Showing results by narrator "Clare Clare" in All Categories

Malaya, 1955. Lydia Cartwright returns from visiting a sick friend to an empty house. The servants are gone. The phone is dead. Where is her husband, Alec? Her young daughters, Emma and Fleur? Fearful and desperate, she contacts the British District Officer and learns that Alec has been posted up country. But why didn't he wait? Why did he leave no message? Lydia's search takes her on a hazardous journey through war-torn jungle. Forced to turn to Jack Harding, a man she'd vowed to leave in her past, she sacrifices everything to be reunited with her family.

Lydia imagines her new job running a Senior Citizen's Social Club three afternoons a week will involve drinking tea while playing gentle games of cards, listening to The Beatles and reminiscing about food rationing and The Blitz. She does not expect to find a failed actor addicted to shoplifting, a woman who's been hiding from a mysterious and very chequered past, and a prolific yarn-bomber. After a tragic accident means the council threatens to sell the community centre, the Social Club, aided by their friends in the nursery next door and a geriatric orphaned mongrel, set out to save it.

Magnetic and educated, Marianne Simpson has the manner of a lady and the looks of a lover, not a fighter. Neither of which explains her occupation as a boxer in her uncle's circus, Farnham's Fantastical Female Fayre. Nonetheless, when St. John Powell, the exquisitely handsome Duke of Staunton, begins turning up at her shows, she finds herself dangerously distracted by the powerful peer's mysterious presence. With her safety at stake, Marianne's days in the ring are numbered. But how long can she fight her attraction to the man the ton calls Lord Flawless?

An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong. A seaside pier collapses. A 30-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve.

Award-winning author Jill Paton Walsh was well known for her four Lord Peter Wimsey novels that continued and completed Dorothy L. Sayers's much-loved series. These two cosy crime dramas introduce her own sparkling creation, Imogen Quy, a college nurse and amateur sleuth who investigates foul play in academia.

She has promised her dragon that she will assassinate a target for him. But he won't name the person or thing he wants her to kill. And he keeps taking her further and further into the deadly land of Drachia, where dragons rule. And, as if that's not enough, every single one of those dragons wants to kill Brax.

The first time I meet Madison Shore, I’m greeted by her knickers. She’s upside down and trying to untangle herself from my chair at a wedding. I get to see a whole lot more of her later that night. The second time I meet Madison Shore is in my London office. Turns out she’s a journalist writing an article about me. To keep control of my company, I need to convince people I’m more serious about business than my playboy reputation suggests. Madison holds my future in her hands.

Five years ago, Olivia Sutherland was wrongfully convicted of plotting to murder. Now she's finally free, Olivia has three goals. Repair her relationship with her daughter. Clear her name. And bring down her husband—the man who framed her. Just how far is she willing to go to get what she wants? And how far will her husband go to stop her? Because his lies run deeper than Olivia could ever have imagined—and this time it’s not her freedom that’s in jeopardy, but her life.

First came the woman with the golden spear. Then came Deathwings. The worlds are at war. The wizards, the giants, the dragons and the mortals have a common enemy. Can they come together in time before Deathwings descends? And will Carmen and Brax survive to join the fight?

Sussex, 1912. In a churchyard, villagers gather on the night when the ghosts of those who will die in the coming year are thought to be seen. Here, where the estuary leads out to the sea, superstitions still hold sway. Standing alone is the taxidermist's daughter. At 17, Constantia Gifford lives with her father in a decaying house: it is all that is left of Gifford's once world-famous museum of taxidermy. The stuffed animals that used to grace every parlour are out of fashion, leaving Gifford a disgraced and bitter man.

Norfolk is experiencing a July heat wave when a construction crew unearths a macabre discovery - a buried World War II plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly realizes that the skeleton couldn't possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. When the remaining members of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely frightened by the news.

Austria, 1938. Anne von Korvacs watches in horror as Hitler's tanks roll through the streets of Vienna, amid crowds of cheering supporters. Her embittered ex-husband, now a fervent member of the Nazi cause, is among the cavalcade - he is burning with hatred for Anne, seeing her as a symbol of the old Austrian empire he once served. A chance encounter with a British journalist leaves Anne with a secret that must be smuggled out of the country, and Anne knows that she must forsake her beloved Vienna and with her children flee to Britain.

In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together.

Nicole and Tom's lives are changed overnight by a ten-million-pound lottery win. Before they know it they've moved into a state-of-the-art Glass Barn conversion in the stunning grounds of Lancaut Manor in Gloucestershire. But their dream quickly turns into a nightmare when Tom is found dead in the swimming pool, with a nasty wound on the back of his head. Someone close to home must be responsible. But other than the young couple who live in the Manor, and their housekeeper in the Coach House next door, there's no one around for miles.

Two years ago, Fran’s sister, Jenna, disappeared on a wellness retreat in Gozo that went terribly wrong. Tom Wade, the now infamous man behind Soul Shrink Retreats, has just been released from prison after serving his sentence for the deaths of two people. But he has never let on what happened to the third victim: Jenna. Determined to find out the truth, Fran books herself onto his upcoming retreat—the first since his release—and finds herself face-to-face with the man who might hold the key to her sister’s disappearance.

Shortlisted for the CWA Dagger in the Library. Ruth Galloway receives a phone call that bears shocking news. A friend of hers from college, Dan Golding, has been killed in a fire at his Lancashire home. Her shock turns to alarm when she gets a letter from Dan. He has made a discovery that will change archaeology forever but he needs Ruth's advice. Even more alarming, he sounds vulnerable and frightened. DCI Harry Nelson is also rediscovering his past. Up north for a holiday, he meets his former colleague Sandy MacLeod, now at Blackpool CID.

On a sun drenched beach in Barbados, feisty sports presenter Charlie meets the irresistibly gorgeous Felipe Castillo. Instantly attracted to each other, they have a passionate affair, until he walks out with no explanation. It is only then that she discovers that Felipe is related to the Spanish royal family, is a brilliant rider, and the lynchpin of the Spanish Eventing team. Back in London, Charlie puts her heartbreak behind her by going out on the town - until Felipe returns and turns her life upside down again.

In Talking It Over, Gillian and Stuart were married until Oliver - witty, feckless Oliver - stole her away. In Love, etc, Julian Barnes revisits Stuart, Gillian, and Oliver, using the same intimate technique of allowing the characters to speak directly to the listener, to whisper their secrets, to argue for their version of the truth… Love, etc is a compelling exploration of contemporary love and its betrayals.

Clare Balding, TV presenter, sportswoman and best-selling author has had some spectacular falls in her life - from not fitting in at school and falling in with the wrong crowd, to last-minute hiccups and mistakes on live TV - so she knows what it takes to embrace your mistakes and move on from them! With personal stories from Clare herself and from the lives of the people she most admires, children will discover how to develop courage in the face of tough situations.

The once tranquil woods in a picturesque part of Lenchester have become the bloody stage to a series of ritualistic murders. With no suspects, Detective Chief Inspector Whitney Walker is once again forced to call on the services of forensic psychologist Dr. Georgina Cavendish. But this murderer isn't like any they've faced before. The murders are highly elaborate, but different in their own way, and with the clock ticking, they need to get inside the killer's head before it's too late.