Showing results by narrator "Sarah Durham" in All Categories

Emma can’t sleep. It’s been like this since her big 4-0 started getting closer. Her mother stopped sleeping just before her own fortieth birthday. She went mad and did the unthinkable because of it. Is that what’s happening to Emma?

Manchester, England 1965. Little Kathy Openshaw is waiting in the car, with only her toy doll for company, while her mother Connie visits close friends Myra and Ian. But when Connie returns to the car, Kathy has vanished. Instantly, she thinks of the news reports of the children who have gone missing from the area. Parents everywhere are worried sick. Connie is struck with terror: What kind of mother leaves their child alone, when a kidnapper is on the loose? Listen to this pulse-pounding, heart-wrenching, and unforgettable story.

After every parents' evening, friends Nina, Bel and Rachel look forward to their regular debrief at the pub. But there will be no clinking Prosecco tonight. They are discussing an anonymous note that has been left in a child's schoolbag: this class has secrets. All the parents tell lies. As more notes are discovered, scandalous accusations are made and the school playground becomes rife with rumours. Who could be revealing the three friends' secrets? Because they thought the only people who knew everything about them were each other....

Moments before she dies, Nicola's grandmother Betty whispers to her that there are babies buried in the garden. Nicola's mother claims she was talking nonsense. However, when Nicola's daughter finds a bone while playing in Betty's garden, it's clear that something sinister has taken place. But will unearthing painful family secrets end up tearing Nicola's family apart?

I’m Lucy. Out-of-work actress, part-time princess impersonator, Dorito enthusiast. Oh, and I’ve lost my memory. I got knocked off a bicycle on my way to a children’s party, dressed as Elsa, and accidentally flashed my thong. Now, in my head, it’s 2009 and I’m 17 years old. Not nearly 30 and starting to wrinkle. By this stage of my life, I thought I’d be married, with kids and a mortgage. Instead, I’ve got a phone full of dick pics. As I make my way through my contacts list - and try to jog my memory - I can’t help asking: Am I allergic to love? Commitment? Men?

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. 

Freya loves her new home on a quiet suburban street. And her beautiful neighbor, Emily, is everything she’s ever wanted in a best friend. Finally, she has somebody to share her secrets with over a glass of wine. But as Freya watches her new friend setting the table for dinner one evening, she sees something shocking that makes her think that Emily’s life might not be as perfect as it seems. Days later, Emily and her daughter vanish.

When I got pregnant, Will and I didn’t have a clue what we were signing up for. It turns out that there’s loads we weren’t warned about. But even if I feel like I’m waiting for my motherhood powers to come in the post, at least I’ve got Will. Our old life - festivals, sambuca shots, an actual sex life - might be a distant memory, but we can get through anything together, can’t we? At least that’s what I thought until, one day, Will walked out on us.... If I’m on my own (apart from Siri, obviously) can I do this whole parenting thing? 

Wolf Hall meets The Favourite in Lucy Jago's A Net For Small Fishes, a gripping dark novel based on the true scandal of two women determined to create their own fates in the Jacobean court.

When Grace’s husband passed away, there was no guidebook for the 27-year-old widow. Crippled with heartbreak, she was also clueless. Was she allowed to wear denim? Should she be shrouded in a black veil? What about T-shirts printed with Tom’s face? Three years later, things look a little different for Grace. She’s adopted two precious girls, and she’s learned some life lessons.

When Sadie Roper moves back to London, she's determined to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. First, she needs to get her daughter settled into a new school - one of the most exclusive in the city. Next, she's going to get back the high-flying criminal barrister career she sacrificed for marriage 10 years earlier. But nothing goes quite as planned. The school is not very welcoming newcomers, her daughter hasn't made any friends yet and the other mothers are as fiercely competitive as their children.

Emma can’t sleep. It’s been like this since her big 4-0 started getting closer. Her mother stopped sleeping just before her 40th birthday, too. She went mad and did the unthinkable because of it. Is that what’s happening to Emma? 

An old house. A fire. Two corpses... DI Charley Mann returns in this gripping crime thriller. West Yorkshire DI Charley Mann is called for what seems a routine job. Prior to demolition a deserted manor house appears to have been the target of an arson attack. But something isn't right. The house has a dark history – and a dark present. When the remains of two bodies are discovered hidden inside, it soon emerges they were murdered decades apart.

Pearl Flowers has been hiding away for so long that she has forgotten what real life is like. Her quiet routine in a woodland cottage in France is a sanctuary, far away from her past life running a beauty salon. But then an unexpected phone call throws her calm world into chaos. Back in the UK, her estranged father Francis is dying. She hasn’t seen him for decades since he pushed her away and destroyed their family. And on his deathbed, Francis leaves her a gift - a diary, written in a code that only Pearl can understand. 

Lock your windows. Lock your door. And don't look outside... At the local university a series of incidents is raising alarm. Someone is breaking into students bedrooms through the windows. But things get even more serious when a corpse is discovered on the outskirts of town. DI Charley Mann, dealing with her own problems, is drafted in to investigate. At first there doesn't seem to be a connection, but Charley suspects otherwise. Following the evidence draws Charley into a web of shady local characters struggling at the margins. It seems the break-ins are no random event.

Returning home is never easy. Not when there is a serial killer at work... A completely unputdownable crime thriller full of authentic detail. DI Charley Mann left Yorkshire for the Met and a fast-track career – but now she's back, she's in charge and the area's first young, female DI. Her hometown, the Yorkshire countryside, and her old friends all seem unchanged. But appearances can be deceptive. When a brutal murder is discovered, Charley is forced to question everything, and the interest of her ex doesn't make it easier. Bodies keep appearing and the pressure is on.

Eight-year-old TC skips school to explore the city’s overgrown, forgotten corners. Sophia, 78, watches with concern as he slips past her window, through the little park she loves. She’s writing to her granddaughter, Daisy, whose privileged upbringing means she exists in a different world from TC - though the two children live less than a mile apart.

It's the mid-'90s, and rebellion is in the air. Skylark is an activist, a raver, a tree-dweller, a world-changer. Handsome, dependable Dan appears on the scene, offering her the security she has never had. When they fall in love, she shows him a new way to live; he will never be the same. But Dan has a secret, which Skylark must never, ever know. A secret so powerful that its fault-lines run from their ordinary council flat right up to the highest echelons of the state.

Whether it's a speedy note-to-self, a simple shopping list or a carefully penned thank-you note, putting words on paper is a daily habit - and can also bring us great joy and calm. In this book you'll discover practical ways to turn the ordinary ritual of jotting things down into a remarkable source of peace, focus and confidence. Learn to take pleasure in your correspondence, find fresh delight in your diary writing and put renewed heart in your humble to-do list.

Four women, all from very different lives, all with reason to step into the water and wash away their past. But will the friendship they build be enough to keep them afloat when they each must face their fears?