Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Worthing" in All Categories

Singleton Dot Riley’s grandmother, Nanny Flo, is on her deathbed, surrounded by family and distraught at the thought of Dot being all alone in the world. Desperate to make Flo’s final moments happy ones, Dot invents a boyfriend - plumping in panic for her childhood friend, Felix, a firm favourite of Flo, but whom Dot hasn’t actually seen for 15 years. But when Flo makes an unexpected recovery a few weeks before a family wedding, Dot is faced with a dilemma. Should she tell her frail grandmother that she lied and risk causing heartache and a relapse?

Izzy is thrilled when her shy 12-year-old son is invited for his first sleepover. Nick has spent years being isolated and picked on; he deserves a night of fun and friendship. But Izzy is also nervous: it's a year to the day since bullies put Nick in hospital. She drops him off at his new best friend's house with mixed feelings. Arriving to collect him the following morning, her worst fears come true....

Helsinki, 2016. Olenka sits on a bench, watching a family play in a dog park. A stranger sits down beside her. Olenka startles; she would recognise this other woman anywhere. After all, Olenka was the one who ruined her life. And this woman may be about to do the same to Olenka. Yet, for a fragile moment, here they are, together - looking at their own children being raised by other people.

Christmas 1926: the Forbes family are hosting a celebration at Eden Hall. Eighteen-year-old Daisy is preoccupied by a sense of change. Overnight, her relationship with Stephen Jessop, the housekeeper’s son, has shifted, and every encounter seems fraught with tension. Before the festivities are over, Daisy has received a declaration of love, a proposal and a kiss - from three different men. Unable to bear the confusion, she flees to London. By the following summer, Daisy has bowed to the persistence of the man who proposed to her.

Abandoned as a baby in the hallway of a shared house in London, Marina has never known her parents, and the circumstances of her birth still remain a mystery. Now an adult, Marina has returned to the house where it all started, determined to find out who she really is. But the walls of this house hold more than memories, and Marina’s reappearance hasn’t gone unnoticed by the other tenants. Someone is watching Marina. Someone who knows the truth.

A tense, provocative and nuanced novel about a rape accusation in an idyllic commune.