Showing results by narrator "Ellie Heydon" in All Categories

Returning early from a disastrous date night with my husband, I know something is wrong the moment the wheels crunch the gravel drive of our home. Inside, the TV is on and a half-eaten meal waits on the table. My heart stops when I find our little girl is alone in the house and our babysitter, Sasha, is missing....

Everyone's invited. Everyone's a suspect. In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year. The beautiful one. The golden couple. The volatile one. The new parents. The quiet one. The city boy. The outsider. The victim. Not an accident - a murder among friends.

Linda Martin understands what is to be lonely: her parents died when she was young, and she was raised in an orphanage. When she is hired as a governess to the orphaned young Philippe, Comte de Valmy, Linda finds a kindred spirit in the lonely little boy. But Philippe is the heir to a vast estate in Savoy, and his dangerously handsome uncle may be willing to kill to ensure that Philippe never inherits it.

Anna is distraught when her beloved mother, Ines, passes away. She inherits a box of papers, handwritten in Italian and yellowed with age, and a tantalizing promise that the truth about what happened during the war lies within. The diaries lead Anna to the small village of Rofelle, where she slowly starts to heal as she explores sun-kissed olive groves, and pieces together her mother’s past: happy days spent herding sheep across Tuscan meadows cruelly interrupted when World War Two erupted and the Nazis arrived....

High in the rugged Pyrenees lies the Valley of the Storms, where a tiny convent clings to the beautiful but lonely mountainside. Jenny Silver arrives seeking her missing cousin, and is devastated when she learns of Gillian's death following a terrible car accident. But Jenny's suspicions are aroused when she's told the blue flowers ornamenting her cousin's grave were Gillian's favourite. Jenny knows Gillian was colour-blind - and so starts her mission to uncover what really happened to her.  

Annie Higgins has given up on love: she’s too busy trying to get her own business off the ground. Infuriated by the advertising agency across the hall making fun of her job, Annie accepts their crazy challenge - to make a random stranger Instagram-famous in just 30 days. And even when they choose Dr Samuel Page PhD, historian and hater of social media, as her target, Annie’s determined to win the bet - whether Sam likes it or not. But getting to know Sam means getting to know more about herself. And before the 30 days are out, Annie has to make a decision about what’s really important....

Legend has it that when the Gabriel Hounds run howling over the crumbling palace of Dar Ibrahim, high in the Adonis Valley of Lebanon, death will follow on their heels. When rich, spoilt Christie Mansel arrives at the decaying palace to look after her eccentric Aunt Harriet, she arrives to the sound of howling dogs. The palace is riddled with hidden passages and the servants are unwilling to let anyone see Harriet during the day. It seems the palace hides an extraordinary secret...one that somebody is willing to kill to keep.

We all know someone like Becca. She has the job everyone wants, a designer wardrobe, a hot-shot lawyer boyfriend, holidays to exotic locations. And she flaunts her perfect life all over social media. It drove her colleague Lizzie mad, but she couldn't stop looking. They were never really friends - and yet Lizzie knew everything about her. Or did she? When chance and a terrible mistake pull Lizzie back into Becca's orbit years after they lost touch, she'll realise that you can't always believe what you see online...and that finding out the truth might be the worst thing you can do.   

Drawing on the infamous Lord Lucan affair, this compelling novel explores the roots of a shocking murder from a fresh perspective and brings to vivid life an era when women's voices all too often went unheard. In the summer of 1974, Mandy River arrives in London to make a fresh start and begins working as nanny to the children of one Lady Morven. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a bitter custody battle and the house under siege: Lord Morven is having his wife watched. 

August 1939. At peaceful Summerhill, orphaned Maddy hides from the world and the rumours of war. Then her adored sister Georgina returns from a long trip with a new friend, the handsome Victor. Maddy fears that Victor is not all he seems, but she has no idea just what kind of danger has come into their lives....

Rainey Bird, Ivy Sparrow and Bea Herron all love to sing. For Rainey, music has been a solace during the upheaval of starting a new life with her mother, away from her abusive dad. Bea finds a confidence when she sings that she cannot get from anything else. Ivy sees it as her best chance of making a life away from Gosport and a dead-end job.  The three of them sing in a choir run by the strict but kind Mrs Wilkes. The choir provides a couple of hours of stardust each week, away from school and work and family worries.

Elsie Barker is desperate for a new start after her husband leaves her. When her friend Izzy, herself planning an escape from her abusive boyfriend, tells her about the jobs going for women as narrowboat crew on the canals between London and Coventry, she jumps at the chance. Their new boss, Dorothy, is kind and fair, but it's clear she has a secret of her own. Their crew is completed by Tolly, searching for a new vocation now that her dream job has been snatched away. The work is hard, but the girls forge close friendships that will see them through the darkest times.

Kismet [n.] /'kismet/ Destiny; Fate. Origin: 19th century: from Arabic, qisma 'division, portion, lot', qasama 'to divide'. Anna [n.] /'æne/ Journalist and Community Shed entrepreneur, rent-a-sheep developer; in love. Or maybe not. Anna's a free spirit. Definitely happy. Or anxious. Or is it more panicked? She's certainly talented. Unless she's really a fraud. Absolutely hilarious - but possibly grieving. And lustful. On the edge. Having a glass of wine. Whether Kismet means destiny or division, Anna is about to test it to its very limits.

The sequel to The Bluebird Girls, following the fortunes of singers Rainey Bird, Ivy Sparrow and Bea Herron as they do their best to keep up morale at home and abroad, entertaining troops in the dark days of WW2. 

Each week, six women meet at The Bluebell Inn. They form an unlikely and occasionally triumphant ladies darts team. They banter and jibe, they laugh. But their hidden stories of love and loss are what, in the end, will bind them. There is Mary, full of it but cradling her dark secret; Lena - young and bold, she has made her choice; the cat woman who must return to the place of her birth before it's too late. There's Maggie, still laying out the place for her husband; and Pegs, the dark-eyed girl from the travellers' site bringing her strangeness and first love....

When Alice Appleton’s boyfriend dumps her out of the blue, just after she has lost her mother, she‘s knocked sideways. Escaping to the stunning Dorset coast, she takes a job at the crumbling Castle Café. It’s a million miles away from her busy London lifestyle, and she knows her mum would approve. Surrounded by cream teas and welcoming faces, could the quirky seaside village be the perfect place for Alice to heal her broken heart this summer?

Twenty-five-year-old Lily King is wondering when her life is going to start. She adores working at the much-loved Castle Teashop, surrounded by familiar faces and delicious cakes. But she’s stuck in a rut. She’s just been dumped by her boyfriend, and her dream job seems to be slipping through her fingers. When her best friend Emily Campbell needs urgent help to organise her enchanting Christmas wedding, Lily realises it’s finally her moment to shine and reach for the opportunities she’s been wishing for.

Eugene and Tatiana could have fallen in love. If things had gone differently. But time has found them far apart, leading separate lives. Until they meet once more in Paris...

The best things in life happen when you least expect them. Nat's husband has just said the six words no one wants to hear - 'I don't love you any more'. Caroline's estranged mother has to move into her house, turning her perfectly ordered world upside down. Living on the same street, these two women couldn't be more different. Until the beloved local community centre is threatened with closure. And when the only way to save it is to form a community choir - none of the Hope Street residents, least of all Nat and Caroline, expect the results....

Four months. Four weddings. One happy ending. Bea, Lizzie, Hannah and Kat - die-hard romcom fans - have always joked about getting married in the same year: their own Four Weddings summer. But when Bea unexpectedly turns down her boyfriend's proposal, the rest of the girls decide she needs a little Richard Curtis-esque meet-cute.