Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in All Categories

Professor Maxie Reddick has her reasons for being sceptical of traditional policing methods, but, in between her criminology lecturing job and her Criminal Thoughts podcast, she stays firmly on the side lines of the crime solving world. Then a young woman is brutally attacked, and suddenly it’s essential that Maxie turns her words into actions; this is no longer an academic exercise - this is somebody’s life. But as she delves deeper, the case takes a sickening turn, which leads Maxie to the horrifying realisation that the attack might not have been a one-off.

Karen could be excused for crying on her birthday, especially as it’s the first one since her husband got on a plane to the States and never came back. Then there’s the fact that her workmates were practically bribed to attend her birthday meal. But when a restaurant double booking leads to her sharing a table with single dad Elliot and his daughter, things start looking up. 

Molly's perfect life comes crashing down following the unexpected death of her husband David. She is left alone with a big, old house to maintain, finances in disarray and her hopes for happiness in a heap. But Molly is a survivor. Despite objections from her two daughters, Molly fears that the only solution will be to sell their beloved home.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure. But although Lacey’s marriage had gone disastrously wrong, she could hardly regret what it had given her - her beloved daughter, Jessica. For 20 years she had neither seen nor heard of the man who had been her husband and who had hurt her so badly that she had not dared to look for a relationship since. But now he was back in her life, shattering her hard-won confidence and threatening the secure world she had built around her. And, what was worse, Lacey realised that she still loved him.

As if everyday life in London's slums wasn't hard enough for Jane Roberts and her three children, the day that ne'er-do-well husband Bert walks out on his family as rent day draws near is a particularly dark time. In the wake of his desertion, the family pulls together to find their way forward, and Jane takes the steps she needs to get a divorce and free them all from Bert in the future. With help from a neighbour who is not all she seems, a lucky break and fresh opportunities, the road ahead starts to look more promising. 

Would a man really use his dying breath to play Russian roulette with his soul? If what Fred Howerd revealed under the seal of confession is true, then a grave miscarriage of justice has been allowed to lie festering for over 20 years - and that, for the Whitebridge police, is political dynamite. DCI Monika Paniatowski argues with the Chief Constable that it will be almost impossible to solve a case which is almost history. But the real reason for her reluctance to take it on is more to do with her own past....

When hotel cleaning temp and poetry academic Megan Morrison finds out she's inherited an Italian villa and small fortune from her estranged great-great aunt Olwen, she doesn’t quite know how to react. That is, until she travels to Portofino to see Il Giardino delle Rose for herself. Then she knows exactly what she has to do: live there! Enchanted by the beauty of the house and gardens, fascinated by the history and more than a little intrigued by handsome hired landscape gardener Gideon West, Megan can immediately see the villa's potential as a dream home.

Liverpool, 1938. It’s Christmas in the Courts, and single mother Rosheen Clarke and her mischievous twin daughters, April and May, have no idea of the cataclysmic events which will soon overtake them. When war is declared, April and May are evacuated to the countryside, and Rosheen joins the WAAF, where she befriends fellow Liverpudlian Cassie Valentine. While Rosheen worries about what trouble the twins will cause next, Cassie is fighting her love for her childhood friend, Andy.

Seamstress Elowyn Liddicot's family believe they've secured the perfect future for her in the arms of Nathan Cardew. But then one evening, Elowyn helps to rescue a dying man from the sea, and everything changes. William Cotterell, wild and self-assured, refuses to leave her thoughts or her side - but surely she can't love someone so unlike herself? With Elowyn's dressmaking business suddenly under threat, her family's pressure to marry Nathan increasing and her heart decidedly at odds with her head, Elowyn doesn't know whom to trust anymore. 

1934: Lizzie Flowers has been mother and protector to her East End family, the Allens of Langley Street, since she was 15. Even when her doomed marriage to Frank Flowers collapses, she sacrifices her own happiness to keep the family united. But when Lizzie buys the infamous dockland's pub the Mill Wall, she discovers she's bitten off more than she can chew. 

Evelyn Pendragon is spirited but lonely and largely ignored by her parents, whose attentions are taken up with her brother, Nicholas: the expected heir to the family’s Cornish estate and the one who will carry on the Pendragon name. Stifled by her aristocratic existence, Evelyn finds companionship in an unlikely place when she befriends Drake Vennor, an apprentice gardener on the estate. But when Evelyn’s life is thrown into turmoil by a tragedy, she realises just how much she has come to rely on Drake.

Summer has come to Windermere, where Persimmon "Simmy" Brown runs her own florist shop. But the shop is struggling for money, so a contract to provide floral displays for a hotel in Hawkshead couldn't have arrived at a better moment. However Simmy's association with the hotel soon turns sinister when she finds a body in the lake. To make matters worse, her friend, Ben Harkness, is now missing and thought to be kidnapped.

In 1945, Gwen Moffat deserted from her post as dispatch rider in the Army and went to live rough in Wales and Cornwall, climbing and living on practically nothing. She hitch-hiked her way around, travelling from Skye to Chamonix and many places in between, with all her possessions on her back. When the money ran out, she worked as a forester, went winkle-picking on the Isle of Skye and did a stint as an artist's model. And always there were the mountains, drawing her away from a "proper" job.

Sarah has been receiving threatening anonymous letters seemingly from a former lover. Just one day after revealing this information to her co-worker Nancy, Sarah is shot and found in her bedroom by one of her past flames, Donald. Desperate to clear any evidence of Donald's presence at the scene for her own infatuations, Nancy finds herself as the key suspect when she is discovered in the apartment. As the real killer uses the situation to their advantage, Bennett crafts a tense and nuanced story through flashbacks to Sarah's life and loves.

One morning before dawn at her regal country estate, Lady Lavinia Truelove is crushed to death by a horse. Classified as “death by misadventure”, this appears a gruesome accident, but Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands suspects foul play. His suspicions are aggravated by his personal grievances toward Sir James Truelove, Lady Lavinia's widower and the influential academic patron of Dorcas Joliffe, whom Joe one day hopes to marry.

Ada Hobbes has cleaned for Dr Tindall for many years and begins the morning like any other day. But the house is not empty after all. The blood-covered George Tindall is sprawled across the floor. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy arrive to a horrific scene. Someone enjoyed killing Tindall, without a doubt. Their investigation takes them out of London and on the trail of three different women as it emerges that Dr Tindall was not the respectable local GP after all, but a bigamist whose third wife had some very interesting connections in the crime fraternity.

Suffolk, 1955. Rosy Gilchrist is asked by her friend Lady Fawcett to join her on a trip to Southwold to visit Delia Dovedale, an old school chum she hasn’t seen in years. Rosy reluctantly agrees to be her companion on the reunion jaunt, but on arrival they discover that their hostess is dead - recently murdered at the local flower festival. Faced with incompetent village police officers and a stern manservant with an eyepatch, Rosy and her friends face the impossible task of finding the murderer in a town of suspicious characters - before the body count rises.

Winter 1644, the Tower of London. Colonel George Monck has been charged with high treason. A brilliant soldier, admiral and military governor, Monck joined the King's men in besieging Nantwich. But the Parliamentary side's more disciplined army successfully routed them, and Monck was thrown in jail. Brooding and despondent, Monck's troubles look to intensify when he starts an affair with Anne Ratsford, a married woman who is caring for him in The Tower.

Thea and Drew have been married for a year and are settled in the village of Broad Campden, but Thea is chafing at the domestic routines she is expected to devote herself to, missing the novelty and adventure that house-sitting used to bring. When a routine burial exposes the secrets of the deceased, Drew finds himself caught in the middle of a family feud, in which he feels he is on the wrong side, and Thea's inquisitiveness and penchant for solving crimes draws her in, too. 

It is 1921 and a terrible discovery has been made at a manor house in Surrey - the bloodied bodies of Colonel Fletcher, his wife and two of their staff. The victims have all been stabbed and the lack of disturbance in the house suggests that the attack was one of terrifying speed. The Surrey police force seem ready to put the murders down to robbery with violence, but Detective Inspector madden from Scotland Yard sees things slightly differently.