his way home from a night out, Kit Harper had lots of secrets. At the opposite end of the city, another man is found smothered in his bed. Jack Fletcher had secrets too. A photo of a young woman reveals a clue and with dual cases to run, Detective Allie Shenton and her team are pushed to their limits. As attacks on a close group of friends continue, a link to a cold case twenty years ago is unveiled.

The Limekiln Estate has witnessed many a dark crime over the years. When DI Allie Shenton is called out to a suspicious death, she isn't surprised to see it's a local she knows only too well. While the slaying of Billy Whitmore is on everyone's lips, a woman is stabbed in her home. A day later and a third victim turns up. Three known associates brutally murdered—the bodies are piling up quicker than the forensic evidence is coming back. Yet Allie senses there's something more disturbing going on. She's sure Fiona Abbott, Billy's partner, is involved too.

When DI Allie Shenton is called out to a murder suicide, it quickly becomes clear that it's a double slaying, and there is a killer on the loose. The bodies are found in a property owned by local entrepreneur/drug dealer Kenny Webb. Several young women are staying there, they are refusing to talk and one of them is missing. While she waits on forensic evidence, Allie decides to do what she does best. She takes to the community to see who will talk. Right now, she's the only one who can get answers. But then a third murder rattles everyone.