Showing results by narrator "Prendergast Colleen" in All Categories

1945. They have survived the Blitz, but when Simon, Patricia, Evelyn and Larry step through a mysterious library door, it is the beginning of their most dangerous adventure yet. They discover the magical world of Folio, where an enchanted kingdom of fairy knights, bears and tree gods is under threat from a sinister robot army. The many stories of the Library are locked in eternal war, and the children's only hope is to find their creator - a magician who has been lost for centuries. What they find will change not just their own lives, but the fate of the world, for ever....

Sabine and Rory Sugar seem like a perfectly respectable family to their new neighbours. They’re popular and friendly, their two teenage boys quiet and courteous. But when Rory starts staying late at work, and Sabine thinks she sees her son, Leo, in the woods apparently fighting with a girl, their seemingly perfect lives start to fall apart. And when the girl is reported missing and the police turn up asking awkward questions, Sabine must decide whether to lie to protect her son, or risk Leo being arrested on suspicion of abduction.

After being cheated on by her ex, Leanne Riley is trying her hardest to get her life back on track, which isn't easy without a job and living in a bedsit surrounded by a junkie and a madwoman. On a night out with her best friend, she meets Jake, a face from her past who has changed beyond all recognition. Jake is charming, handsome and loaded, a far cry from the gawky teenager he used to be. Weary of men, Leanne isn't easy to please, but Jake tries his best to break through the wall she's built around herself.

Football fans will love this insight into the life and mind of Big Sam. With nearly 20 years as a player - plus almost 25 years as a coach and manager - under his belt, Sam Allardyce is one of the most recognisable figures in British football. 'Big Sam' has been a robust defensive general throughout the seventies and eighties, and an imposing touchline presence as a gaffer since 1994. Over the last four decades, Allardyce has seen it all.

Her work has got in the way of relationships before but never like this. Annas job as a geologist takes her all over the world, including to the beautiful island of Elba, where shes sent to look for precious metals. And the island isnt the only thing thats gorgeous she cant believe her luck when she meets windsurfer Marco and sparks fly. But Anna must keep her role on Elba a secret to avoid upsetting the locals, which means lying to Marco even as they grow closer. When her old friend Toby visits, Anna suddenly finds herself torn between the attentions of the two men. However, Annas not the only one keeping secrets.

Viv arrives at Wildflower Cottage, a tumbledown animal sanctuary, for the summer. Her job is to help with the admin, but the truth is she is here for something much closer to her heart. Geraldine runs the Wildflower Cottage sanctuary. She escaped from her past to find happiness here, but now her place of refuge is about to come under threat. Can she keep her history at bay and her future safe? Two women join forces for one shared cause - with unexpected results.

Best friends from work May, Lara and Clare are desperate for some time away. They have each had a rough time of it lately and need some serious R & R, so they set off to a luxurious spa for 10 glorious days. But when they arrive at their destination, it seems it is not the place they thought it was. In fact, they appear to have come to entirely the wrong village. Despite the strange atmosphere, the three friends are determined to make the best of it and have a holiday to remember. But will this be the break they all need?

On an unassuming evening, a stranger sits down at Olive Anderson's dinner table and pretends to be her wife. But as much as the fake wife has her secrets, Olive just might have more.

Four a.m. on a wet stretch of the A1 and a driver skids out of control. Quick on the scene, senior investigating officer Kate Daniels and partner DS Hank Gormley are presented with a horrifying image of carnage and mayhem that quickly becomes one of the worst road traffic accidents in Northumberland’s history. But as the casualties mount up, they soon realise that not all deaths were as a result of the accident....

1867: Nicola Douglas attends a lecture given by Miss Maria Rye, the founder of the Female Middle Class Emigration Society, which inspires her to change her life. With no family, but a good education, she boards a ship to Australia with high hopes of a fresh start in a new country as a governess. Sydney is full of young women with similar ambitions and poor prospects - but when a wealthy benefactor appears, she finds a foothold. What she never anticipated was the attention of two suitors: Nathaniel, a privileged and attractive English gentleman; and Hilton, a beguiling American.

Cally, a devoted single mom, is stretched thin between caring for her clingy mother and her day job as a hairdresser with an always sympathetic ear. When her life in Liverpool is suddenly upended, she grabs her son Sam and jumps in the car to drive south. Searching for a tiny speck of a village she once visited as a child, they nearly give up when a storm hits, only to unexpectedly stumble across it: Welcome to Starshine Cove.

Private Investigator Kitt Hartley and her twin sister, Rebecca, are preparing for a holiday in Scotland when cruise ship entertainer Errol Jackson appears at the door. Errol breaks the news that Bryce Griffin, a former smuggler and an old friend of Kitt's, has been murdered; his body found washed up by a lighthouse, bearing a gunshot wound. Kitt persuades Rebecca to cancel their trip, and, together with Kitt's assistant, Grace Edwards, and best friend, Evie Bowes, book onto the next cruise to Norway to help with the ongoing murder investigation.

When librarian and budding Private Investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder. A year ago, Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found. Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery.

Eliza Wild has come a long way from her hungry childhood days in a rented miner's cottage on Pit Lane on the outskirts of Leeds. Her sewing skills have enabled her to go into business with a wealthy patron and to give her young niece, Victoria, a better life than she and her sister, Mary-Anne, ever dreamed of. There's also Eliza's sweetheart, Tom, who is determined to marry her, but having worked so hard to get to where she is, will Eliza take a chance on love when it means she might lose everything she has ever worked for?

When a young girl is found dead at the base of Hadrian’s Wall, it’s not long before Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels realises her death was no ordinary homicide. She was thrown from a great height and was probably alive before she hit the ground. Then a local businessmen reports his daughter missing. Has Daniels found the identity of her victim, or is a killer playing a sickening game? As the murder investigation team delve deeper into the case, half truths are told, secrets are exposed, and while Daniels makes her way through a mountain of obstacles time is running out for one terrified girl.

Lucy Brown has spent years hiding from the world, as far away as she could get from her old life–and her ex-husband–back in London. But when she reluctantly agrees to leave her safe haven to attend her old friend Ella’s wedding in Starshine Cove, little does she know what’s in store for her down in Dorset… When a chance airport encounter with a handsome stranger unexpectedly leads to a deeper connection, Lucy finds her trip becoming much more than just a last-minute holiday. But then her dark past comes knocking, just as she always feared it would.

Lady Beatrice is fleeing an arranged marriage by stagecoach to Brighton, where the proud beauty meets her match in Miss Hannah Pym who is determined to find her a proper beau.

Destined for Dover, Miss Pym has her matchmaking work cut out for her when she encounters the pretty but hoydenish Lady Deborah Western! Encouraged by an unruly twin brother, the spirited, golden-haired Deborah seems set on dressing and acting the tomboy, much to the dismay of her handsome neighbour, the Earl of Ashton....

The disregard of a dying woman's bequest, a girl's attempt to help an impoverished clerk, and the marriage of an idealist and a materialist intersect at an estate called Howards End. There, the lives of three families become entangled. As chance brings them together, societal conventions come into question as does the ownership of Howards End. Through the fate of the estate - as well as the lives of the families who are affiliated with it - Forster creates a brilliant parallel to the fate of English society itself.

Having conducted over 100 hours of interviews with 60 British women aged 16-25, Nancy Tucker - the author of The Time In Between, an ‘astonishingly good’ (Sunday Times) memoir of a life consumed by eating disorders – explores what it’s like to suffer from serious mental illness as a young woman. With raw honesty, sensitivity and humour, That Was When People Started to Worry examines real experiences of anxiety, self-harm, borderline personality disorder, OCD, binge eating disorder, PTSD and dissociative identity disorder. Giving a voice to those like Abby who can’t speak out themselves, Tucker presents a unique window into the day-to-day trials of living with an unwell mind.