Showing results by narrator "Lucy Paterson" in All Categories

Glamorous Margot Jones is the fashion editor at glossy women's magazine Haute and pregnant with her first child. Margot's used to her carefully curated life being the object of other women's envy - who wouldn't want her successful career, loving husband, beautiful house and stylish wardrobe? Maggie, a freelance journalist, certainly knows she doesn't measure up. So when Margot gets in touch to suggest she apply for her maternity cover at Haute, Maggie seizes the chance at living a better life - even if it's only temporary.

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....

It is 1958. Elizabeth has been sent away from her London home to the beautiful Hartland House in Sussex. Over an idyllic summer by the coast, she grows close to the confident young Shaws, who treat her like one of their own. A lovely but innocent girl, Elizabeth is ready to fall in love - but her dreams are dangerously naïve. Decades later Elizabeth's daughter, Addie, is stunned when a stranger appears on her doorstep, claiming that they are sisters. Addie doesn't believe it until her beloved father admits that everything she's been told about her early life is a lie.

It was a victimless crime.... Estate Agent Clara is struggling to make a sale. With her abusive ex-husband on the brink of finding where she's hiding, she needs to make a commission soon or lose her chance to escape. Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness has remained unsold for years, and Clara is sure that an 'innocent' fire will force the price down. But the perfect crime soon turns into the perfect nightmare: there was a witness, a stranger in the village, and he's not going to let Clara get away with it that easily.... 

Lizzie Bradshaw. A student from the Lake District, forced to work away from home, who witnesses a terrible crime. But who will ultimately pay the price? Emma Taylor. A mother, a wife, and a woman with a dangerous secret. Can she keep her beloved family safely together? Stella Taylor. A disaffected teenager, determined to discover what her mother is hiding. But how far will she go to uncover the truth? And one man, powerful, manipulative and cunning, who controls all their destinies.

After an acclaimed career in ceramics making things and breaking things, it is now Jay herself who has cracked. Recovering from a breakdown, she and her husband, Simon, move to the desolate edges of the Yorkshire moors, where they find and fall in love with the Two Houses: a crumbling Victorian property whose central rooms were supposedly so haunted that a previous owner had them cut out from the building entirely.

Bodies surface and disappear, seduce and corrupt in these original stories by best-selling, award-winning female crime writers. Keep your eyes peeled, your ears cocked and your wits about you as 20 deliciously twisted tales take you to surprising places....

On a cold evening, Zeb, a single mum in her thirties, is found wandering aimlessly on a remote road. She is dazed, confused, and bloodied. She doesn't know where she is or how she got there. She has travelled far from home and someone has attacked her. Memory loss means she can trust no one, and, with her assailant unidentified, Zeb is desperate to be reunited with her son and to ensure his safety. But what will her search for the truth uncover? Will it bring answers or more questions? And what if the person she can rely on the least is herself?

Evie has just started her second year at University. She is young, beautiful and popular. She should be having the time of her life, except she has something to hide - a one-night-stand with her English professor, Simon. Not wanting any of his other students to be used in the same way, Evie reports their relationship to University HR. But hours later, Village Vixen, the student gossip blogger, is baying for blood. She's found out about the accusation and is firmly on Simon's side. 

Politicians are weird - we can all agree on that. But do you know how much weirder they used to be? If not, Honourable Misfits is the audiobook for you. Spanning from the past 700 years, this is a celebration of the oddest and most eccentric MPs the House of Commons has ever seen. From mad inventors and fearless adventurers to Machiavellian villains and mavericks with more money than sense, it offers 64 pen portraits of the unique, the mysterious and the downright deranged.

Early one Monday morning, much like today, journalist Alex Kubelick walks up to a total stranger and slaps him across the face. Hard. He thanks her. They've both just earned Emoticoins in a new, all-consuming game that trades real-life emotions for digital currency. Emoticoins are changing the face of the global economy - but someone or something seems to be controlling the game for their own nefarious purposes. As Alex begins to pick apart the tangled threads that are holding the virtual game together, she finds herself on the run from very real enemies.

Laura Edwards, a French émigré fallen on hard times, took to the stage to support her brother's medical career. Now that he's established, he wants her to turn respectable, landing her in the country hiding in plain sight from one of her biggest admirers, Jasper Rushford, the care-for-nothing son of the local viscount. He just might have recognized her...

Nina Findlay, always the heroine of her own life, has found an irresistible safety in being adored by two men. But when her sister-in-law becomes gravely ill, the triangle that Nina's depended on becomes unstable. The life she's known begins to unravel, and odd things begin to happen which those around her insist are all in her mind. Can Nina be sure of the truth?

After ninety-three well-lived years, Violet MacAskill is ready to simplify her life. Her eccentric solution? She’ll throw a decanting and decluttering party at her family home—a Scottish Baronial manor near the seaside town of Inversgail. She sets aside everything she wants or needs, then she invites her many friends in to sip sherry and help themselves to whatever they want from all that’s left. Janet Marsh and Christine Robertson, two of the women who own Yon Bonnie Books in Inversgail, enjoy themselves at the party. Not everyone who attends has a good time, though. 

1944: Leo Stern arrives at the Nazi camp at Borek with his wife, Irena, and his two daughters. The Sterns are spared from the gas chamber when they witness a murder. But in a place that humanity has deserted, Leo is forced to make unimaginable choices to try to keep his family alive. 1961: For 17 years, Hanna has been unable to remember her identity and how she was separated from her family at the end of the war, until the discovery of a letter among her late uncle's possessions reveals her real name—Hanna Stern—and leads her to Berlin in search of her lost past.

In today's connection economy, the most successful leaders inspire their people with purpose and meaning. Powerful corporate storytelling can mobilise people around an organisational objective in a way that a focus on market share never will. Be it a digital transformation or a diversity and inclusion initiative, corporate change needs the support of the people in that organisation in order to stick. Yet, while all stories can move people to take action, storytelling isn't a one size fits all.