Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

Maureen Hutton's life has never been easy. Married to an alcoholic and stuck on a council estate in East London, she scrimps and saves to bring up her three children alone. Murder, the underworld, drug addiction - over four decades Maureen sticks by her blood through thick and thin. But then the unforgivable happens. Maureen is told a terrible secret which threatens to rip her family apart. She can't say anything. She is too frightened of causing a bloodbath.

Being in the know can be deadly. Joanie Brewer's children mean the world to her. She'd do anything to make sure they're fed and clothed - even if it means going on the game - and she lives in constant fear that one of them will be taken from her. Eighteen-year-old Jon Jon is knee-deep in crime, and Jeanette, only fourteen, knows more than is good for her. But it's Kira who really scares her, for in a world where no one is to be trusted, her eleven-year-old angel is the most vulnerable to danger. Then Kira disappears and Joanie's darkest fears are realised. She thinks she knows what's happened to her little girl, and her obsession to uncover the truth threatens to destroy them all.

The new novel from Sunday Times best seller Dilly Court. She turned the picture of the Christmas card over with her frozen hands. The scene showed a family at Yuletide as they gathered around the magnificent tree. Standing stiff with cold on the icy cobbles, Alice could only dream.... With the snow falling steadily, Alice and her ailing mother have found themselves on the cold streets of London with only debts to their name - forced to rely on the begrudging charity of cruel Aunt Jane.

Miss Caroline has doubts when she receives an urgent invitation from a London law firm to discuss her late father's estate. After all, the dishonored Earl of Morton died without a pound sterling to pass on to his two daughters. But while immersing herself in helping Mrs. Frogerton's capricious daughter navigate the high social season, Caroline meets with a cagey lawyer, Mr. Smith, who shares life-altering news—the earl composed a second will, leaving behind an undisclosed fortune. Mrs. Frogerton, however, is thoroughly unimpressed with the firm's conduct and suspicious of their true motives.

Three Butlers. Two weddings. One funeral. The explosive new novel from the Sunday Times number-one best-selling author Kimberley Chambers. Times are changing in the East End, from bad to worse.... Despite the love they share, Bella and Michael's lives seem to be continually throwing grenades in their path to true happiness. Bella's dark secret is threatening to spiral out of control - and has the power to destroy the Butler brothers' bond once and for all....

Paradise Row, London. December 1865. Snow is falling fast, and Sally Suggs is working tirelessly to bring in enough money to keep bread on the table. Her father, a skilled rag-and-bone man, has fallen ill, and now Sally has taken up his trade. But this is a man’s world and competition is fierce, and Sally’s rival, Finn Kelly, always seems to be one step ahead.

Acapulco, 1974: Rina Walker is on assignment. Just another quick, clean kill. She wakes to discover her employer's severed head on her bedside table and a man with an AK-47 coming through the door of her hotel room. She needs all her skills to neutralise her attacker and escape. After a car chase, she is captured by a Mexican drug boss who exploits her radiant beauty and ruthless expertise to eliminate an inconvenient member of the government.

East-End London, 1858. In London's twisting streets, it's hard to tell friend from foe. And for Katherine Martin, arriving back in London after years away, the city is crueller than she remembers. Her eyes opened to the plight of London's poor, Kate is determined to do what she can to help, even if it means defying her parents. In secret, she opens a soup kitchen. But there is a world of criminals within London's poorest alleys. Catching the notice of Harry Trader and his gang, Kate is out of her depth. Until she begins to discover that her true enemies might not be who she thought.

For more than a decade, two East End families have been locked in a bitter war. On one side are the Mitchells, a notorious underworld mob from East London's Canning Town. They have an iron in every fire and will resort to intimidation and violence to get what they want. On the other side are the O'Haras. The Mitchells' biggest rivals are a travelling family who live in nearby Stratford. They compete with the Mitchells for pub protection, and the two families hate each other.

The war is only into its second year, but already it has claimed one victim from the Adams family. Emily, Boots's cherished wife, has died in an air-raid, and the whole family mourns her. But for Polly Simms the prospect of a new life dawns, while the members of the younger generation who are in uniform, and doing their bit for king and country, have their own problems to contend with.

Behind the cold, damp walls of the cottage, 17-year-old Malakai River is left to fend for his younger sisters. In her selfish quest for freedom, his mother shacks up with a small-time gangster and recklessly leaves the children behind. When Jean River returns a year later, she makes two shocking discoveries - a decomposing body of a young woman in her cottage...and Kelly Raven.

Inquisitor Greyfax and a retinue of incorruptible Grey Knights are sent on a mission by the reborn Primarch Guilliman to recover the Eye of Night, a fabled artefact of Ruin that could weaken the Great Rift. It will be no easy task as Greyfax – with the aid of a long dead inquisitor – must journey into the Eye of Terror itself and challenge a traitor of a truly ancient pedigree, the crone Moriana.

Harry Fletcher - Fletch to his friends - has spent his life surviving the tough streets of the East End. He knows working for notorious gangster Billy King is dangerous, and sleeping with Billy’s beautiful wife, Susan, is deadly...but rules are meant to be broken. If Billy discovers the affair, Fletch is a dead man. But the closer he gets to Susan, the more reckless Fletch becomes. And soon, Fletch realises that every one - even him - must pay the price for his actions.

The best things in life are never free. Cain Moran wanted Jenny Riley more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything before in his life. But loving Jenny Riley was the easy part; it was telling his wife he wanted a divorce that was going to be the killer.... Jenny is not just any girl. She cares nothing for Cain's hard-man reputation - she just wants to be with him. But Cain is not a free man. And he's about to find out that when his wife Caroline said 'til death us do part, she meant it.

A gripping thriller that will shock you to the core. Controlled all her life by her religious mother, 15-year-old Kelly Raven commits the ultimate sin. She soon discovers that running away to the cold, frightening streets of London is less harsh than her previous life. A drug dealer, two fraudsters, and a prostitute are her new family now, and she becomes the woman she was destined to be. Little does she know that Eddie Raven is coming for her, but she is no sweet four-year-old child, and he is certainly no doting father.

Living in a beautiful home on the edge of a council estate, Kara Bannon can’t imagine what it’s like to have nothing. An eerie phone call plays on her mind and within three days she loses everything – her job, her home and Justin, the only person she thought she could trust. Alone and terrified, she makes a decision that will change her life forever.

It was 1940, and many of the younger members of the Adams family were caught up in the war in France. Boots, now a major and on the staff of General Sir Henry Simms, was one of the thousands of British troops trying to escape in the armada of little boats from Dunkirk. His son, Tim, and nephew, Bobby, were also struggling to reach the coast and safety, while Eloise was with the ATS awaiting the homecoming soldiers at Portsmouth with a comforting cup of tea and a ticket home. Boots and Tim both made it safely back, but of Bobby, there was no sign, and the family all feared the worst.

1950. The Second World War is over, and life has moved on for the Woolworth girls: Sarah, Maisie and Freda. In a new world, the Woolworth women have high expectations of their daughters, wanting them to seize opportunities they didn’t have themselves. Ready to take on Saturday jobs at Woolworths, budding friends Bessie, Claudette, Clementine and Dorothy are faced with unforeseeable challenges as the real world comes into focus. Their bond can only be strengthened as they overcome the darkest times. Perhaps their lives are not as clear-cut as their mothers wished them to be.

When Georgie Deacon's husband, Dixie, is found shot dead in the street, the police assume it's a revenge killing. However, things are not what they seem when two of her brothers-in-law are arrested for Dixie's murder. After she discovers a substantial padlock on her garage door and a box containing a child's toy and a pair of trainers in her husband's wardrobe, Georgie is forced to confront the secrets of her husband's past. No matter how sinister they appear to be.

Left on the steps of an orphanage when she was just days old, Nancy Sunday was brought up in hardship—until the kindly Rosalind Carey took her in. Now 18 years old, Nancy is an adopted member of the Carey family. But she can’t help wondering who her parents really were. When Nancy is sent away to finishing school, she finds herself in the midst of London society. There she meets Freddie Ashton—kind and warm-hearted, he might just be the man of Nancy’s dreams. But she knows his wealthy parents would never let him marry a penniless foundling.