Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

Successful lady novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous young son, Tony, set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbor, George Knox, has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village.

Thailand 1996. The Year of The Rat. Pete, a young travel writer, wanders into a Bangkok go-go bar and meets the love of his life. Joy is the girl of his dreams, young, stunningly pretty, and one of the Zombie Bar's top-earning pole dancers. What follows is a roller-coaster ride of sex, drugs, and deception, as Pete discovers that his very own private dancer is not all that she claims to be. And that far from being the girl of his dreams, Joy is his own personal nightmare.

A high society Christmas Eve wedding at a remote Scottish castle sounds like the perfect winter getaway for the three Dahlias and their partners - until a snowstorm hits, cutting them off from the mainland, and civilisation. Which, of course, is when the dead body of one of the other guests turns up in the snow outside the family chapel. A dead body wearing a wedding dress and a stolen diamond necklace...

From the New York Times best-selling author Victoria Twead comes the third in the Old Fools series. Reluctantly, Vicky and Joe leave their Spanish mountain village to work for a year in the Middle East. How could they know that the Arab revolution was poised to erupt, throwing them into violent events that would make world headlines? Teaching Arab kids, working with crazy teachers, forming lifelong friendships and being placed under house arrest, Vicky and Joe laugh and lurch through their year in Bahrain.

Tess and Simon Sparrow may have a few more grey hairs than they used to, but that doesn’t stop them from being swept up in a whirlwind romance and starting over. Swapping their city lives for an escape to the Cornish countryside, they fall in love with a crumbling hotel and impulsively buy it to renovate as their forever home. But soon the newlyweds have had their first fight (and their second and third...) and building costs are spiralling out of control. Their families think they’re mad and Tess is starting to agree – she just wants to escape back to civilisation.

Two years ago, Miff Ferguson chose to opt out of the rat race. Since then he's been living rough and happily so. Until now. For as the first signs of winter approach, everything in his life is uprooted. While looking for shelter, Miff stumbles across the corpse of a young woman in a dilapidated warehouse. Quickly realizing he is not alone, and has been spotted, Miff becomes embroiled in a game of cat-and-mouse with a killer that forces him to abandon his life and take refuge with his aunt and uncle in the village of Weston St. Ambrose.

Meet the Stevens family as they prepare to embark on their yearly holiday to the coast of England. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens first made the trip to Bognor Regis on their honeymoon, and the tradition has continued ever since. They stay in the same guesthouse and follow the same carefully honed schedule - now accompanied by their three children, 20-year-old Mary, 17-year-old Dick, and little brother Ernie.

After years in the United States, Jane returns to the tranquil Scottish estate Elvie, where she spent a magical childhood. Memories of Elvie had always summoned the image of Sinclair, the rakish man Jane had once dreamed of marrying, but now that she is home, she finds Sinclair a different man. His charm has a purpose, and Jane can no longer trust him...or herself, in The End of Summer.

London, 1938: The bookstore just doesn’t feel the same to Gertie Bingham ever since the death of her beloved husband Harry. Bingham Books was a dream they shared together, and without Harry, Gertie wonders if it’s time to take her faithful old lab, Hemingway, and retire to the seaside. But fate has other plans for Gertie. In Germany, Hitler is on the rise, and Jewish families are making the heart-wrenching decision to send their children away from the growing turmoil. After a nudge from her dear friend Charles, Gertie decides to take in one of these refugees.

Daniel Kitto is not the most popular member of the cast and unbeknownst to him, his role of Uther Pendragon on the opening night is to be his swansong. In front of a horrified audience, he collapses during the dying moments of the performance in a pool of fake blood, and although the police are content that the causes of his death are natural, Morwenna isn’t so sure.

Over 99 identical generations, Mia’s family has shaped human history to push them to the stars, making brutal, wrenching choices and sacrificing countless lives. Her turn comes at the dawn of the age of rocketry. Her mission: to lure Wernher Von Braun away from the Nazi party and into the American rocket program, and secure the future of the space race.

When Maggie’s husband, Will, is shot dead in their London home, she thinks he is the victim of a burglary until the police tell her the shocking news that Will was the one who pulled the trigger. Maggie is consumed with grief and questions. Will wasn’t suicidal. He had so much to live for.

Recently widowed and looking for a fresh start away from city life, Sarah Vane moves into a lovely little cottage by the sea. The rustic charm is everything she hoped it would be, but her new home doesn’t quite have enough space for her things. Her old friend Daphne offers to store Sarah’s boxes in her messy beach hut, but while clearing it out, they are shocked to find a heavy trunk… containing a dead body. They immediately recognise the poor man as pub landlord Gus Trubshaw.

Three rival actresses team up to solve a murder at the stately home of Lettice Davenport, the author whose sleuthing creation of the 1930s, Dahlia Lively, had made each of them famous to a new generation.

When children Josh and Dilys find a body in the woods on the outskirts of their small Cotswold village, they are too terrified to report it. But when, as adults, Josh discovers that his sister has kept a memento - the victim's charm bracelet - he feels compelled to share the secret. When Josh unburdens himself to retired superintendent Alan Markby, his instincts tell him that this is linked to a missing person, a case long grown cold. The missing girl was last seen in the region currently under the jurisdiction of Superintendent Ian Carter and Inspector Jess Campbell.

For forty-two years, Sally Harrison has been building a library. Each year, on her daughter’s birthday, she adds a new book to her shelves – with a note in the front dedicated to her own greatest work. But Ella – Sally’s only child – fled to Australia twenty-two years ago after a heated exchange, and never looked back. And though Sally still dutifully adds a new paperback to the shelves every time the clock strikes midnight on July 11th, her hopes of her daughter ever thumbing through the pages are starting to dwindle.

What began as a singular letter in response to a younger family member standing on the precipice of her 60th birthday and asking the age-old question, “What’s it like to be old?,” soon turned into one full year of unsent reflections, wonderment, and curiosity of a life truly lived. Out of these reflections, bestselling author Sophy Burnham developed this short, story-telling collection of unsent letters that offer readers of all ages hope and joy and new ways to perceive the process of aging.

England, 1469. As the War of the Roses rages on, Margaret Paston knows that there is only one way to survive the loss of the Paston's family seat, Caister Castle: a fortunate marriage for one of her unruly daughters. A favourable match will change the future of her family overnight but a scandal will ruin the Paston name forever.

When Victoria and Joe return to their Spanish mountain village, they are still reeling from their year in the Middle East. Sighing with relief, they prepare to settle down to a peaceful life with the familiar characters of the village.

During the early twentieth century, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women, whose lives were changed forever by their journeys between the Old World and the New. Some traveled for leisure, some for work; others to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. They were celebrities, migrants and millionaires, refugees, aristocrats and crew members whose stories have mostly remained untold—until now.