Showing results by narrator "Rachael Beresford" in All Categories

Explore the mesmerizing depths of the esoteric and unexplainable with this outstanding A-to-Z reference guide. Catalog of the Unexplained provides fascinating entries on 450 topics, from angels and herbalism to tarot and vampires. Magical practitioners, holistic healers, ghost hunters, spiritual seekers, and trivia fans alike will marvel at the knowledge this book contains. 

Cinderella stories captured the imagination of girls in the 1950s, when dreams of meeting the right man could seem like a happy ending, a solution to life's problems. But over the next 50 years women's lives were transformed, not by the magic wand of a fairy godmother, nor by marrying princes, but by education, work, birth control - and feminism.

When Rachel and her husband, Adam, move to Maple Cottage in remote Cheshire, it should be the fulfilment of their dream to start a family. Haunted by her past and challenged by events around her, Rachel finds that her home is not the sanctuary she envisaged - and neither is her marriage. Adam's temper rages when he discovers he is infertile. She seeks solace in the arms of her gardener and falls pregnant. Dreams become reality - and a garden grows, but as every gardener knows, even the most beautiful plants can be toxic.

Grace bundled her eight-week-old daughter into her carry cot, opened the door and ran. Her life in New York faded into the background - she needed to keep her baby safe. She needed to get as far away from Patrick as possible. Now, staying in a remote cottage in Wales, Grace is trying to start again. But she can’t shake the uneasy feeling that she’s been followed. And then she finds a note. Left on her bed. A tiny scrap of paper with scrawl in bright red pen.

John has a perfect life until the day his daughter goes missing. Maisie cares for her patients but hides her own traumatic past. Miller should be an innocent child but is obsessed with something he can’t have. They all have something in common, though none of them know it - and the truth won’t stay hidden for long.... 

For Miss Phoebe Lockswell, fashionable London tea parties and balls aren't her style. Instead, she prefers to tinker tirelessly with a clockwork diffuser she's built from scratch. If only she can get the invention to work on command, she might earn her way out of an arranged marriage to a repugnant member of the House of Commons.

Laura's got a few pounds to lose, nothing major, so she joins the local slimming class, Nu-You. Psycho Kassie and her two morbidly obese friends are livid. They have been struggling for years. Battling obesity. The worst thing for them is people who don't look overweight blazing in all optimistic and raring to go. They want to educate her on the definition of over-indulgence. Could there be such a thing as death by chocolate?

A lady seeking forgiveness for her past, Lady Viola Haversham is determined to put her past where it belongs. A woman forging a new path in life, Mrs. Ruby Jakeston is tired of others taking care of her. A girl lost and in search of a place to belong, Lady Ellington is on the brink of losing the only home she's ever known. A trio of women holding out hope for three different holiday miracles: Christmas ever more.

I watch him watching us, imagining how he would take me. I send him the message with my eyes. This is who I am. I am Veronica Franco. I am a COURTESAN. I court the cultural elite for fame and fortune, giving my body to many. And I'm good. So very good. After all, I was taught by my mother, and mother always knows best. How else to please the future King of France than with the imaginative use of Murano glass? How else to fulfill the desires of all yet keep my sense of self-worth?

While the elusive Secret Symphony of Giovanni St. John captivated the world's fascination, it left his daughter closed away in the Silent House; she, the one who holds the fullness of truth about the ninth symphony. Now Aria St. John is determined to not only break free of the loss that has defined her, but to honor her father through one final gift in his last days.

When her fiancé leaves her eight months before their wedding, the unexpected blow ignites a battalion of insecurities stemming from her father's intimate betrayal. Her worst fears are confirmed. Who could ever love a soiled woman? In an attempt to escape the shame and disappointment of her past, Ashleigh boards the ill-fated Lusitania to cross the war-torn waters of Europe. Much to her dismay, she isn't traveling alone.

This magical fantastical story is about a house for sale which, when cleared, reveals cracks in the walls and ground floor which cannot be explained. We find that underneath the house is a lake inhabited by a sea dragon, Zadie, and her friends and slaves. She has a Tall Ship, and she yearns to return to warmer times and Utopia. Her slaves are "fish people" who have to live partly in the water below and partly in the house, which they enter via the cracks.

A cursed witch is the loneliest kind. Shunned by her small community, Henny Wilson knows this very well. Suffering constant accidents, she keeps away from people for their own safety. But her new neighbour, Nathan, has other ideas. He believes the curse is just in her head. As they grow closer and feelings develop between them, Nathan vows to show Henny that she doesn't have to suffer any longer.

France, 1367. Rafeu, Vicomte Bruniquel, is deeply, insanely in love—and he's about to meet the lady of his heart for the first time. Unfortunately for him, lovely English widow Eglantine avoids charismatic French knights like the plague. Bitter experience has taught her that love is an illusion. She will not be deceived again, so she bars her castle to all suitors and creates an English garden paradise in detested France.

Kate moves into the top floor of a rambling house on the coast hoping to start a new life. After a rough year, this move to the seaside town of Whitby is a fresh start, a chance to forget the past. But Kate begins to feel that she's being watched all the time, even within the walls of her new home. She hears footsteps in the attic and sees a car driving over the moors in the dead of night.

Harriet Wheatley is the mastermind behind the Ladies of Virtue's quest to rehabilitate the gentlemen of the ton. So when it comes to selecting her own target, she knows who to choose: Oliver Weeks, Marquess of Davenport—the most extravagant wastrel in all of London. Known for his opulent lifestyle, Oliver isn't surprised by Harriet's confrontation. It's obvious Harriet longs for any way to take him down a notch. She says she'll help him find a bride, but he knows it's only because it gives her the excuse to chastise his indulgent ways.

Yorkshire, 1367. Lady Azalais disguises herself as a minstrel to travel through war-torn France and ransom her father. Her brother plans to marry her to his brutish friend but Azalais, disillusioned with coarse and lustful men, hopes her father will let her become a nun instead. As an impoverished knight, Sir William must fight for his living—unless he can forge a life through his love of song. When offered a mission to protect a talented musician through France, Will seizes the chance to test his dream of becoming a minstrel—a dream that will prevent him from ever marrying.

As a Lady of Virtue, Matilda Brooks swears to reform the most despicable man of her acquaintance, her brother-in-law, Sullivan Chase, Viscount Glenbrook. Well, he may not be the most despicable, but he is certainly arrogant, flirtatious, and entirely too charming. To make matters worse, he has the irritating tendency to poke fun at her and rile her emotions as no other man does. However, when she confronts him, he laughs off her concern about his slothful ways.

From the very moment Agnes Watkins walked into his life, Fletcher Banks, Earl of Wakefield, has wanted her. Agnes is not just beautiful, she's clever and determined. Despite her uncommon beauty, she refuses to conform to society's standards. She's also the sister of the man who holds Fletcher's career as a spy in his hands. And that makes her completely off-limits.

Jael Hawkins is a troublesome girl. Everyone says so. When yet another relative tires of her, she is banished to Moon Hollow with the family's other black sheep. There, her aunt and uncle make her feel welcome for the first time, and she meets the intriguing Sebastian Westwood, in whom she senses a kindred spirit. But something is not right at Moon Hollow. Wails echo in the corridors at night, and a ghostly figure roams the riverbank in the moonlight.