Showing results by narrator "Esther Wane" in All Categories

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. As a literature teacher specialising in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a short course on it every year. Then Clare's life and work collide tragically when one of her colleagues is found dead, a line from an R. M. Holland story by her body. The investigating police detective is convinced the writer's works somehow hold the key to the case.s....

The last time Valerie was in Paris, she was three years old, running from the Nazis, away from the only home she had ever known. Now as a young woman all alone in the world, Valerie must return to Paris, to the bookshop and her sole surviving relative, her grandfather Vincent, the only person who knows the truth about what happened to her parents. As she gets to know grumpy, taciturn Vincent again, she hears a tragic story of Nazi-occupied Paris, a doomed love affair, and a mother willing to sacrifice everything for her beloved daughter.

A second, action-packed Secret Seven adventure by prize-winning author Pamela Butchart. The Secret Seven are excited to be chosen as extras in a local play, but during the opening performances things go seriously wrong. Could someone be trying to sabotage it? The cast and crew are adamant that a theatre ghost must be causing the mysterious accidents, but the Seven aren't convinced. It's up to the gang and their spaniel Scamper to find out who is really behind the mischief - and why!

Two years ago, Beth turned her back on her three-year-old niece for just a few seconds. She disappeared without a trace. One day, Beth receives a photograph from an anonymous number; she is sure it's a photograph of her niece. She is determined to find her and bring her home. But someone isn't pleased when Beth returns, and they will do what it takes to get rid of her for good.

Charlotte feels shell-shocked as she takes in the scene before her. To the left is her (ex?) fiancé’s retreating figure as he hotfoots it back to civilization; in front, the crumbling Greek island farmhouse she thought was their shared dream; and just below, a goat munching merrily on her sunhat….

A horse race in trousers on Rotten Row. Visiting a gaming hall in a dress that would make her mother faint. Sneaking an invitation to a masquerade ball attended by only the wickedest, most debauched members of society.... None of these things are scaring off bookish but strong-willed Amelia Bishop's stuffy, egotistical fiance.

Solve the mystery with the Secret Seven - everyone's favourite detective club! These timeless stories are perfect for young fans of mystery, adventure or detective series. In book six, Peter and Janet are the only witnesses when a car is stolen. They saw the thieves, and now the whole of the Secret Seven are involved. But when they realise they're on the trail of a dangerous gang, the Seven don't feel quite so brave. Have they taken on too much this time? Solve the mystery!

A young writer is brutally attacked in her home and left for dead. For her sister, Nina Bergmann, it's the beginning of a nightmare that will threaten to destroy her marriage, her job and ultimately her life. As she sets out to unravel the truth about what really happened to her sister, Nina comes face-to-face with inner demons she believed long since banished and discovers that her sister's past and that of the once-divided city are intertwined in unimaginable ways. The Wall may be gone, but its legacy still haunts Berlin.

Sheer Mischief by best-selling author Jill Mansell is an unmissable romantic comedy about sisterly love and rivalry.... Not to be missed by listeners of Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes. It's not that Janey Sinclair isn't pleased to see her sister. It's just that being woken at seven by Maxine, complete with police escort, isn't quite how she'd planned to spend her Sunday. Even so, Janey, who's just rebuilding her life after her husband disappeared, is delighted that her sister's back in the Cornish town where they grew up.

Becky Brown has selected extracts from the Mass Observation Archives to anthologise the voices of everyday people as they deal individually and collectively with the crisis of the Second World War. The diarists themselves have been selected from every level of society - from warehousemen to widows, soldiers to farmhands, WRENs to architects. The extracts have been chosen to both uplift and to ground, to remind listeners that nothing is new, that everything can be weathered and perhaps even made better. After all, World War II saw the birth of the NHS.

In book eight, Peter and Jack go looking for their lost model aeroplane in an old abandoned house and find a lit fire in one of the rooms. Who is living there, and why? Looks like the Secret Seven have another interesting case to solve....

Nic always hated clubbing. She only went out that night because she'd promised a friend. She wakes up, naked and bound in an abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere. Dappled light comes in through a dirty window. Her body is covered in cuts. Across the room her friend groans in pain. A shadow passes the window. He's back. He picks up a knife. He begins to cut her friend. In that moment of bloody frenzy, Nic wrenches free and runs. She's finally safe. But this is just the beginning.

It's a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring, or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular step-parents.... Here you'll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale classics to brand-new hexes of the modern world - expect new monsters and mythologies as well as twists on well-loved fables. Stories to shock and stories of warning, stories of monsters and stories of magic.

You want to believe your husband. She wants to destroy him. Gripping psychological drama for fans of Apple Tree Yard, The Good Wife and Notes on a Scandal. Anatomy of a Scandal centres on a high-profile marriage that begins to unravel when the husband is accused of a terrible crime. Sophie is sure her husband, James, is innocent and desperately hopes to protect her precious family from the lies which might ruin them.

Jess Bright, single mum and journalist, feels her life has stalled. So when she's offered a writing job in Paris for the summer, she leaps at the chance to go. Hasn't she always felt that she left a piece of her heart in the city years before? Her subject is the iconic artist Adelaide Fox, whose personal life has been steeped in scandal and intrigue. Now approaching eighty, she's ready to tell her side of the story - and serve up some scalding-hot revenge in the process.

Fast Friends is a warm and funny romantic novel from Sunday Times best-selling author Jill Mansell. For fans of Lucy Diamond, Cathy Kelly and Marian Keyes. When bored housewife and mother Camilla Stewart impulsively invites her old school chums for dinner, she hardly imagines that the evening will shatter her comfortable existence. But Roz Vallender and Loulou Marks are no ordinary guests.

An intimate portrait of the lives and writings of the Brontë sisters, drawn from the objects they possessed. In this unique and lovingly detailed biography of a literary family that has enthralled readers for nearly two centuries, Victorian literature scholar Deborah Lutz illuminates the complex and fascinating lives of the Brontës through the things they wore, stitched, wrote on, and inscribed.

Between the infamous Lindisfarne raid in 793 CE and the Norman conquest of 1066, the peoples we know now as the Vikings became one of the most far-ranging and influential civilizations in history. The Vikings are frequently portrayed as raiders, marauding across medieval Europe and Britain, but the culture and society of the medieval Nordic peoples was so much more diverse, multifaceted and influential than it is often depicted.

The first three fairy tale retellings from the Return to the Four Kingdoms series: The Secret Princess: A Retelling of The Goose Girl, The Mystery Princess: A Retelling of Cinderella, and The Desert Princess: A Retelling of Aladdin. These interconnected fairy tale retellings each feature a different heroine who finds herself friendless in a strange land and who must fight to save her new home and win her happily ever after.

It's nearly Christmas in Oxford, and Detective Inspector Bridget Hart is enjoying a rare day off at Oxford's Christmas Market. A ghost tour seems like a fun way to round off the day. Until, that is, a brutal murder brings the evening to a tragic close. Torn between work and family commitments over the festive season, Bridget soon discovers that the ghost of Christmas past is reaching out to the present with fatal consequences.