Showing results by narrator "Lucy Price-Lewis" in All Categories

It's hard to get inside friendship: its particular intensity; its singular ease; the way it can wax and wane; its ability to cause uncommon pain. This is the territory of novels and letters, poems and graphic novels - which is where The Virago Book of Friendship steps in. Celebratory, but also explanatory and wide in scope - from the Bible to Yellowface, from school friends to the loss of friends in old age - this wonderful book includes Jane Austen, Nora Ephron, Toni Morrison, Vivian Gornick, Helen Garner, LM Montgomery, Dolly Alderton - among nearly one hundred others.

When Boris Johnson came to power in 2019, he did so with the largest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher. Rewriting the political map, he united a party and shattered Labour’s fabled red wall. And yet, just three years later, he was ousted by the same members who had once greeted his leadership so rapturously. What had gone so wrong?

In this unique synthesis of science and culture, former astrophysicist and writer Joanne Baker charts the global history of humanity’s relationship with the cosmos. Starting with the nearby Moon before venturing through the solar system to the stars and beyond, she unveils a rich mosaic of stories and research that illuminate the significance of celestial bodies in our everyday lives.

Sam is catapulted back to those teenage years spent with her best friends, teasing out each other's secrets by announcing things they had never, ever done. Pushing each other's boundaries, growing closer and growing up. If only they had stopped there. But they added their own rules. They went from sharing secrets to sharing firsts. First kisses, first drinks, first fake IDs. And that was before it all went spiralling out of control. Before that day in the woods ended it all.

Admittedly, it wasn't murder. A moment's carelessness, a tragic accident - and two children are dead. Yours. Living in a small island community, you can't escape the woman who destroyed your life. Each chance encounter is an agonizing reminder of what you've lost - your family, your future, your sanity. How long before revenge becomes irresistible? With no reason to go on living, why shouldn't you turn your darkest thoughts into deeds?

London 1870: a terrifying place for a young, beautiful woman of limited means. But Eliza is modern before her time. Not for her the stifling if respectable conventionality of marriage, children, domestic drudgery. She longs for more. Through her work as an artist’s model, she meets the magnetic and irascible Devil - a born showman whose dream is to run his own theatre company. Devil’s right-hand man is the improbably named Carlo Bonomi, an ill-tempered dwarf with an enormous talent for all things magic and illusion.

April 1941, Romsey, England. Josephine 'Josy' Fox hasn't set foot in Romsey in over 20 years. As an illegitimate child, her family - headed by her controlling grandfather - found her an embarrassment. Now, she wants to return to what was once her home and uncover the secret of her parentage. Who was her father, and why would her mother never talk about him? Josy arrives the day after the Luftwaffe have bombed the town.

They called them the Orchid Girls. Grace. Molly. Charlotte. One of them is in love. One of them is a liar. One of them is dead. On a jagged Dorset cliff, wind whipping their hair, waves crashing on the rocks below, three friends became two when Charlotte’s body was pulled out of the sea. Fifteen years later Grace and Molly are worlds apart. Grace has a glittering career and a loving husband. Molly is a lonely, unemployed alcoholic. Grace has everything to lose. Molly has nothing.

For Lucy Lombard, there's nothing that chocolate can't cure. From heartache to headaches, it's the one thing she knows that she can rely on - and she's not alone. Fellow chocolate addicts Autumn, Nadia and Chantal share her passion, and together they form a select group known as The Chocolate Lovers' Club. Whenever there's a crisis, they meet in their sanctuary, a café called Chocolate Heaven. And with a cheating boyfriend, a flirtatious boss, a gambling husband and a loveless marriage, there's always plenty to discuss....

Every year on the same day, on the anniversary, I receive a single black rose. Thirteen years of dark petals, jagged thorns, dredging up memories I’ve tried to forget. I’ve packed up my life. All my belongings are carefully sealed, my suitcases ready for my big move. I’m just days away from a new life abroad with my boyfriend, Ben. No one knows the real reason I’m desperate to leave. My best friend, Lena, is throwing me a leaving party. A celebration, to say goodbye. Champagne to toast my farewell. Speeches, full of fond memories. No one knows what I’m running from.

Two murder victims and a suspect whose alibi appears open to doubt.... Geraldine Steel is plunged into a double murder investigation which threatens not only her career but her life. And then her previously unknown twin, Helena, turns up, with problems which are about to make Geraldine's life turn toxic in more ways than one.

DI Geraldine Steel is called to investigate the murder of a man who has been battered to death. His widow, Caroline, is terrorised into concealing the identity of the killer who then claims a second victim. This leaves Geraldine with a dark secret. The truth might help to solve the case, but it also threatens to cost Geraldine her career. When Caroline's 10-year-old son disappears, his distraught mother turns to the police, with fatal consequences.

A glamorous young TV soap star dies in a car crash. Returning for her sixth case, Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel is baffled as the driver of the second vehicle miraculously survives - and vanishes. Another young actress is murdered, and once again the killer mysteriously disappears. Geraldine unwittingly risks her sergeant's life in their struggle to track down a serial killer who leaves no clues.

When the corpse of Abigail Kirby is discovered, the police are shocked to learn that the victim's tongue was cut out while she lay dying. Then, shortly after coming forward, a witness to the crime is blinded and murdered. Abigail Kirby's teenage daughter runs away from home to meet a girl who befriended her online; too late, she realises she has made a dreadful mistake - a mistake that may cost her life.

When a man dies in a gas explosion, the police suspect arson, and the Murder Investigation Team is called in to investigate. But the case takes on a new and terrible twist when a local villain is viciously attacked. As the police enquiries lead from the expensive Harchester Hill estate to the local brothel, a witness dies in a hit-and-run. Was it coincidence - or cold-blooded murder? The Murder Investigation Team has problems of its own – and so does Geraldine Steel. A shocking revelation threatens her peace of mind as the investigation races towards its dramatic climax.

In the beautiful village of Vernazza, the Mazzone family have transformed an old convent overlooking the glamorous Italian Riviera into the elegant Lemon Tree Hotel. For Chiara, her daughter, Elene, and her granddaughter, Isabella, the running of their hotel is the driving force in their lives. One day, two unexpected guests check in. The first, Dante, is a face from Chiara's past, but what exactly happened between them all those years ago, Elene wonders. Isabella is preoccupied with the second guest, a mysterious young man who seems to know a lot about the history of the old convent.

Ruth loves her life in London—she has a high-powered career and a handsome and successful fiancé. This Christmas, she’s bringing him back to her home town to meet her family and school friends, one of whom, Holly Murphy, has a new baby. But, as the Christmas Eve party is in full swing, the unthinkable happens—Ruth drops the baby, injuring the little boy. Or did she? Ruth becomes convinced she didn’t cause the baby’s injuries, that they were inflicted before the party, that the Murphys are not the lovely family they appear to be.

Where Romy grew up, if someone died you never spoke of them again. Now 22, she has recently escaped the toxic confines of the cult she was raised in. But Romy is young, pregnant and completely alone - and if she is to keep herself safe in this new world, she has some important lessons to learn. Like how there are some people you can trust, and some you must fear. And about who her family really is, and why her mother ran away from them all those years ago.

The stunning new novel featuring DI Louisa Smith.

Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel relocates to London to take on another harrowing murder investigation. The bodies of two black girls are discovered in quick succession in North London; two teeth from each victim extracted after death. One of the girls worked in a massage parlour and suspicion falls on a client of hers, a known racist, but while the police flounder, the killer takes another girl home to his attic, where he keeps his victims chained up while he shows them his 'collection'.