Showing results by narrator "Patricia Gallimore" in All Categories

Cornwall, 1920s. Beth Tresaile has been happily reconciled with her estranged mother for over a year and is looking forward to her best friend Kitty Copeland spending Christmas with them. But Kitty’s request that her brother Stuart join them throws Beth in turmoil for Stuart and Beth were once lovers, and she lives in fear of her friend discovering her secret shame. But Stuart’s arrival sets in motion events that even Beth could not have expected….

Jane Cowan's abusive ex-husband has always tracked her down whichever town she lives in, whichever job she takes, whichever name she uses. However, now he is in prison for a long stretch, she feels brave enough to accept a promotion: she is to be head teacher of the Wrayford Primary School in Gloucestershire. While facing everyday battles from a lack of resources to teachers who are set in their ways, Jane encounters a persistent intruder on the school grounds.

While Jane waits for renovations to be completed on her new permanent home, she remains in temporary accommodation under the watchful eye of her landlord, Brian Dawes, chair of the governors at Wrayford School. Her work life is dominated by preparations for the all important school play, but behind the scenes the threat of major cuts to the school's budget puts a strain on morale. Alongside these concerns are her landlord's deteriorating health and the odd behaviour of her neighbours - both mysteries she could do without.

It was Heather's silver wedding anniversary. But this important milestone did not mark her marriage to Tom, her often-absent airline pilot husband and father of their two teenage children. It was for her first marriage - a wildly romantic, secret affair, when she and Iain - 12 years older than her and the heir to a Scottish baronetcy - had eloped immediately after her final school speech day. She was just 16 at the time.

A head teacher's work is never done, especially if, like Jane Cowan, you're a victim of your own success. Her responsibilities are compounded by an influx of children, most of whom do not speak English, following their families supplying cheap labour. Jane can't turn a blind eye to the conditions in which many of these families are living, even more so when some children simply disappear. When everything points to the shadowy dealings of people smugglers in the area, she has her work cut out.

It's a busy weekend for Lina: she wins a dance competition, annoys a valuable client and has to play gooseberry when Griff, her business partner, meets an old flame. Killing time, she drives across Dartmoor only to find two men robbing a medieval church. Outraged, she manages to stop them - only to discover that it's not just in Devon that they are working. Safely back in Kent, she makes some new friends.

After a tragic miscarriage, Beth Tresaile returns to Owles House, the place of her miserable childhood, accompanied by her best friend, Kitty Copeland. Beth feels she can no longer go on unless she gets revenge on her estranged mother, Christina, who abandoned her on a cold winter’s night. But there are many shocks in store for Beth, who discovers that much of her childhood was built on deception. Kitty is captivated with Cornwall and Beth reluctantly - but later gladly - becomes involved with the locals.

Newly retired, ex-chief superintendent Fran Harman and her partner, Mark, have volunteered to assist West Mercia police in reinvestigating an unsolved crime. Twenty years ago a car was found abandoned on an isolated forest road running, its hazard lights still flashing, the passenger door open. In the back were two child seats. One was empty; in the other lay a desperately ill baby. Neither the baby's mother nor the elder child were ever seen again.

Ingrid Langley’s career as a crime author provides great cover when she is asked by the Serious Organised Crime Agency, for whom she works part-tim alongside her husband Patrick, formerly of MI5, to attend an international writers’ festival in Cannes to investigate fellow author, Clement Hamlyn, who is suspected of using the event to meet with a wanted criminal.

It is 1648, and the Civil War, which an exhausted nation had believed over, has been resurrected by a king still determined to be an absolute ruler, and a parliament unable to agree how to govern without him. Blacksmith Jamie Hudson is weary and disillusioned but faces prison if he refuses to re-enlist in the army, and so he is hauled ruthlessly around England as the blood continues to flow. Meanwhile, Jamie’s wife, Lucy, is struggling to survive as a lone woman in London, while working to support the Leveller demands for democracy and freedom.

Johnny Harvey is disillusioned and restless – injured in the war, older than the pilots he trained and disturbed at the changing of society, he watches his friends marry as life seems to pass him by. Sixteen-year-old Tess Viant, crippled with polio and abandoned by her heartless family, is befriended by Jill Harvey. Jill is delighted to be pregnant after four years of marriage to Tom – but when complications arise, it’s Tess who has to help

When a local lad that vicar's wife Jodie Welsh employed to help in her garden disappears, along with Jodie's expensive camera, nearly everyone assumes the worst. But Burble's disappearance marks the start of a series of increasingly disturbing incidents - until the body shows up, and Jodie must use all her skills to unmask a ruthless killer.

To decide to holiday in Bath, when you live not ten miles down the road, might be regarded as eccentric – but Ingrid Langley and her husband and colleague Patrick Gillard, badly need a break. Patrick is recovering from being seriously ill, and Ingrid is getting over having a baby. Although the holiday proceeds sedately enough, trouble, their old friend, is never far away.

When, at the age of 71, Gina Knight's husband of four decades left her unexpectedly, she thought her life over. Until she met Dorothy Reed – a woman so full of the joie de vivre you'd think she was 21, not nearly 90. Gina would do anything for Dorothy. So when Dorothy suggests she take on the role of companion for one of Dorothy's old friends, Gina sees no reason to say no.

Actress Vena Burford is 'resting' between jobs. But needs must, and with few voice-over jobs in the pipeline, Vena takes on a few jobs for friends and family around the idyllic Stratford-Upon-Avon. But interior design leads her to violent threats and showing prospective buyers around houses ushers in a drug-smuggling ring. Vena comes to know all too well that the countryside is far from quiet.

1942, and the war is not going well. As part of the war effort the Ashworth Grammar School for Girls signs up for the Merchant Navy's Ship Adoption Scheme. The headmistress, who lost her lover in the First World War, believes the project will broaden the horizons of her girls, especially Polly and Jen, bright sixth formers eager to live and love despite it all. Then Josh Percival, captain of the adopted ship, the SS Treverran, comes with his men to visit Ashworth.

Cornwall, 1882. Now owner of her late father's shipyard, Caseley has drifted apart from her husband, Captain Jago Barata. Following the loss and heartbreak they have recently suffered, their marriage is at risk of collapse. When Jago is commissioned to undertake an important voyage to turbulent Egypt, Caseley - convinced she is about to lose him - risks everything by deciding to go with him. Will their marriage survive the dangers they are sailing into - and will they ever make it back to England?

A bloody gang war has erupted in the World Heritage designated city of Bath, leading DCI James Carrick to enlist the help of his old friends, husband and wife team Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley, late of MI5 and now working for the Serious Organized Crime Agency, to hunt down the criminals. One for the country’s most notorious and feared crime lords, “Uncle”, is spotted in the city, and they are soon embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse to catch him and his gang.

DCI James Carrick is playing rugby for police team The Ferrets when an injury sends him off the pitch. His substitute is DS Cliff Morley, an undercover policeman investigating a criminal gang. The next day Morley's horribly mutilated body is found dumped in woodland near Bristol, the initials RK carved on his torso.

Currently on leave, Patrick Gillard is considering whether to carry on in his hazardous job as "adviser" to the National Crime Agency when his father, the local rector, asks for his help. A parishioner, Mrs Anne Peters, has paid him a visit, convinced that the wrong body was cremated at her late husband’s recent funeral. Patrick promises to investigate with the help of his wife and working partner, Ingrid Langley.