Showing results by narrator "Julia Barrie" in All Categories

It’s 1922, and the Depression is just beginning to rear its head in Britain, but Ruby Morgan is about to marry her childhood sweetheart, and nothing can mar her happiness. Or so she thinks. An unimaginable betrayal by those she loves causes her to flee her home and family one snowy night. Crushed and heartbroken, Ruby vows that despite the odds stacked against her, she will not only survive but one day will show the ones she left behind that she’s succeeded in making something of herself. Brave words, but the reality is far from easy.

Christmas: a time for family and festivity. Unless you’re in Adder’s Fork, home of the Essex Witch Museum, where it’s a time for ghostly spirits and demonic visits. In these 12 short stories, menacing ghosts and supernatural terrors haunt Rosie Strange and Sam Stone, as well as characters past and present from beyond the Essex Witch Museum. Featuring stories from The Strange Casebook as well as original short stories.

Ghosts, witches and all kinds of creepy things seem to congregate in the town of Adder's Fork, where the world-renowned Essex Witch Museum has its home. Death stalks the pages, cats offer companionship (of sorts) and ghosts haunt a variety of characters. Where are Rosie Strange and Sam Stone when you need them?

Halloween in Essex, and things are going well for the writers on the Mystery and Suspense course at Ratchette Hall. Things, however, take a turn when early on All Saints' Day the course administrator is discovered murdered. The Essex Witch Museum investigators are quickly drafted in. As Rosie Strange and Sam Stone's investigation progresses they find more questions than answers: who is making the howling noises late into the night? What is the strange glimmering glimpsed in the woods?

Lydia and Bel have been best friends for years, from wild teenage days all the way through to motherhood. Bel becomes pregnant by accident and has a fraught relationship with daughter, Freya, while Lydia and love-of-her-life Mac, after failed fertility treatment, choose to adopt. Gorgeous toddler Chloe challenges them more than either of them had ever expected, and as a teenager her behaviour escalates increasingly out of control, pushing their marriage, and Lydia and Bel's relationship, to breaking point.

1945. War has ended, but for sisters Isobel and Flora, the struggles still continue. They've lost their father, had their home destroyed in a bombing raid and now they must go to live with their aunt and her awful husband, Mr Godfrey, in their ancestral home of Splint Hall. From the moment of their arrival, it seems that this is a place shrouded in mysteries and secrets. Who are the strange men who arrive with packages at night? What is the source of the strange blue sparks coming from the ground? And why do the locals seem to hate their family so much?

1920, Durham. Since she was a child, Lucy Charlton has dreamed of working with her father in the family solicitor's firm. But a scandal shatters her dreams and, when her father disowns her, she finds herself on the streets, fighting for survival. Joe Hardy has returned to London after the Great War to find his life in tatters - his father is dead and his pregnant fiancée has disappeared. Then Joe learns he's unexpectedly inherited an old river house in Durham from a stranger called Margaret Lee.

Twentysomething Poppy became a cliché when an accidental pregnancy presented her with a 49-year-old husband. But Luke Norton isn’t any old husband – he’s the anchorman for television’s SevenThirty News and his ruggedly handsome face is beloved by the nation. Life isn’t coming up roses thanks to the first Mrs Norton’s popular column, “Diary of a Divorce” about her ex, “the Cad”, and his new wife, “the Bimbo”.

Canterbury, 1900. Olivia Fratton thinks that if she hears the words “Isabel’s Wedding” one more time she will scream. The oldest of the four Fratton siblings, it falls to her to arrange her little sister’s wedding, and she struggles to cope with their limited budget. Olivia is not the only Fratton with worries.

Harriet Dale is an insurance claims investigator and a talented, but out of work, actress. While untangling a stolen artwork claim, she discovers The Frightened Lady, the portrait of a 200 year-old unsolved murder. The portrait also carries a curse. Anyone who moves it, dies. Axe Winston, a lethally attractive man, spells danger. And for a moment, Harriet forgets the good advice given her by DI Brice MacDonald, with dire consequences.

An unexpected visit from the police to inform her that her aunt, her only living relative, had been murdered was not the sort of birthday present Angela Divine wanted. She was relieved, then shocked, when told she did not have to identify the body because it had already been done – by Grace’s son. But Grace did not have a son, so who had come forward with that claim? Ultimately it would be her aunt’s little dog that would provide the key to the mystery…