Showing results by narrator "Nicolette Mckenzie" in All Categories

An afternoon at the races - laced with champagne and women - is just another event for Ethan Cartwright, until very ordinary Daisy Donohue catches his eye. Daisy knows to keep her head down and stay invisible amongst the throngs of designer-clad socialites. But ruthless Ethan is intrigued by the drab assistant, and can't resist one passionate embrace! Daisy is devastated to be fired for a kiss - she needs her job! That's where Ethan comes in.

A mysterious homicide case leads to Constable Karl Guber to seek out psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud for the first time. The daughter of the director of the Wiener Burgtheater has been murdered under gruesome circumstances: the corpse has been drained of all its blood. Detective Gruber suspects that a vampire is on the loose in Vienna.

1933. Esmé Carr travels to Australia with her best friend in search of adventure. Left behind is Esmé's adolescent niece. Meggie Elliot has an imaginative and independent frame of mind, but there is mystery surrounding her birth - one she intends to unravel, despite her mother's warnings to leave the past alone. When the truth surfaces it's not what Meggie wants to hear, and Esmé must reconcile the rift between mother and daughter.

In the quiet of a New Zealand winter's night, a rescue helicopter is sent to airlift a five-year-old boy with severe internal injuries. He's fallen from the upstairs veranda of an isolated farmhouse. At first, Finn's fall looks like a horrible accident; but his frantic mother, Martha McNamara, knows how it really happened. And she isn't telling. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Recently widowed, Hannah Firth is still young - young enough to dream of a new life. When her spiteful daughter-in-law uses her as an unpaid servant, Hannah tries to leave, but she is unaware of the depths that Patty's spite will lead her to. Nathaniel King's life is ruined when his landlord's son lays waste to his market garden for a prank - and the resulting feud puts Nathaniel's livelihood at stake.

Norah's husband was killed in the Great War, and she's struggling to provide a home for her daughter. Andrew's wife is dead, and he wants to make a new life for his two sons. The Australian government is giving ex-servicemen a farm. But to join the group settlement scheme, Andrew must find a wife. Will a marriage of convenience give Andrew and Norah the chance they seek? Can two strangers be happy together? In Australia they have to clear the forest to make their own farms. But they're both strong and willing to give it everything they've got.

It will be no easy task to fill the shoes of a local legend like DCI Charlie Woodend, the newly-promoted Monika Paniatowski tells herself – particularly when he’s still a very real presence in Whitebridge – but given a little time, she thinks she can grow into them. Yet time is the one thing she does not have. On her first day in the new job, a severed female hand is discovered on the riverbank. And not only that, but the killer has already alerted the press.

She thought the worst was behind her.... Life is tough in Lancashire in 1905 - and especially so for 15-year-old Mary Ann, who was born out of wedlock. When her new stepfather begins to abuse her, Mary Ann doesn't know how much more she can take - until the worst happens and she is sent away to bear his child. After the birth, she manages to escape to Blackpool with the help of her new friend Gabriel. Years later, the Great War brings Mary Ann many new opportunities, and brings Gabriel back into her life - but circumstances mean they can never be together.

Eva Kershaw thought she would never marry and is happy living a quiet life with her dear friend Alice. But Alice is ill, and her nephew, Gus, has thrust himself into their household. Alice's dearest wish is that Eva should not make the same mistakes she did, and she alters her will so that Eva and Gus are strongly compelled to marry. Eva obliges to fulfil her dead friend's wishes. But Gus is not all he seems to be: he is not Alice's kind nephew but a robber, a confidence trickster, and not even Gus Blake. And Eva is in terrible danger....

The Great War opened up an exciting new career for Vi in London. But that was yesterday. Now the war's over, her husband is dead and she needs to pick up the pieces of her life. On her way home from work she meets a man who is in huge need of her help. Recently demobbed, Joss Bentley has no job or home and, with his wife dead, there's a new baby to care for - and, what's more, it's not his. As he searches grimly for its real father, he runs up against people who will use any means necessary to conceal dark secrets, and Vi finds herself faced with conflicting loyalties.

Would a man really use his dying breath to play Russian roulette with his soul? If what Fred Howerd revealed under the seal of confession is true, then a grave miscarriage of justice has been allowed to lie festering for over 20 years - and that, for the Whitebridge police, is political dynamite. DCI Monika Paniatowski argues with the Chief Constable that it will be almost impossible to solve a case which is almost history. But the real reason for her reluctance to take it on is more to do with her own past....

Calico Road runs through a tiny Lancashire hamlet up on the edge of the moors, miles from anywhere. Its folk are an independent breed - and in 1827 they are a thorn in the side of the vicious mill owner in the valley below. Toby Fletcher's father ignored his bastard son while alive. Now Toby is the new owner of the rambling old inn, an unwitting keeper of its secrets. Then Meg Staley comes to Calico - a woman who was strong enough to survive one tragedy but found it harder to withstand a second blow.

It is 1914, and Eveleen Hardcastle, now in in her early thirties, has married Richard. As the First World War breaks out, Eveleen, a sophisticated young woman, is left to manage the factory while Richard goes off to fight for his country. Eveleen's mother Mary has found happiness at last in her marriage to Josh. Her young granddaughter, Bridie, still lives at home, and is beautiful, but has a spirited, strong will which her grandmother finds hard to control.

Ruth had fostered a lifelong love of reading, and from the moment she first encountered Pride and Prejudice in the 1940s she had looked to Jane Austen's heroines as her models for the sort of woman she wanted to become. She resolved to re-read Austen's six novels; to reflect on her life in relation to what she discovered in each of them. And as Ruth read between the lines of both the novels and her own life, she began to reclaim her voice.

The Cemetery of the Nameless in Vienna is where those who take their own lives are buried - suicide victims who jumped into the Danube to kill themselves. But when the obvious victim of a murder washes up on the banks of the Danube, Karl initiates a homicide investigation. Supported by Anna and Sigmund, Constable Gruber heads into the world of prostitutes and pimps in Vienna's red-light district.

When an old prison is renovated, the fragile diary of one of the inmates is found. The entries contained detailed information about a series of unsolved murders from a long time ago. With Anna's support, Karl starts to interview former inmates of the prison while Sigmund tries to identify the killer on the basis of the diary entries.

When two little children are murdered and the suspect - the children's mother as well as one of Freud's patients - is arrested, the Professor is compelled into action: he is sure the suspect is innocent. Instead he suspects the children's father committed the murder. He is able to persuade Karl Gruber of his suspicions.

Milly and Micky are sent away to France on holiday. From the start Milly is worried that it’s not going to work. Uncle Kevin and Auntie Jackie are all right, but they don’t really understand children – and they certainly don’t understand Micky who has never been exactly ‘good’.Milly and Micky decide to go home. The trouble is, they are now in the middle of France! And that is just the start of their adventures…

Eudora Honeysett is done - with all of it. Having seen first-hand what a prolonged illness can create, the 85-year-old has no intention of leaving things to chance. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland she takes her life into her own hands. But then 10-year-old Rose arrives in a riot of colour on her doorstep. Now, as precocious Rose takes Eudora on adventures she’d never imagined, she reflects on the trying times of her past and soon finds herself wondering - is she ready for death when she’s only just experienced what it’s like to truly live?

Rosalind and her husband, Paul, move from Australia to England due to his job with a multinational company. But Paul is called away to deal with a crisis in Hong Kong, and Rosalind is left to settle in a new country on her own. One by one her three grown children need help, and there is only Rosalind available, because as usual Paul puts his job first. When she finds out that her husband has been unfaithful for years, it appears to be the final blow to their marriage, especially as she has met another man.