Showing results by narrator "Diana Croft" in All Categories

Clare is ready for a break. It's been a tough year and now she wants to put her feet up. Arriving at the Italian villa for their summer holiday, she decides it's high time her husband and his family did some of the work. After all, her husband owes her.... Now her brother-in-law Jamie has brought a wife, someone none of them have met before. Ella is everything Clare isn't. Glamorous. Young. Influential. But she knows a secret about Clare. Something that has the power to break the whole family apart.

When five-year-old Ava Sawyer goes missing from a birthday party at a local garden center, the police are bewildered by the lack of leads. That is, until two years later, when Ava’s body is found and another little girl, Audrey Briggs, goes missing. Audrey also attended that party. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward. A mother of two teenagers, this case chills her to the bone and is a disturbing reminder of the last job she worked on. One that still keeps her awake at night.

One evening in early August, while mashing potatoes for dinner, Connie McColl decides she’s had enough. Sixty-six-year-old wife and grandmother, Connie packs a bag, gets in her little green car and drives off on a journey from England to Scotland to rediscover lost friends and herself.

Sasha’s 18-year-old daughter Gemma was all she had in the world. Sasha fell pregnant with Gemma when she was still at school, and the two are as close as sisters. So when Gemma’s burned and broken body is found, Sasha’s world ends. Leading the case is Detective Natalie Ward, scarred by her own recent tragedy. When she finds a note in Gemma’s diary from "a secret admirer", she moves quickly, determined to unmask them. But interviews with Gemma’s devastated ex-boyfriend and her charismatic teacher don’t give Natalie the answers she’d hoped for....

When the body of mother Charlotte Brannon is discovered by her husband, Adam, in their bedroom, Detective Natalie Ward is first on the scene. The killer has left a chilling calling card: The word Why? written on the wall in blood. As Natalie begins to delve deeper into the couple’s lives, she discovers that Adam has a dark past he’s been hiding, and she’s sure that the Brannons' teenage babysitter, Inge, has secrets of her own.

When the frail body of a teenage girl is discovered strangled in a parking lot, shards of ice form in Detective Natalie Ward’s veins. As Natalie looks at the freckles scattered on her cheeks and the pale pink lips tinged with blue, she remembers that this innocent girl is somebody’s daughter. The girl is identified as missing teenager Amelia Saunders, who has run away from home and her controlling father. Natalie’s heart sinks further when it becomes clear that Amelia has been working on the streets, manipulated by her violent new boyfriend, Tommy. 

When 13-year-old Savannah Hopkins doesn’t come straight home from school, as she always does, her mother Jane immediately raises the alarm. Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward, whose daughter, Leigh, is the same age as Savannah. Soon Natalie’s worst fears are confirmed when the teenager’s broken body is found in nearby shrubland. Evidence points toward a local recluse, but just as the net is closing around him, one of Savannah’s friends, Harriet, is reported missing.

When Detective Natalie Ward is called to the home of 14-year-old Roxy Curtis she can’t help but empathise with Roxy’s distraught mother Cathy. Roxy hasn’t come home, last seen heading next door for a sleepover with her best friend Ellie. As the mother of two teenagers herself, Natalie knows that this is every parent’s worst nightmare. But when Roxy’s body is found in the basement of a beautiful Victorian mansion on the other side of town, Natalie’s darkest fears are confirmed. What was Roxy doing there? Cathy seems evasive, and Ellie refuses to talk.

Corfu, Greece, 1943. Though they don’t know it, five-year-old Matilde and three-year-old Anna have kissed their mother for the last time. The Nazis have reached their sun-scorched home, and they are being taken to a place of safety, on the northeastern tip of the rocky island. They are to be hidden, at great risk, by kindly Agata and her husband, until the terrible war is over. Matilde and Anna’s tears are soothed by Agata’s bedtime stories, but she is always alert.

Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly and her buttons done up correctly. Because, Evelyn is a woman with secrets, and Evelyn remembers everything. She can never forget the promise she made to the love of her life to discover the truth about the mission that led to his death, no matter what it cost her.

One beautiful summer’s evening, thirteen-year-old twins Ivy and Erin Westmore snuggle down in a tent in their back garden, giggling and sharing secrets. When their mother goes to wake the girls the next morning, their tent is empty. The alarm is raised, and Detective Natalie Ward is put onto the case. When the twins’ bodies are discovered on nearby marshland, covered with deep pink petals, an icy shiver travels down Natalie’s spine. Everything about the girls’ deaths reminds her of a horrifying case she worked on earlier in her career.

On a beautiful island, under the Mediterranean sun, two families enjoy a well-deserved holiday. Then, one balmy evening, Emma's father is found unconscious on the sand. Everyone is hiding secrets. Who will you believe?

September 1940. As the bombs of the Blitz fall on London, Ruby and Stevie are falling in love. United by a shocking experience when they were evacuees, Ruby believes that she understands Stevie like nobody else can. But then Stevie is sent abroad into danger, and as Ruby waits desperately for letters with foreign stamps that never come, she begins to fear that he is lost forever. And when Stevie does return, he has changed, and Ruby faces a difficult choice. 

Two women. One deadly secret. A rivalry that could destroy them. Ava Wells is perfect. She has the boyfriend, the career, the looks. But one night changes everything, and her life suddenly isn’t so seamless. Jade Fernleigh is ambitious. She’s worked hard to get where she is. And she’s not about to let Ava take the job she rightly deserves. Both women share a secret that could destroy them, but who will crumble first?

When a teenager is the victim of an unprovoked attack while walking his dog, a murder investigation begins. A cruel twist of fate makes his innocent family the targets of a vicious campaign of terror. As the detectives of Liverpool's Major Investigation Team try to contain the violence, several key members of an organized crime family begin to topple, causing shockwaves across the planet.

Two women. One deadly secret. A rivalry that could destroy them. Ava Wells is perfect. She has the boyfriend, the career, the looks. But one night changes everything, and her life suddenly isn’t so seamless. Jade Fernleigh is ambitious. She’s worked hard to get where she is. And she’s not about to let Ava take the job she rightly deserves. Both women share a secret that could destroy them, but who will crumble first? 

You and I, as well as the dozens of other men and women who also made the conscious decision to take action against their weight gain through this book, have something in common - you've experienced how difficult it is to lose weight after several (and I do mean several) diet and exercise attempts. This is exactly what we're going to explore in this book! Hormones may not have been key topics in several weight-loss books but, now, we're going to get to the bottom of how you can beat flab by resetting your hormones.

Jenny doesn’t know what they’ll do when they find out she’s a wicked witch. She can’t help being a wicked witch. It’s in her blood. She’s supposed to eat children, blast people with witchfire, and plot dark deeds with her foul-mouthed imp familiar, Jizzimus. Instead, she’s rescued a girl, Kay, from a band of people traffickers. To keep her safe they have signed up for a college course in an English country mansion. Jizzimus is not impressed. The mansion is not the safe haven they thought it would be.

Hot on the success of her first case, British female sleuth Daisy Dunlop can count the offers of work on one finger. An empty bank account and the need to prove to her business partner, private investigator Solomon Liffey, that she is an asset, not a liability, calls for drastic measures. Terror has to be overcome as she answers a plea to find the one thing that gives her night sweats and flashbacks. An animal. A missing stud poodle, to be exact.

This collection of fantasy short stories are from the three winners of Remastered Words 2019 audio anthology, including a tale from Jonathan Green with "Who Walks with Death" which was first published in Legend, an anthology released in 2013 in honour of David Gemmell. Once again, a theme has developed when there were none prescribed and each story follows a significant journey in the life of its protagonist. Whatever the direction though and wherever the roads may lead, you'll be glad of a warm fire and comfy chair whilst the fabled journey plays out.