Showing results by narrator "Jan Cramer" in All Categories

Christmas is being celebrated in style at Purley Hall in Hampshire because renowned actress, Dame Pamela Harcourt is holding a special Jane Austen conference. Everybody's there: Katherine and Warwick, Robyn and Dan, Kay, Adam and Gemma, and Sarah and Mia. Oh, and Mrs. Soames.

When a stray dog walks into a sleepy Chiltern village, she touches the lives of many people there, but can she help the recently widowed Alfie Ellis, who has been living a kind of half life since the loss of his wife of 43 years?

Which of the worlds was real? And where were the boundaries? As a child, Helen and her friend Rianna had wandered freely through Charnwood Forest into an enchanted otherworld of brightly-coloured creatures and strangely beautiful, charismatic people. Then Rianna moved away and the enchantment vanished. Now, fifteen years later, she has returned suddenly, secretive and haunted. And soon Helen finds herself drawn back across those half-forgotten, ever-shifting boundaries between reality and fable.

It's 1985, and 18-year-old Coco Pinchard is home in London for Christmas after her first term at Aberystwyth University. She has started to write, and has fallen hopelessly in love with Daniel Pinchard, a devilishly handsome musician from the wrong side of the river. But Coco's overbearing mother has other plans and resumes her campaign for Coco to meet and marry the 'right sort of man', preferably Kenneth, son of her best friends Adrian and Yvonne Rosebury, who will be joining them for Christmas.

Having grown up in rural Norfolk, author Victoria Connelly never thought she'd ever live in London. But after surviving 11 years in the noisy suburbs, she finally persuades her husband to move to Suffolk - to a county with no motorways, a village with no shops, and a cottage with no main drainage.

One moment of carelessness. Four shattered lives. Literary agent Viola Matthews is sure she's met Katherine Baxter before. When her husband and best-selling novelist Samuel Morton introduces her to the quiet, unassuming woman he has offered to mentor, she knows their paths have crossed previously. The question is...where? As their worlds collide and the bond between Samuel and Katherine deepens, Viola realises she must take control. If her suspicions are right, then Katherine needs to pay for something that happened 12 years ago.

In a time of war, nowhere is safe. While World War Two rages, Cat Carlisle runs a women’s refuge to protect beaten wives. But when one of the women is found dead in the woods behind the house, Cat’s world shatters. Was the killer a violent husband seeking revenge? A secret lover? Or is something more dangerous at play? Because Cat and her fiancé, Thomas, have a secret: they’re hiding a precious golden chalice, keeping it locked safely away from the plundering Nazis until the war is over. But someone wants that treasure, and no one will be safe until they get it....

It's December 1992, and children are going crazy for the Tracy Island toy - almost as crazy as the parents! Christmas day is fast approaching and Coco Pinchard is desperately trying to track one down for her four-year-old son Rosencrantz. Throw into the mix a horrible boss, a lazy husband, and the prospect of her in-laws arriving for the festivities, and Coco wishes she could cancel Christmas and sail off to a desert island somewhere - preferably with the gorgeous-yet-unattainable Tom from work.

Can your final fling become your happy ever after? When Jo Coulson finds herself single again in her late 30s, she finally resigns her membership to Last of the Hopeless Romantics, fully intending to tackle midlife and motherhood alone. First, she plans one legendary last fling.... In walks Harry Inchbold, and the connection is electric. Passionate, unpredictable and messily divorced, Harry is the perfect antidote to cosy coupledom. Known as The Sinner, drama follows him around with a clapper board.

Life at Caldoon Castle in the Highlands of Scotland isn't easy for Catriona Fraser and her two children, especially since her husband died. So, when Iain MacNeice and his two daughters book the castle for the Christmas holidays, Catriona's prayers seem to be answered.

Marlene Sugden is a secretary working in London whose life has changed very much for the worse in a few months. Firstly her father, who she has loved and cared for over many years, dies then her best friend marries and immediately emigrates to Australia and, as a final straw, Marlene’s boss retires and her new boss is a snappy and difficult man.

Cassandra stands silent upon a ravaged battlefield, watching as the druids prepare the dead for the pyres, embers drifting up into the still winter darkness. She can barely breathe through the agony of her grief, but she cannot waste another second on tears. Because Londinium, the Caesar, the empire…all of it is still out there. The empire whose code she had followed, whose prince she had promised to marry, whose schemes she had been swept up in since birth. They tried to use her magic against her. To silence her. So she will use her magic against them. To silence them. Forever.

After failing to escape the Roman metropolis of Londinium with Devyn, her lover, and Marcus, her betrothed, Cassandra wakes in inky darkness to find the ground giving way to sand beneath her feet. All three of them have been carted back to the notorious arena at the heart of the city to stand trial by public vote. Cass knows they must escape at any cost: to warn the Celts of the mysterious blood curse ravaging their kin, to foil the schemes of the imperial council....

This story follows the journey of one child, a descendant of an African American slave family. The Black American child, born post-slavery, was the first in the family to be born free. The child allegedly adopts and adapts to White American values and behaviors. Hence the pejorative Ohreo, meaning "Black on the outside and White on the inside".

Cornwall, 1285 CE. Now nearly 17, Megge and Brighida must endure another brutal loss. And as they perform the rites of transition that precede a burial, Megge accepts a daunting new charge that carries consequences not even her cousin the seer can predict. It brings visions. Dreams. And voices that come to her as she goes about her work. A silken voice beckons her back to the cliffs of Kernow, which she has seen only in dreams.

The king's nephew is dead. Centuries of conflict have depleted military resources and the war with Portland is all but lost. Can an aristocratic couple, an under-appreciated enchantress, and an alcoholic monkey sail a termagant boat to the literal end of the world in search of aid? Again, the odds are not good.

What if the right man for the job is actually a girl? Darcie Lock is facing her toughest mission yet. Forced to take refuge in a castle on the Cornish coast, she lands in the middle of a UN peace conference that is about to spin out of control. When a hostage situation develops, she is one of the two agents left free on the inside - the only problem is that her partner is an old enemy she last met when he tried to kill her. Being a teenager has never been so dangerous.

Christ is back. Actually, three Christs are back, and the world has gone straight-up nuts fighting over which to follow. Can an alcoholic monkey, the Wandering Jew, a demon-possessed atheist, and the heir to a Scandinavian/Colombian drug cartel end the war and save humanity? They're all guys, so—you know—probably not.

Summer 2018. Britain is basking in a rare heatwave. And Hazel and Dorothy Wilding are working together to clear their family farm high on the North Yorkshire moors. The sisters have been estranged for 42 years. And they’re not happy to be forced together now. Dorothy has always been a dutiful daughter. She’s a regular chapel-goer. She never married. And she’s stayed on the farm all her life, working in the family B & B. Hazel, is lesbian. She lives in London, where she runs her own business in partnership with her gay best friend Vinny.

At loose end in post-World War II London, Lady Margaret Leighton chances upon a movie poster showcasing the young soldier she gave her heart to while serving as a military nurse. Desperate to reconnect with him, she uses her wits and newly discovered writing muse to scheme her way into the movie studio where he is an actor. Molly is certain they will live happily ever after. And they just might.... But first Molly has to figure out who she is and what she wants. Can she make this unexpected career work with the expectations of her elite family? She'll try to do it all while trying to keep the seams on her stockings straight.