Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

Julia and Lauren are sisters, but definitely not best friends. They rarely even speak to each other. But when Lauren's fortieth birthday is ruined by her latest boyfriend dumping her, Julia feels a sudden and unexpected burst of sympathy, and offers to go with her on the special holiday he'd paid for as a birthday present. Unfortunately the holiday turns out not to be a glamorous hotel in a holiday hotspot, but a self-catering cottage in a tiny village called Deepcombe, in the middle of Dartmoor. And it's January.

A heartbreaking and deeply compelling debut, Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a compulsive pause-resister about thwarted love, dashed hopes, and family secrets - book-club fiction at its best. Roberta, a lonely 34-year-old bibliophile, works at The Old and New Bookshop in England. When she finds a letter inside her centenarian grandmother’s battered old suitcase that hints at a dark secret, her understanding of her family’s history is completely upturned.

Ned Parker has spent years restoring his family’s fortunes, leaving no time for courting. Now childhood friend and self-appointed matchmaker Isobel has decided to transform this “scruffy brute” into an eligible gentleman. Though he has no interest in rejoining society, Ned senses Izzy needs the distraction and reluctantly goes along with her plans. Despite their differing views, a surprising new attraction grows…but Ned’s doing his best to avoid it!

Inga Svartdal has just been married off to the much older Niels. She quickly realises that Gudrun, Niels' adult daughter from his first marriage, does not intend to relinquish control of the family farm. Inga is forced to bow to the will of her wicked stepdaughter. It doesn't take long until Niels starts asserting what he believes to be his rights in bed, which causes Inga distress on the nights he spends at home. But where is he on all the other nights? Everything changes when Martin, a neighbour, appears on the farm.

The history of the Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who were seriously burned in aeroplane fires, is a truly inspiring, spine-tingling tale. Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War. The most rudimentary techniques were known only to a few surgeons worldwide. The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having maverick surgeon Archibald McIndoe - nicknamed ‘the Boss’, or ‘the Maestro’ - operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. McIndoe constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch.

The perfect escapist listen, for all fans of Cathy Bramley and Scarlett Bailey. A Year at the Star and Sixpence is Holly Hepburn's four Star and Sixpence novellas collected together as a novel for the first time. When sisters Nessie and Sam inherit a little pub in a beautiful country village, they jump at the chance to escape their messy lives and start afresh. But when they arrive at the Star and Sixpence, it's not quite what they imagined - it's pretty much derelict, ruined by debts, and it's going to be a huge job....

On paper, Merina Wilde has it all: a successful career writing the kind of romantic novels that make even the hardest hearts swoon, a perfect carousel of book launches and parties to keep her social life buzzing and a childhood sweetheart who thinks she’s a goddess. But Merry has a secret: the magic has stopped flowing from her fingers. Try as she might, she can’t summon up the sparkle that makes her stories shine.

For sheer unpredictable brilliance, Gogol may come to mind, but no author alive today takes a listener as far as Helen DeWitt into the funniest, most yonder dimensions of possibility. Her jumping-off points might be statistics, romance, the art world’s piranha tank, games of chance and games of skill, the travails of publishing, or success.

Orphaned young, H is sent to live with her doting aunt in London. H’s life is a happy one until her lecherous cousin robs her of her innocence and the plague takes away the city and the people she loves. H is cast out – friendless, pregnant and destitute – into the rapidly emptying streets of London under quarantine. Forced to fend for herself, she is determined to gain back the life she lost. H will face a villain out for revenge, find love in the most unexpected places and overcome a betrayal that she never could have foreseen.

Jude is the owner of a unique antiques shop in Cambridge. She makes it her mission to match customers with the special something that they are missing, a talisman to bring them what their heart desires. Unfortunately, Jude’s life is not overflowing with love. However, when she 'inherits' a niece that she never knew existed, doubling her meagre family overnight, Jude's life is soon set to get a lot less lonely and a lot more interesting.

When Paige turns up unannounced at Wynthorpe Hall, she discovers the place she knew when she was growing up has changed beyond all recognition. She’s only planning to stay for a short time, but is quickly pulled into local life. One night while driving home after delivering library books and shopping to residents she stumbles across an isolated cottage and meets Albert, its elderly and rather grumpy owner. She quickly realises there’s more to Albert than meets the eye and the same can be said for the other man she can’t seem to help running into, handsome but brooding Brodie.

After 1933, as the terror regime took hold, most of the two-thirds of Germans who had never voted for the Nazis tried to keep their heads down and protect their families - they moved to the country, or pretended to support the regime to avoid being denounced by neighbours, and tried to work out what was really happening in the Reich, surrounded as they were by Nazi propaganda and fake news.

Christie Doyle is living the dream: she has a beautiful mansion on the South Downs with an infinity pool and stables, and her husband, Kenny, spoils her rotten. It's her birthday and she is the centre of the most amazing party. And then the bombshell drops. Kenny confesses to an affair and asks for a divorce. Worse is to come when the 'other woman' - Lara, nineteen years old and pregnant with Kenny's child - is found dead. Suspicion falls on Christie and the Doyles' life is ripped apart as the police hunt for evidence.

Pia Temple has always had a soft spot for Jackson Moody following a passionate teenage love affair that burnt out over one long summer, more than ten years ago. First loves can be hard to forget, and the devastatingly gorgeous Jackson, is harder to forget than most.

Hitler’s Girl is a groundbreaking history that reveals how, in the 1930s, authoritarianism nearly took hold in Great Britain as it did in Italy and Germany. Drawing on recently declassified intelligence files, Lauren Young details the pervasiveness of Nazi sympathies among the British aristocracy, as significant factions of the upper class methodically pursued an actively pro-German agenda.

Istanbul, 1922. Lady Marigold Grey—former British spy and daring adventuress—sets out for England on a luxury train. But where Marigold goes, trouble follows. When the director of the train is murdered—and false evidence linking her to his death emerges—Marigold suddenly finds herself on the fast-track to becoming a prime suspect.

Josephine was a Wren who drew maps for D-Day, while Penny was an officer in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. In their late 90s, they're in huge demand - rolled out at every memorial service and WW2 anniversary, and popping up on red sofas and at literary festivals all over the country. Journalists and producers love them, as does the Great British Public. Despite their age, they're still in great nick - sprightly and sparky, and always up for whatever the next excitement might be. And now they're off to Paris to receive the Légion D'Honneur for their part in liberating France.

They say I'm a murderer. Six years ago, Kate Reynolds was found holding the body of her best friend, covered in blood, and clutching the knife that killed her. I plead guilty. Kate has been in prison ever since, but now her sentence is up. She is being released. But the truth is, I didn't do it. There's only one person who can help: Private Investigator Madison Attallee, the first officer on the scene all those years ago. But there's someone out there who doesn't want Kate digging up the past.

To her new colleagues at the lifestyle brand Beautiful You! Jade Fisher is the perfect employee. She's fun, easy to get on with, and knows her stuff. She's also harboring a dark secret… A secret so devastating that if it came out, it would destroy the company and its influential founder, Rebecca Burton-Webb. At least, that's what Jade's hoping for… First, she needs proof. She needs to get close to Rebecca. To get inside her life. As Jade becomes embroiled in Rebecca's world, she realizes there is more to the enigmatic older woman than meets the eye.

Italy, 1935. Alessandra Durante is grieving the loss of her husband when she discovers she has inherited her ancestral family home, Villa Durante, deep in the Tuscan Hills. The terms of the will are that she must live in the Villa Durante for at least 12 months, so, longing for a new start, she moves to Italy and sets about rebuilding her life. But the shadow of war hangs heavy over the Tuscan hills, and life will never be the same again.