Showing results by narrator "Imogen Church" in All Categories

When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote countryside, it’s meant to be a fresh start, away from the big city and the scene of a violent assault she’s desperate to forget. But despite the distractions of a new life and single motherhood, her nerves continue to jangle. To make matters worse, a vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative writing group.

Louise Bridges has the perfect life. A loving husband, Patrick. Two adorable children. A comfortable home. So when PC Becca Holt arrives to break the news that Patrick has been killed in an accident, she thinks Louise’s perfect world is about to collapse around her. But Louise doesn’t react in the way Becca would expect her to on hearing of her husband’s death. And there are only three plates set out for dinner, as if Louise already knew Patrick wouldn’t be home that night.

Kate Rafter is a successful war reporter. She's the strong one. The one who escaped Herne Bay and the memories it holds. Her sister Sally didn't. Instead she drinks. But when their mother dies, Kate is forced to return to the old family home. And on her first night, she is woken by a terrifying scream. What secret has Kate stumbled upon? And is she strong enough to uncover the truth...and make it out alive?

London, 1862. A city of over three million souls, of stinking fog and dark, winding streets. Through these streets walks the poet Christina Rossetti, haunted and tormented by the ghost of her uncle, John Polidori. Without him, she cannot write, but her relationship with him threatens to shake London itself to the ground. A fascinating and vivid recreation of the stews and slums of Victorian London - a city of dreadful delight. But it is the history of a hidden city, where nursery rhymes lead the adventurer through haunted tunnels and inverted spires.

An emotional, thought-provoking, and refreshingly honest exploration of relationships, The Imperfection of Us will have you turning pages blurred by tears of sadness and laughter, desperate to find out what the future holds for feisty Dawn and sweet, reliable Rob. Oh, and Billy, of course. Let's not forget Billy. Because Dawn certainly never has.

When Eliot Crenshaw agreed to drive Laura Lindley to her aunts in London, he didn't expect to end up stranded, unchaperoned - and married. He doesn't believe in love, but he does know his duty. What he doesn't know is how to behave when his marriage of necessity unexpectedly turns into a love match. Laura Lindley's dreams of her first London season are smashed by a forced marriage to avoid a devastating scandal. But she finds herself devastated instead by her husband's cool and distant behavior.

Papa always told us that to be brave doesn't mean you have no fear. It just means you can move forwards in spite of that fear. 2019. When Imogen Wren's husband dies, she must realise their dream of moving to France on her own. 1944. Since the moment German troops stepped foot in her village, the sole aim of Simone Varon's life has been to avoid them.

Penny Baker is winning at life. Sort of. Her work is demanding, her kids are demanding and her husband seems to be undergoing some weird midlife crisis but she is juggling it all - with the added delights of the menopause. But when the charity she works for is thrown into crisis and her mother's dementia advances, the strain starts to show. Can she navigate it all and still somehow keep a smile on her - flushed - face?

Bonfire Night, and St James's Park is filled with thousands of Anonymous protesters in a standoff with the police. When a cloaked, Guido Fawkes-mask-wearing body is discovered the following morning, Kate Riley and Zain Harris from the Police Crime Commissioner's office are called in. The corpse has been eaten away by a potentially lethal and highly contagious virus. The autopsy reveals the victim was a senior civil servant whose work in international development involved saving lives. Why would anyone want him dead?

Eighteen years ago Martha said good-bye to best friend Juliet on a moonlit London towpath. The next morning Juliet's bike was found abandoned. She was never seen again. Nearly two decades later Martha is a TV celebrity, preparing to host a new crime show...and the first case will be that of missing student Juliet Sherman. After all these years Martha must reach out to old friends and try to piece together the final moments of Juliet's life. But what happens when your perfect friends turn out to be perfect strangers?

When sisters Celine and Pip get a call telling them their reclusive mother has died, the two women assemble at her riverside home in Arundel to pick up the pieces. But someone is missing - their sister, Vanessa, brutally murdered years ago and the victim of an unsolved case. As the sisters confront ghosts from the past, the discovery of another body in similar circumstances throws new light on Vanessa's death. 

Magic caused the war. Magic is forbidden. Magic will save us. It was said the Labyrinth had once been the great meeting place, a sprawling city at the heart of an endless maze where a million humans hosted the Houses of the Aelfir. The Aelfir who had brought trade and riches, and a future full of promise.

Carrie's best friend has an accident and can no longer make the round-the-world trip they'd planned together, so Carrie decides to go it alone. Violet is also travelling alone, after splitting up with her boyfriend in Thailand. She is desperate for a ticket on the Trans-Siberian Express, but there is nothing available. When the two women meet in a Beijing Hotel, Carrie makes the impulsive decision to invite Violet to take her best friend's place. Thrown together in a strange country, and the cramped cabin of the train, the women soon form a bond

Maggie has everything her sister Rose always wanted. A handsome husband and two adorable children, Emily and Elliot. But what Rose doesn’t see is that Maggie is struggling. Every day is a fog of sleep loss and mess made by two tiny children. Left alone in her distress by husband Stephen, Maggie drifts ever closer to the edge. When Maggie finally cracks, walking out one day and not returning, Rose is right there to step into the breach.

Wangari lives in the lush, green land of rural Kenya, where the soil is perfect for planting, the trees tower into the sky and the streams are full of mysterious creatures. All day, she plays beneath her favourite fig tree, and at night, she gathers around the fire with her family to listen to her mother's stories. Then Wangari grows up and goes away to school, and things start changing at home. Farmers chop down the trees. Landslides bury the stream. The soil becomes overworked and dry, and nothing will grow. People go hungry. 

When one of Nora Bunstruggle’s friends is murdered in cold blood, it sends the Coochie Hole burlesque club on Megalopolis into shock. It soon becomes clear that the police have zero interest in the death of a burlesque dancer. But what if the twisted killer strikes their troupe again? And who is going to exact justice for the victim’s now motherless child? Nora and the gang from the Coochie Hole realise that if they want to get to catch their faceless murderous foe, they are going to have to roll their sleeves up and kick some backsides themselves.

Shipwrecks are part of life in the remote village of Porthmorvoren, Cornwall. And as the sea washes the bodies of the drowned onto the beach, it also brings treasures: barrels of liquor, exotic fruit, the chance to lift a fine pair of boots from a corpse, maybe even a jewel or two. When, after a fierce storm, Mary Blight rescues a man half dead from the sea, she ignores the whispers of her neighbours and carries him home to nurse better. Gideon Stone is a Methodist minister from Newlyn, a married man.

Twenty floors above the shimmering lights of the Hamburg docks, public prosecutor Chastity Riley is celebrating a birthday with friends in a hotel bar when 12 heavily armed men pull out guns and take everyone hostage. Among the hostages is Konrad Hoogsmart, the hotel owner, who is being targeted by a man whose life - and family - have been destroyed by Hoogsmart’s actions. With the police looking on from outside - their colleagues’ lives at stake - and Chastity on the inside, increasingly ill from sepsis, the stage is set for a dramatic confrontation.

State prosecutor Chastity Riley runs off to Glasgow. For one, there is that letter, written by a lawyer, that lures her to the birthplace of her great-great-grandfather. And secondly, her life in Hamburg has arrived at a sad impasse. In the rough Scottish city, she meets Tom, who knows the key that unlocks the Rileys’ family secret. She never dared confront the painful truths about herself, but some whisky and a few ghosts help her to do just that.

Claire Carmichael leads a charmed life. She has two beautiful sons, Jamie and Joshua, and a handsome and successful husband who loves her. Even when she was in school, Claire had it all. She was clever, likeable, and after passing the initiation tests, she was welcomed into the society of popular girls - the Queen Bees. So when a scandal threatened to ruin Claire's reputation, the Queen Bees closed rank to protect her, no matter who else got hurt. Claire may have moved on from her school days, but for one person who she hurt irreparably, those memories are as fresh as blood.