Showing results by narrator "Chloe Massey" in All Categories

When Jessica Beam is thrown out of her flat, she finds herself relying on her only family: her grandmother. Things aren't going so well for Grandma, either. Her 1950s Good Woman guide books are out of print, and her mortgage is staggering. When a publisher throws them a lifeline - a new contract if they can prove the Good Woman guides still work - Jess and Matilda have to work together if they want a roof over their heads.

Dark, gritty and always edge-of-your-seat: the number one best seller is back with a standout new heroine. Unknown, alone, and fearing for your life. As PC Lucy Clayburn is about to find out, going undercover is the most dangerous work there is. But on the trail of a prolific female serial killer, there's no other option - and these murders are as brutal as they come. Lucy must step into the line of fire - a stranger in a criminal underworld that butchers anyone who crosses the line.

Kate Lawler has never been maternal. And yet here she is: mother to Noa, after years of going back and forth about having children at all. This is the story of her journey from parentally undecided to early motherhood, via raging hormones, sleepless nights, emergency hospital trips, mum guilt, unspoken regrets and post-natal depression. This book is not a parenting manual. It won't tell you what to pack in your hospital bag, or how to get your baby to sleep. It may not help you with feeding or dealing with tantrums. But it will show you that you're not alone.

When respected journalist Maddy goes to interview prostitutes in a rundown Manchester pub, she doesn't reckon on attracting the attention of their ruthless pimp, Gilly. He quickly decides to use Maddy for his own gains; he just needs to work out how. In the weeks that follow, Maddy is oblivious to Gilly's growing obsession with her, particularly when she begins a romance with successful businessman Aaron. Their passionate love affair starts to dominate her life, and she finds herself losing control and alienating the people around her. As Maddy's safe and successful life starts to crumble around her.

As a female cop walking the mean streets of Manchester, life can be tough for PC Lucy Clayburn. But when one of the North West's toughest gangsters is your father, things can be particularly difficult. When Lucy's patch is gripped by a spate of murder-robberies, the police are quick to action. Yet when it transpires that the targets are Manchester's criminal underworld, attitudes change.

A punchy and provcative The author of How Was It for You? is a sex worker. Let’s call her ‘Eve’. Eve is someone’s partner. Someone’s mother. And she has worked across the sex industry for twenty years: in a brothel, as an escort, in a strip club, online and as a dominatrix. In this candid memoir she reveals all: the good stuff, the bad, the downright ugly, and the boring bits too.offering a rare peep behind the scenes of sex work.

Billie fled her Yorkshire upbringing to pursue her dreams of finding a cure for the illness which killed her mother, yet when her father gets sick, she must return home to save the farm. But the transition from city girl to country lass isn’t easy, not least because leaving London means leaving her relationship with Joely Chevalier, French pharmaceutical femme fatale, just as it was heating up. And when she gets to Yorkshire, Billie’s shocked to discover the family dairy farm is in dire straits.

How do you find the missing when there’s no trail to follow? DC Lucy Clayburn is having a tough time of it. Not only is her estranged father one of the North West’s toughest gangsters, but she is in the midst of one of the biggest police operations of her life.

The Dodds family once ruled Manchester’s underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby. Matriarch Nedra presides over the household, which bustles with activity as she prepares the welcome feast for her grandson Kelly’s return from prison. Her grieving daughter-in-law Carol is visited by both the welcome intimate ghost of her murdered lover, and by Mac, an ageing criminal enforcer, a man who may just offer her a real and possible future.

Lauren Pailing is born in the '60s, and a child of the '70s. She is 13 years old the first time she dies. Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the '80s, becomes a Londoner in the '90s. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her - while Lauren enters a brand new life, too. But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him. And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found.... 

Queenie is the aging matriarch of the Faraday family, and even death can’t break her hold over her 11-year-old granddaughter, Rowan. She’s buried with a locket that contains a lock of Rowan’s hair, and soon afterwards, Rowan is befriended by a mysterious, uncannily intelligent girl of her own age. Only her aunt Hermione suspects how sinister this is, but will retrieving the locket save her niece? By the time anyone sees what effect the ghostly influence on Rowan is having, it may be too late for her.

When disgraced journalist Jen Hunter witnesses a horrific murder-suicide on Hampstead Heath one February alongside four strangers, she is compelled to find out what really happened that day. They all saw Daniel kill his girlfriend, Vicky - but can they trust their own memories? Jen’s best friend, Bex, is worried about her. She knows Jen hasn’t always been the most stable of women. She knows about the lies. She knows why Jen lost her job at the paper.

Six months after the birth of her son, Emma Jane Unsworth finds herself in the eye of a storm. Nothing - from pregnancy to birth and beyond - has gone as she expected. A birth plan? It might as well have been a rough draft! Furious and exhausted, her life is the complete opposite of what it used to be. She's swapped all night benders for a grazed labia and Whac-a-Moling haemorrhoids. How did she end up here? In this brave and hilarious account of postnatal depression, Emma tells her story of despair and recovery.

Laura Canty is a new mum. She has her beautiful baby boy, Arthur, and a wonderful husband. She has new mum friends on the local WhatsApp group, and everyone in her life is supportive and happy for her. But Laura doesn't see it this way. In the weeks since her baby was born, like one in five women, Laura has developed post-natal depression. In fact, she has decided that the only way out of her current situation is for her to kill herself or her baby.

It's 1983, and best friends Vicky and Lucy swear that they will always be there for each other, that they'll never let anyone come between them. But fast-forward four years, and life on the Canterbury Estate has gotten very messy. Lucy has fallen for local policeman's son Jimmy. And Vicky is madly in love with Paddy, the local bad boy. The boys are bitter enemies and determined to keep the two girls apart. But then Vicky is accused of murder, and even her drug-dealer boyfriend wants her mouth shut - permanently.

When Leah was editor of her local paper, two teenage girls went missing. One, Hope, was middle-class and White, from a perfect nuclear family. The other, Tilly, was a Black girl from a council estate - and a habitual runaway. Leah made the decision to put Hope on the front page, and she was found the next day. Tilly got a small mention on page 18 and was never seen again. Sixteen years on Leah still blames herself for the consequences of her decision. And now strange things are happening to her. 

Trained and traumatised by a secret assassin program for minors, Isabel Ryans wants nothing more than a new life as a normal civilian. And she might just be in with a shot when she befriends Emma Westray, because for the first time in her life things are looking up. But when Isabel blows her cover by impulsively murdering a burglar, she draws the attention of the guilds—the two organisations who control the city of Espera. An unaffiliated killer like Isabel is either a potential asset...or a threat to be eliminated.

There are some friends you'll never forget...no matter how hard you try. Before: Edie is the friend that Heather has always craved. But one night it goes terrifyingly wrong. And what started as an innocent friendship ends in two lives being destroyed. After: Sixteen years later Edie is still rebuilding her life. But Heather isn't ready to let her forget so easily. It's no coincidence that she shows up when Edie needs her most.

The Me Too movement, started by Black feminist Tarana Burke in 2006, went viral as a hashtag 11 years later after a tweet by White actor Alyssa Milano. Mainstream movements like #MeToo have often built on and coopted the work of women of color, while refusing to learn from them or center their concerns. Far too often, the message is not "Me, Too" but "Me, Not You". Me, Not You argues that the mainstream movement against sexual violence expresses a political whiteness that both reflects its demographics and limits its revolutionary potential. 

There isn’t a serial killer stalking the canals of Detective Sergeant Carrie Flynn’s home town of Manchester. That’s what the police tell the local community, but Carrie knows that just isn’t true. Six years, a dozen victims… Carrie spends every night alone in her flat, going back over the hundreds of files, looking for the missing clue. Now, another person has vanished, only this time the police haven’t found a body.