Showing results by narrator "Elizabeth Knowelden" in All Categories

German tanks rumble through the streets of Paris, forcing frightened citizens to flee. But not everyone has the luxury to leave. Camille Lacroix, a chambermaid at the world-famous Hôtel Ritz, must stay to support her family back home in Brittany. Desperate to earn money, Camille also acts as a lady’s maid for longtime guest Vivian Miller, a glamorous American widow—and a Nazi sympathiser.

As single mother Leah struggles to get her children ready one morning, the doorbell rings. Standing on the doorstep of their terraced house in Whitley Bay is a well-dressed stranger, Clio, who feels an emotional tie to the house that she can’t explain.

England, 1895. An unsolved series of magician murders and opus thefts isn’t a puzzle to Elsie Camden. But to reveal a master spellcaster as the culprit means incriminating herself as an unregistered spellbreaker. When Elsie refuses to join forces with the charming assassin, her secret is exposed, she’s thrown in jail, and the murderer disappears. But Elsie’s hope hasn’t vanished.

The Penryn family have always been eccentric—living in a dilapidated castle in the wilds of Cumbria with an orchid-mad father and a classicist mother who likes to re-enact Greek myths, who wouldn’t be? Well-heeled Londoner Althea Penryn doesn’t expect a divorce and job hunt over the Christmas holidays, but her husband claims he’s done and the prenup is solid. She packs up her reluctant teenage children and heads home to Casterglass Castle to confront the ghosts of her past—including the real one her mother claims lives in the old guard tower.

One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs - each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station. Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war.

Twenty years ago, student Daisy Harrington went out for the evening and never came home. Her body was found a week later. The killer was caught. Case closed. Now, on what would have been her fortieth birthday, her five university housemates are invited to a weekend gathering. None of them want to go. But none of them can refuse—the invitation makes it clear that if they don’t attend, the past they’ve spent two decades hiding will finally come to light.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom - all because of a reckless bargain her father struck. And since birth, she has been training to kill him. Betrayed by her family yet bound to obey, Nyx rails against her fate. Still, on her 17th birthday, she abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, disarm him, and break the 900-year-old curse he put on her people. But Ignifex is not what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle - a shifting maze of magical rooms - enthralls her.

Edith is convinced that Janushek's former employer, the mysterious Doctor Farley, holds the key to an antidote for dragon venom—her only hope to free the man she loves. Her ruse to obtain it leads her to London's shadowy East End and a plot as sensational as one of her own detective novels. As Edith goes deeper into a city far more serpentine than she ever dreamed, she begins to question what Farley is really searching for…and if the cost to save Simon might be more than she can pay.

Married to Emperor Franz Joseph, Elisabeth—fondly known as Sisi—captures the hearts of her people as their “fairy queen,” but beneath that dazzling persona lives a far more complex figure. In mid-nineteenth-century Vienna, the halls of the Hofburg Palace buzz not only with imperial waltzes and champagne but with temptations, rivals, and cutthroat intrigue. Feeling stifled by strict protocols and a turbulent marriage, Sisi finds solace at her estate outside Budapest, where she rides her beloved horses and enjoys visits from a man with whom she’s unwittingly become enamored.

Expat Holly Jones has built the perfect life for herself in an exclusive area of Miami: the beautiful house, the enviable family. So the last person she expects to bump into one morning is a ghost from her old life in London, someone she hasn’t seen in over twenty years: the other Holly, Holly Wild. Single, sexy, and a world away from the frumpy sidekick she was at school, Holly Wild quickly becomes an unavoidable part of Holly Jones’s life. She is everywhere—in her home, in her marriage, and especially in her head.

As the new dragon keeper in the hidden valley of Ormdale, Edith expects her first dragon mating season to involve venomous bites and amorous wyverns. She doesn't expect to find herself growing closer to an inconveniently appealing suitor next door, or to stumble upon a dragon poacher lurking in the outbuildings, or to uncover a family scandal in the Abbey. Fortunately, Edith has a mentor to help her sort things out, the spellbinding Helena Drake of Drake Hall. Or does Helena harbour secrets of her own?

Layla Cassidy has always wanted a normal life, and the chance to put her father's brutal legacy behind her. And in her final year of university she's finally found it. Or so she thinks. But when Layla accidentally activates an ancient scroll, she is bestowed with an incredible, inhuman power. She plunges into a dangerous new world, full of mythical creatures and menace - all while a group of fanatics will stop at nothing to turn her abilities to their cause.

For sorcerer Nate Garrett, the stakes have risen. If Asgard falls, he may lose much more than his home - he may lose the thing dearest to him. To stand a fighting chance against Avalon, he must be ready to go to war. But when his best friend and father are poisoned, Nate must race against the clock in a desperate quest to find a cure.

After discovering her mother’s secret life, Cara doesn’t have much faith in marriage. So when the love of her life, Simeon, proposes, she struggles to say "I do." She adores him, but why risk the perfect relationship by signing on a dotted line that could ruin everything? If her parents’ marriage taught her anything, it was that a gold ring doesn’t equal happiness, and she has no desire to follow in their dysfunctional footsteps.

Estella is a clever and creative grifter determined to make a name for herself with her designs amid the 1970s London punk rock revolution. As a girl, Estella befriended a pair of young thieves with an appetite for mischief, and together the trio has been able to build a life for themselves on the London streets. But Estella longs for more than an existence built on stealing to make ends meet. One day, Estella’s flair for fashion catches the eye of the Baroness Von Hellman, a design legend who is devastatingly chic and terrifyingly haute.

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order - from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life. What’s more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice’s trip - one that against all reason seems to be predestined.

When Beth, Megan, and Joanne meet at university, they become inseparable friends who’d do anything for one another - even agreeing to keep what happens one shocking night a secret. Now in their 40s and outwardly successful, each of the three has dealt with what happened in their own way. But secrets and lies leave their mark. When Megan decides to tell her fiancé the truth about that night, it threatens to ruin the lives of everyone around her. But someone is prepared to do anything to stop that from happening....

To Rebecca it was a brave decision that led to her freedom from domestic abuse. To Solomon it was the ultimate betrayal. It's been ten years since Rebecca's testimony saw Solomon locked away. Enough time for the nightmares to recede, the nerves to relax; enough time to rebuild her life and put the past behind her. Then one day a phone rings in her bedroom - but it's not her phone.

It’s 1943 in London. Paige Miller, an ordinary shopgirl at the fabled department store Selfridges, falls for Danny, an American GI who comes by the books counter at the same time every day. As she slowly lets him into her heart, Paige realizes that Danny is keeping a secret. One that could change the course of the war—and both their lives.

Princess Guinevere has come to Camelot to wed a stranger: the charismatic King Arthur. With magic clawing at the kingdom's borders, the great wizard Merlin conjured a solution - send in Guinevere to be Arthur's wife...and his protector from those who want to see the young king's idyllic city fail. The catch? Guinevere's real name - and her true identity - is a secret. She is a changeling, a girl who has given up everything to protect Camelot.