Showing results by narrator "Catrin Walker-Booth" in All Categories

Things you should know about Poppy: 1. She’s a witch. 2. She has magical hair like Rapunzel from Tangled. 3. She lives with Iris, the head of her coven, in a beautiful, ramshackle house next to Highgate cemetery. 4. She works at Hubble Bubble, a magic shop in Covent Garden. Though none of it is real magic as that would be highly irresponsible. Until…Poppy accidentally sells gorgeous celebrity magician Axl Storm, all six-foot-four of him, a cursed pendant.

Cornwall, 1786. For years, the villagers of Mirecoombe have turned to their Keeper, the old and battle-scarred Lord Pelagius Hunt, mediator between the worlds of men and fey, for help. But this is a time of change. Belief in the old ways, in the piskies and spriggans, has dimmed, kindled instead in the Reverend Cleaver's fiery pulpit. His church stands proud above the mire; God's name is whispered, hushed, loved. And now, death stalks Mirecoombe on the moor. There are corpses in the heather. There is blood in the gorse.

Becky Lawson’s life has been shattered. When she discovered her husband, John – a trusted policeman – was a monster, she reported him. But her faith in the system was crushed when it didn't lead to any charges or consequences. Now, John lives freely with a new girlfriend and her young daughter, while Becky battles guilt over missing the obvious signs.

Amanda Cox is living in New York with a non-committal boyfriend and a student loan that threatens to crush her. That is, until she enters a raffle for a manor house in the British countryside of Northumberland–and wins...

You will find a bothy in the mountains or the wilderness, remote huts you can’t reserve, usually without electricity or other mod-cons, running water or a marker on the map. And it’s there that you’ll meet Kat Hill – kettle on, feet up and pen out. Leading us on a gorgeous journey around the UK, Kat reveals the history of these wild mountain shelters and the people who visit them. With an historian’s insight and a rambler’s imagination, Kat lends fresh consideration to the concepts of nature, wilderness and escape.

Hedoné House, a luxurious sanatorium for the creative elite dedicated to the groundbreaking treatment of tuberculosis. As the doctor’s new wife, Agnes Templeton has pledged her life to a house of fever. Her husband’s methods are unusual. There are whisperings about past patients and even a cure. Hedoné’s secrets draw Agnes in, revealing truths she could never anticipate, and soon she is caught between a past she is desperate to escape and a future she may forever regret.

For several years, a prolific predator haunted Bristol. Avon and Somerset Police had tried all their usual tactics to catch the ‘Clifton Rapist’, and public pressure was mounting. In 1979, a daring new plan was introduced. A small group of young female officers – some aged just 18 – put their lives on the line, walking the quiet residential roads late at night, acting as bait. Drawing on in-depth research and first-hand interviews with the women at the heart of the operation, Decoy is a dramatic retelling of one of the most groundbreaking agent provocateur stings in British history.

In 1824, Lyme Regis is as tumultuous as the sea that surrounds it. When twenty-four-year-old Ada Winters - poor, peculiar and brilliant - uncovers a set of unusual fossils on the cliffs, she believes she has found the answer to her scientific frustrations and her family's financial struggles. Meanwhile, Doctor Edwin Moyle has come to Dorset in search of the discovery that will place him amongst the greatest geologists of the age. What he finds instead is a strange young woman who seems to hold the key to everything he desires.

Did you know that walking can improve your cognitive skills? That strengthening your muscular core reduces anxiety? That light stretching can combat a whole host of mental and bodily ailments, from stress to inflammation? We all know that exercise changes the way you think and feel. But scientists are just starting to discover exactly how it works. In Move!, Caroline Williams explores the emerging science of how movement opens up a hotline to our minds. Interviewing researchers and practitioners around the world, she reveals how you can work your body to improve your mind.

It's after a night in Cardiff's loudest gay bar that Toni first lays eyes on Gav, a retired Welsh boxer, and his boyfriend Karol, an aspiring Polish photographer. The trio soon fall into an intimate, ambiguous love triangle.

This stunning novel tells the true story of the woman behind one of the world’s greatest artists, Vincent Van Gogh. In 1890, Vincent Van Gogh dies penniless, unknown, a man tortured by his own mind. Eleven years later his work is exhibited in Paris and his unparalleled talent finally recognised. The tireless efforts of one woman gave the world one of its greatest creative minds. But twenty-eight-year-old Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, Vincent’s sister-in-law and the keeper of his immense collection of paintings, sketches and letters, has, until now, been written out of history.

Rob and Emma have made a fresh start, moving away from London and back to her hometown. With their baby daughter Sophie, their family is complete. Until one night, Rob arrives home from a late shift to find baby Sophie crying and on her own. Frantically, he searches the house and surroundings, but Emma has disappeared without a trace. Rob is distraught. Emma couldn’t abandon their child - could she? As rumours spread around the village, Rob uncovers secrets about Emma’s past life that shake his foundations about the woman he thought he married.

A single sentence was all it took to define Cammy's life. They came as her beloved artist aunt was dying, a teenage Cammy standing by her bedside: 'Did your mother ever tell you about the curse?' Cammy is warned that the women in her family are destined always to lose the one they love. She thinks nothing of it - until the day when, in her late twenties, her new boyfriend is hit by a car. Convinced she is to blame, Cammy begins to investigate the one-hundred-and-fifty-year story of a family that is both ordinary and remarkable, tragic and beautiful.

Kirsten Meredith is a successful, rich and beautiful woman who seems to have it all. But she is also a woman haunted by her past which threatens to ruin her life—a lingering past of loneliness and rejection. And most dangerous of all, of burning vengeance. Lawrence McAllister is the man who walked out on her and broke her heart. Yet he is the only man who can help her fight her worst enemy—Dyllis Fisher, a woman who has vowed to destroy Kirsten's life at all costs. And in a world where bitter vengeance will know no limit, Kirsten needs all the help she can get.

Arthur and Gwen married young. Twenty years on, Gwen's got it all: wealth, beauty, a famous husband who's the founder of Britain's most successful tech company, stables full of horses, millions of followers on Instagram, an unstable lover, a wayward son, a hoard of secrets, an aching heart, and a cyberstalking blackmailer who calls himself The Invisible Knight. As the Wiltshire town of Abury prepares to celebrate the fortieth birthday of its favourite son, Morgan, Gwen's former best friend, is on her way back to Abury after two decades away.

Marian Deacon has always been overshadowed by her cousin Madeleine, a glamorous, selfish model who will stop at nothing to reach the top. But their ordinary lives suddenly change with the arrival of Paul O'Connell, a handsome, charismatic writer who draws them into the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Hastings and the glamour and danger of her life in Italy and New York.

When Singapore falls to Japan's Imperial army in early 1942, the life that Susan Sandyman has lovingly created abroad is shattered. Forced to flee home to the hamlets of southern England, she can either succumb to grief or find solace in war work. When a chance encounter with the elusive Air Transport Auxiliary pilots stirs a spark of excitement, Susan's decision is made.

A weekend on the wild, beautiful Dorset coast. Seven adults, six kids. A nanny: the ultimate special treat. It should be perfect: old friends, a stunning house, champagne and windswept beaches. But it isn't. Past grudges won't rest. Secrets won't stay put. And by the end of the weekend, at least one of them will be dead.

Emily has worked hard to be the chic city girl she always dreamed of being. She's definitely not still thinking about Andy, her last boyfriend who ghosted her completely out of the blue. She's got her eyes on the new guy at work. He's much better suited to her new image. When a séance goes haywire, Andy barges back into her life, switching off lights, moving through furniture and moaning about his untimely death. He didn't ghost her, he died...and he's a bit miffed she's trying to move on. And if Emily is going to stop Andy's ghost ruining her love life, she's got to get rid of him.

When a fake video of radio DJ Lucy Fairweather kissing a colleague goes viral, and the public rally against her, she knows she needs an escape. The question is, where? Cue best friend Skye to the rescue with the perfect place - Finland. But when Lucy arrives at Wild Zone - a destination for travellers who want to experience the great outdoors of the Arctic Circle - she is less than impressed, and wholly underdressed.