Showing results by narrator "Prendergast Colleen" in All Categories

Meg just wants her family to be together at Christmas. But her mother’s illness gets worse every day and her sister is off doing god knows what. So when Meg loses her job in the bakery, she doesn’t know how they’ll cope. Luckily, she knows Frank, the owner of a local patisserie, who offers her a job. But Meg isn’t suited for fancy cake and frills. All she wants is to feed her family and make them proud, but, as winter takes hold, it feels like everything is stacked against her. Can she make a success of herself before Christmas?

Beth Lomas thought she knew her late husband. But this one small word, written on the back of a discarded envelope and left on their kitchen table, convinces the police that Oscar took his own life. As the police announce they are not seeking anyone else in connection with Oscar's death, Beth is convinced that there is more to the story. As she sets out to discover what really happened, Beth uncovers shocking truths about the man she thought she knew better than anyone.

Since her twin brother, Eddie, drowned five years ago, 16-year-old Elsie Main has tried to remember what really happened that fateful day on the beach. One minute Eddie was there, and the next he was gone. Seventeen-year-old Tay McKenzie is a cute and mysterious boy that Elsie meets in her favorite boathouse hangout. When Tay introduces Elsie to the world of freediving, she vows to find the answers she seeks at the bottom of the sea.

When Laura McAllister, a young lady's maid, learns her three siblings have been taken from their mother and emigrated to Canada without her mother's knowledge, she becomes determined to search for them and reunite the family. But a lack of funds and resistance from authorities push her to use a false name and take a position with a child emigration society to gain passage to Canada.

Down a winding lane lined with honeysuckle and wild flowers, there’s a beautiful orchard beside the rushing River Wye. There, in a little farmhouse in the furthest corner, a young woman has a difficult and life-changing decision to make... Life on Appleyard Farm is all Freya Sherbourne has ever known. Having spent her childhood playing between the blossom-heavy apple trees, Freya can’t imagine calling anywhere else home. But times have been hard since her father’s sudden death, and now that she’s being forced to put the farm up for sale, her world is about to come crashing down.

A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years.

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....

‘I miss him with every breath and heartbeat. He should have been my happy ending. Instead, he is the sad beginning to my story.' Olivia and Luca Felicone had known each other nearly all their lives, but when they fell in love as teenagers and eloped to London, they broke the hearts of those closest to them.

Elaborately disguised and hidden deep beneath the city's streets lies the world of Miss Brickett's, a secret detective agency. From traversing deceptive escape rooms full of baited traps and hidden dangers, to engineering almost magical mechanical gadgets, apprentice detectives at Miss Brickett's undergo rigorous training to equip them with the skills and knowledge they will need to solve the mysteries that confound London's police force.

Thirty-two-year-old Catherine Hope has a great memory. But she can't remember everything. She can't remember her ninth year, or when her insomnia started. And she can't remember why everyone stopped calling her Catherine-Maria. With a promiscuous past, and licking her wounds after a breakup, Catherine wonders why she resists anything approaching real love. But when she loses her home to the devastating deluge of 2007 and volunteers at Flood Crisis, a devastating memory emerges.

For fans of Jojo Moyes, David Nicholls and Sophie Kinsella, here is a Pride and Prejudice for the modern era. Londoners Kim and Harry can't see eye to eye...until the life of the person they both love most hangs in the balance. Kim has never grasped what her free-spirited big sister, Eva, sees in a stuck-up banker like Harry and has spent her childhood trying to keep him out while Harry's favourite occupation is winding Kim up.

Caitlin Hext’s first shedding ceremony is imminent, but she’s far from prepared to produce a Snakeskin clone. When her skin fails to turn to dust as expected, she must decide whether she wishes the newcomer alive or dead. Worse still, it transpires that the Hext family may be of central importance to the survival of Charmers, a group of people with the inexplicable power to produce duplicates every seven years and, in the process, rejuvenate.

When 16-year-old Erin Ellis is attacked, she dies in the arms of her best friend, Molly, just metres from her home. Molly is the surviving girl but says she easily could have been the victim. It was a random mugging gone wrong. With inconclusive evidence, DS Grace Allendale must dig deep within the tight-knit Stoke community for leads. And she soon finds that someone had a motive to kill Erin. As the investigation unfolds, Grace is reminded of a horrifying case she worked on earlier in her career.

Three women controlled by one man—their charismatic husband Elijah, leader of their cult who dictates every aspect of life in the remote Scottish settlement of Halcyon. But cracks have begun to form in the community's idyllic facade, and Elijah's increasingly erratic behavior begins to test the loyalty of the women who love him, especially when he reveals his intention to take a fourth wife, sixteen-year-old Mim. Deceived and isolated by the husband they share, Aoife, Ruth, and Deborah must set years of animosity aside and come together as danger mounts within their isolated community.

Believing in Tomorrow is the new sweeping family saga from the top ten bestselling author of One Snowy Night, Rita Bradshaw. Molly McKenzie is only eleven years old when her abusive father beats her to within an inch of her life. Escaping from the hovel she calls home, Molly is found by kind...

Wartime Friends is a tale of unbreakable bonds in times of strife, by bestselling author Margaret Dickinson. As the storm clouds of war gather over Britain, two brave, young women will discover the value of true friendship as they deal with troubles of their own while the lives of those they...

Trudy Watts has everything she's ever dreamed of: a job that she loves, a successful boyfriend, and an ultra-modern apartment in one of the most fashionable parts of London. With a long-awaited promotion due to come her way and her wedding just around the corner, Trudy's life is just perfect... That is until catastrophe strikes and her life is turned upside down. She's transferred to Turriff, a remote Scottish town to manage a small, struggling bank branch. Her arrival is traumatic and she wishes she was anywhere but here... Until she sees him, Ethan, the charming pub landlord.

Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid follows idealistic young recruit Kate Fullen as she negotiates training school and settles into life on the watch. With incidents and routine tasks woven into the fabric of the story, it describes the consuming pressure, emotional turmoil and unpredictable nature of the job. Utilising the rare perspective of a northern, queer, working-class female firefighter, Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid examines the more intricate difficulties experienced by minority groups and gives a voice to a profession that is seldom heard and rarely seen.

It's the Festival of Pirates in Splottpool, and Limpet is looking after his evil little sister, Eve, whilst his mum helps out with the festival. Mrs Cricket has also asked the kids to mind the fairy garden in the middle of the roundabout while she goes away for a week - to avoid all the piratey chaos. Trouble is brewing as they discover Mr Fluffy's super-healthy sister has opened a smoothie palace, whose healthy fruit smoothies seem to have amazingly magical effects on the customers. But not all is as it seems with the super healthy smoothies and it's up to Limpet to save the day.

After a tumultuous term in Paris, Libby and Connie are looking forward to a quiet Christmas. Along with Libby's aunt, Miss Mousedale, they are to spend the holiday at the Highland estate of Connie's family. But before long they find themselves caught up in strange events. Missing paintings. Lights in the woods in the early hours of the morning. A hidden room behind a wall tapestry. And Connie's parents seem to be keeping an unhappy secret. Can the friends untangle the clues and solve the mystery?