Showing results by narrator "Julie Maisey" in All Categories

Frenchurch Falls is a playground of indulgence for the rich and famous. But behind its gleaming facade, lie dark and dangerous secrets. And some of them will prove deadly…When Callie Renfrew’s husband, Gavin, vanishes, she isn’t entirely surprised. As the owner of Frenchurch Falls, Callie has always known Gavin had a knack for skirting the law. But what she uncovers about his dealings will drag her into a web of danger.

Maggie is a mother to a stroppy teenager, a wife to a befuddled husband and a daughter to two very different women. She has always known she’s adopted, but has she ever understood what that means? Not really. Following the death of her mother, Maggie finally feels able to go in search of her birth mother Morag, and heads to the Highlands of Scotland with her disgruntled daughter, Roxie, in tow, leaving her crumbling marriage to worry about another day. The family reunion is bittersweet, but everything is blown wide open when Roxie unearths Morag’s explosive teenage diaries.

1914. Growing up on a farm in the country, Annie Cradwell has always dreamt of singing on stage. So when she hears her friend, Joyce, has a room to spare in London, she sets off with best friend Rose for an adventure beyond anything they could have imagined. In London, Annie and Rose stumble into jobs at The Lyceum Theatre. Then, the musical director, Matthew Harris, offers her singing lessons. And Annie starts to wonder - could this be her chance?

A beekeeper herself, she gives insight into the activity in the hive and describes the bees' natural order and habits. She explores the myths of the past and how and when they were replaced by fact. For example, the heated discussions that broke out in the 18th century when it was discovered that the hive was ruled by a queen, not a king as had been the belief since Aristotle.

Sara’s mother told her that she shouldn’t marry Conrad – that the twenty-five-year age gap between them would tell in the end. The end is now (apparently) approaching fast. Conrad, a famous painter, has decided that it would be good to die before he gets seriously old and so spends his time sorting out his chaotic life. Sara, teaching art at a local college, finds that she has plenty of male company – other people’s husbands, ones she tells Conrad all about, who are just good friends to her.

Rather than going cold turkey or fighting against the finely calibrated, billion-dollar barrage of demands for our attention that ping up on our phones, we need to know how to strike a healthier balance with our devices. If we can understand the ways in which our phones affect every area of our lives, from our concentration to our body image, then we can start making the small shifts that will add up to ensure our technology is working for us, not the other way around.

Born out of wedlock in Dublin in 1937, Phyllis grew up in a tough, church-run orphanage. She thought by fulfilling her dream to become a nurse in England, her life might change, but her loveless childhood predisposed a loveless marriage and things began to spiral out of control for her and for her daughter, Sally. Looking for the answers to why both their lives went so spectacularly wrong led Sally to ask questions about the real identity of her mother: 'who was she? Why was she abandoned...I needed to find answers before it was too late.'

Lily Grace has escaped the confines of the Scottish village where she grew up, and is at college in Newcastle. She loves her student life and hopes to stretch her wings even further by working on a cruise ship. The only cloud on the horizon is the blunder she made when she kissed her lecturer. Then a trip to Ireland for a family funeral changes everything. There she meets student Dara Ryan, and her brother Declan is smitten by the gorgeous Ava. Lily and Dara fall in love but she is fearful that a long-distance love affair is doomed.

Personal shopper Annie Valentine is about to hit the big time: presenting a glamorous TV makeover series! This is it for Annie and her little family. No more scrimping and saving, finally all her hard work has paid off. But life in the spotlight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Soon, Annie discovers this is TV on a shoestring and her budget is zip. But more than this, Annie feels as though the women she should be helping to look fabulous, go away feeling all the more like fashion failures!

Pregnant, Mary Jane Starlings secret wedding to Paddy Redfern ends in disaster when her fiancé is murdered on the way to the church. Paddy’s wayward twin ‘Red’ intercepts Mary Jane and warns that they must flee Ireland for fear of reprisals from her family, never to return. Too young and terrified to question Red’s motives, Mary Jane, is hurriedly escorted to Liverpool where she quickly discovers Red’s good Samaritan act is a sham when he abandons her homeless and destitute.

The phone call to the police arrives at dusk from an isolated farmhouse, 50 miles from the city. A terrified woman's voice pleads for help. But a violent storm rages in the area, and the first available patrol only succeeds in reaching her hours later. It is too late. Something perturbing has happened, something which leaves the investigators in the dark. Just one person is able to reveal the message hidden behind this act of evil, but this person is no longer a policeman.

She’s hit the big time...hasn’t she? Personal shopper, Annie Valentine, is presenting her own popular TV fashion series. But despite this being Annie’s dream job, success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and suddenly Annie is feeling the pressure! Especially as boyfriend Ed is left at home looking after their brand-new twin babies, whilst Annie comes to terms with fame. And as Annie gets more and more sucked into the celebrity showbiz world, she feels like she’s losing more and more of who she really is. Could the big break she’s always wanted, actually be a big mistake?

We teach our children how to tie their shoelaces, how to read, how to ride a bike. We explain the weather and rainbows and why people have jobs. But when it comes to explaining the forceful, baffling, intense and marvellous emotions that we might experience, well, things become vague.

In 1974, Liz Harvie – born Claire Elaine Watts – was given up for adoption by her birth mother Yvonne. Claire was just eight weeks old when her adoptive parents took her in – and renamed her Elizabeth. Although brought up in a ‘perfect’ household, the emotional – and physical – trauma of being taken from her biological mother would never leave Liz. She constantly wondered: what does my real mum look like? Will she come back for me? Why did she abandon me?

Liv has a lot of secrets. For her, home is the picturesque town of Ålesund, perched on a fjord in western Norway. One night, in the early-morning embers of a great party in the basement apartment she shares with two friends, Liv is watching TV, high on weed, and sees a python on an Australian nature show. She becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet. Soon Nero, the Burmese python, becomes the apartment's fourth roommate. As Liv bonds with Nero, she feels extremely protective, like a caring mother, and she is struck by a desire that surprises her with its intensity.

Winner of The Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel.'But he took out all the Princesses and beheaded them. I don't get it.' 'The Princesses?' 'That's the name of the fish. The Princess of Burundi' When the mutilated body of tropical fish collector John Jonsson is discovered in Uppsala the police are baffled - he may not have been a saint, but who would want to kill him, and in such a brutal way?

Jane doesn’t like confrontation. Given the choice, she’ll let her husband, Leon, fight their battles. She’d prefer to focus on what’s going well, the good things in life. But when best-selling crime author Leon is brutally attacked in the driveway of their home, in front of their two young children, Jane has to face reality. With her husband in a coma, Jane must open her eyes to the problems in her life, and the secrets that have been kept from her, if she’s to find out who hurt her husband - and why. Maybe it’s time to face up to it all. Who knows what you might find....

Years ago there was a silent witness to an act of evil. Now a twisted killer is on the loose, fuelled by revenge. Called to the brutal murder of a priest, it is immediately clear to DCI Claire Winters that the victim's death was prolonged, agonising...and motivated by a lust for revenge. The killer has been clever; there are no clues, no leads. But Claire Winters has never let a killer remain on the streets.

Connie Byrne, a nurse in London's East End working alongside Millie Sullivan from Call Nurse Millie, is planning her wedding to Charlie Ross, set to take place as soon as he returns from the war. But when she meets him off the train at London Bridge, she finds that his homecoming isn't going to go according to plan. Connie's busy professional life, and the larger-than-life patients in the district, offer a welcome distraction, but for how long?

Richard and Bookey Peek hadn't planned on adopting a warthog, any more than one would plan a tidal wave or a tornado, but at Stone Hills, natural disasters have a way of happening when you least expect them. Through Zimbabwe's darkest days, Stone Hills has become a world in itself: a place where you might share your shower with an owl, and a place where a warthog relinquishes her place on the sofa to return to the wild.