Showing results by narrator "Juanita McMahon" in All Categories

Tara, Katherine and Fintan have been best friends since they were teenagers. Now in their early thirties, they've been living it up in London for 10 years. But what have they to show for a decade of hedonism? Sure, Tara's got a boyfriend - but only because she's terrified of spending five minutes alone. Katherine, on the other hand, has a neatness fetish that won't let anyone too close to mess up her life. And Fintan? Well, he has everything. Until he learns that without your health, you've got nothing....

Federica is moved from Chile to Cornwall when her parents separate, and all she has left of the relationship she cherished with her father is a wooden box, which has a secret beauty hidden within. Swiftly embraced into the eccentric Appleby family, it isn’t long before Federica falls for her friend’s older brother, Sam, who barely notices the little girl until it is too late. Years later, from the sanctuary of a seemingly perfect marriage, Federica embarks on a painful journey of self-discovery. Will she finally learn the true lesson of the butterfly box?

Lisa Edwards, top London magazine editor, has been fantasizing about promotion to New York. Instead, she's asked to launch a new women's magazine in Dublin. She thinks nothing could be worse - until she meets her new staff. They're friendly, helpful, and enthusiastic - in other words, they wouldn't last two minutes in London!

London 1862: Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves - fingersmiths - under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her 'family'. But from the moment she draws breath, Sue's fate is linked to that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away.

When Charlie Flint is sent a mysterious package of cuttings about a brutal murder, it instantly grabs her attention. The murder occurred in the grounds of her old Oxford college - a groom battered to death just hours after his wedding. As his bride and wedding guests sipped champagne, his alleged killers were slipping his bloodstained body into the river. Charlie doesn't know who sent the package, or why, yet she can't get the crime out of her head.

Meet the daughters of Iris Parker. Dee, sensitive and big-hearted; Rose, uptight and controlled; and Fleur, the reckless free spirit. At the reading of their mother's will, the three estranged women are aghast to discover that their inheritance comes with very tricky strings attached. If they are to inherit her wealth, they must spend a series of weekends together over the course of a year and carry out their mother's bucket list.

'Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.' A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End 'tom'.

Gina is starting her life again, after a difficult few years she'd rather forget. But the belongings she's treasured for so long just don't seem to fit who she is now. So Gina makes a resolution. She'll keep just a hundred items - the rest can go. But that means coming to terms with her past and learning to embrace the future, whatever it might bring…

London 1893: When Cora Seaborne and her son Francis reach Essex, rumours spread from further up the estuary that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced that it may be a previously undiscovered species. As she sets out on its trail she meets William Ransome, Aldwinter's vicar.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2007.
Shortlisted for Audible's Listen of the Year, 2006.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, 2006.
Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, 2006.
Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941...

As dusk falls, a young man staggers through a park, far from home, bleeding from a stab wound. He dies where he falls, cradled by a stranger, a woman's name on his lips in his last seconds of life. DI Manon Bradshaw can't help taking an interest - these days she handles only cold cases, but the man died just yards from the police station where she works. She's horrified to discover that both victim and prime suspect are more closely linked to her than she could have imagined.

It’s 1927 and Emma has returned to England from Canada with her teenage daughter, Fleur. After the tragedies of the past, Emma is ready to start again in Devon, the place she used to call home. But memories are not the only thing that she has to contend with. Throughout it all Matthew Caunter is rarely far from Emma’s thoughts. Could he be the key to her finally finding happiness?

Mid-December, and Cambridgeshire is blanketed with snow. Detective Sergeant Manon Bradshaw tries to sleep after yet another soul-destroying Internet date – the low murmuring of her police radio her only solace. Over the airwaves come reports of a missing woman – door ajar, keys and phone left behind, a spatter of blood on the kitchen floor. Manon knows the first 72 hours are critical: you find her, or you look for a body.

Ten-year-old Floriana is captivated by the magnificent Tuscan villa near her village. When the owner’s son invites her inside, Floriana knows that her destiny is there, with him. But as they grow up, things begin to change. Miles away on the Devon coastline, Marina’s hotel has fallen on hard times. The arrival of Rafael Santoro, artist-in-residence, seems to bring peace in Marina’s family. But Rafa is not who he seems....

Sofia Solanas grows up on a beautiful ranch in the middle of the Argentine pampa. In a world of old-fashioned values, she carves out a place as a rebellious and passionate young woman. But eventually, her stubborn nature leads her to trouble. When Sofia’s mother Anna discovers that Sofia has embarked on a forbidden love affair, she must act in order to save the family from shame. She sends Sofia to Europe - away from her friends and family and the man Sofia loves. 

A seaside holiday at Shell Cottage in Devon has always been the perfect escape for the Tarrant family. But this year everything has changed. Following her husband's recent death, Olivia is struggling to pick up the pieces. Harriet's looking forward to a break with her lovely husband, Robert, and teenage daughter, Molly. But unknown to Harriet, Robert is hiding a secret - and so, for that matter, is Molly....

Married couple, Miranda and David, move out of London into a beautiful country house with an idyllic garden. But reality turns out to be very different from their bucolic dream. Soon the latent unhappiness in the family begins to come to the surface, isolating each family member in a bubble of resentment and loneliness. Then a mysterious Frenchman arrives on their doorstep. With the wisdom of nature, he slowly begins to heal the past and the present.

There is one great love in everyone's life. For Ducky, Princess Victoria Melita, hers was a Romanov cousin, a member of the doomed Russian royal family. Her father is Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son. Her mother is Grand Duchess Marie, the daughter of Tsar Alexander III. Ducky seems doomed to be a pawn on her grandmother's dynastic chessboard. But Ducky is not so easily controlled.

The class of ’72, Sara, Ally, Jo and Mitch were as close as sisters, then life intervened and the four friends lost touch. Now in her 60s, Sara has realised - late in the day - that those women were the best friends she’d ever had and is determined to get the gang back together. Ally is facing a huge turning point in her life and Jo, after years of being chief cook and bottle washer, needs to put herself first after a wake-up call. None of them know what happened to Mitch.

You follow the hidden creek towards a long-forgotten house. They call it Keepsake, a place full of wonder...and danger. Locked inside the crumbling elegance of its walls lies the story of the Butterfly Summer, a story you've been waiting all your life to hear. This house is Nina Parr's birthright. It holds the truth about her family - and a chance to put everything right at last.