Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Strevens" in All Categories

Minty is the kind of girl who notices things. Pockets of cold air on a stairway. Cries on the wind. Ghosts. On night-time jaunts from the house where she's staying while her mother recovers from an accident, Minty stumbles upon a moondial that takes her back in time. She finds Tom, a sickly kitchen boy, and Sarah, a girl with a birthmark who is only allowed out at night because her family think she has the mark of the devil.

Hyderabad, India. 1798. Beatrice Sinclair, a grieving young widow facing financial destitution, has travelled from Hampshire to Hyderabad to visit her brother, an employee of the British East India Company. There, she is astonished to discover that he has married a beautiful Indian girl and lives with his wife's extended family in a dilapidated palace, the Jahanara Mahal - famed for the theft of a fabled diamond many years ago. As an outsider in an unfamiliar world, Bee faces many challenges - not least of all building a new and meaningful life after the heartbreak she has endured.

1851. Wealthy businessman Jacob Welland is dying of consumption and implores private detective Laetitia Rodd to find his beloved brother, whom he has not seen for 10 years. An impoverished Oxford scholar who left college to live as a wandering hermit, Joshua Welland has been spotted in a gypsy camp, where it was rumoured he was learning great secrets.

Abby Spencer knows she can come across as an airhead - she talks too much and is a bit of a klutz. Though she sacrificed her career to help raise her sisters, a job interview at biscuit company Crumbs could finally be her chance to shine. Managing director Douglas Faulkner isn’t sure what to make of Abby, with her Bambi eyes, tousled hair and ability to say more in the half-hour interview than he manages in a day. All he knows is she’s a breath of fresh air and could bring a new lease of life to the corporate world of Crumbs. To his life, too, if he’d let her....

Having married once for love and been abandoned by her husband, Ellen is determined that her second marriage will be for money. And conveniently Duncan, her divorce lawyer, is not unattractive - and he’s enticingly single. But when she meets painter Matthew, Ellen has to remind herself very strongly indeed that Duncan is the man for her....

Grace, Meg and Daphne, all in their 70s, are minding their own business while enjoying a cup of tea in a café when 17-year-old Nina stumbles in. She’s clearly distraught and running from someone, so the three women think nothing of hiding her when a suspicious-looking man starts asking if they’ve seen her. Once alone, Nina tells the women a little of what she’s running from. The need to protect her is immediate, and Grace, Meg and Daphne vow to do just this. But how? They soon realise there really is only one answer: murder.

Oxfordshire, 1947. Exhausted by the war and nursing a tragic secret, Kit Smallwood flees to Wickam Farm to recuperate. There she throws herself into helping set up a charity sending midwives to India. Then Kit meets Anto, a handsome, complicated but charming trainee doctor nearing the end of his English education, and she falls utterly in love. But when Anto informs his family that he is to return home with an English bride, his parents are appalled.

Rosalie Heart is a well-known face in Irlwick - well, if you drive a bright pink taxi and your signature style is a pink anorak, you’re going to draw a bit of attention! But Rosalie’s company, Love Taxis, is more than just a gimmick - for many people in the remote Scottish village, it’s a lifeline. Which is something that Marc Petersen will never understand. Marc’s ruthless approach to business doesn’t extend to pink taxi companies running at a loss. On the face of it Marc and Rosalie should loathe each other, but what they didn’t count on was somebody playing cupid....

When Angel Tempest finds out that her best friend, Zac, has inherited a Scottish mansion, Taigh Fallon, from his great aunt, she immediately offers to go and visit it with him. It will mean closing up her jet jewellery shop in Whitby for a few days, but the prospect of a spring trip to the Scottish Highlands is too tempting. Then Kyle, Zac’s estranged and slightly grumpy Canadian cousin, unexpectedly turns up at Taigh Fallon, and events take a strange turn as the long-kept secrets of the old house begin to reveal themselves....

Vita's gift shop would do better if she ran it as a business, not as somewhere to daydream. But she's not one to tell herself off: she leaves that to Tim, her ex. Active, outdoorsy Oliver runs his trees-surgery business as calmly as his home - but his love life is intensely private. When Vita and Oliver's paths cross at a pear tree, there's a chance of something blossoming. As spring turns to summer, both Vita and Oliver are given second chances. Bu will they take them - or walk away?

When Eleanor waves her daughter off for a gap-year trip, she finds herself stuck as a satellite wife, spinning in faithful orbit around her domineering husband, with only her clever but judgemental father, Conrad, for comfort Andrew isn’t mastering the art of growing up either. But when he finds his belongings dumped in bin bags on the drive, even he can see that his girlfriend is hinting he should move out. With no other options, he moves back in with his parents.

The rural idyll of life in a remote Welsh valley has turned sour for the Cordiners. For David, life in the local police force is deathly dull after the exhilaration of working for the Met. For Tessa, the hostility of the local community is a daily torment. Then a young nurse is found dead at a nearby beauty spot, her corpse strewn with wild flowers in some sick ceremony.

England, 1087. On her sister’s wedding day, Lassair meets an attractive and enigmatic stranger who brings a breath of the fascinating outside world to her backwater Fenland village. When he asks Lassair to use her unique talents to help locate a mysterious treasure, she accepts despite the dangers. But this is no ordinary treasure hunt; the object of the perilous search is 500 years old and has a terrifying power of its own….

Plain Emma Stephenson might not look like a tycoon's glamorous assistant, but for Luca D'Amato - a playboy who likes to play - breaking through her no-nonsense attitude is his favourite new game. Sensible Emma thought all they'd be sharing was an office - not a bed! But she's learning fast what being Luca's personal assistant really means! Now he's standing there offering her a promotion - and she's trying to find the words to tell him she's pregnant!

Sheikh Prince Ibrahim refuses to bow to the duty that has destroyed his family by locking away his emotions and shunning his royal responsibility. Until the desert calls.… One searing kiss is all it takes for Georgie to know Ibrahim is trouble. And she’s had more than enough of that to last her a lifetime! Can Georgie ever truly be with Ibrahim? Or will his duty always get in the way?

18th century, Scotland. Jacobite sympathies stir powerful emotions, especially in a titled young man with little to occupy him. But strong-willed Lady Winifred Nithsdale has already seen her mother, father, and brother imprisoned for their support of England's Catholic king. While she wants to be loyal, Winifred tries to protect her husband from imprisonment, or worse, the scaffold. But will she escape with her own life intact?

When Kate's younger daughter Ella goes off to university, she realises her life has become consumed by the minutiae of family life. In her 'empty nest', Kate starts to wonder: what now? Decades after abandoning her university hobby of rowing, Kate gingerly joins a local ladies' rowing team and rediscovers her passion for the pleasing rhythmic sensation of paddle slicing through water. More than anything, though, Kate finds that the team of strong women bring new adventures and unlikely friendships she hadn't even realised she missed having.

Rosie Bunting has spent her life caring for others, often at the expense of her own hopes and dreams. But when she overhears somebody describing her as ‘boring’, she decides it’s time for a change. Little does she realise that the outdoor pursuits weekend brochure handed to her at the local Art Café will kick start a summer that will see her abseiling down a Welsh cliff face in ‘eye watering’ leggings, rediscovering her artistic side and unexpectedly inheriting an old fire engine.

When Joel Leicester walks into the hotel where Rosa Tempest works, she can’t believe her bad luck. Out of all the hotels in all of North Yorkshire, the man who broke her heart would have to walk into Carrick Park! The last time Rosa saw Joel it was after a whirlwind holiday when they’d been greeted by a woman claiming to be his fiancée. Rosa never stuck around to hear Joel’s side of the story, but now, six years later on, Fate has another trick up its sleeve as a potentially disastrous summer wedding at Carrick Park can only be saved by Joel and Rosa working together....

In 1935 Evelyn Shillington started a diary, little knowing the years of turmoil it would cover. Eve joined her beloved husband, Captain Rex Shillington, whenever she could on his postings, giving her a unique view into army life. Through the abdication crisis to the turbulent years of the Second World War, Eve documented it all with an inimitable spirit and brave humour. The diaries lay forgotten in an attic for years until an enterprising antiques dealer discovered them by chance. Published 70 years later, they offer a new perspective into life on the home front, a firsthand account that was almost lost forever.