Showing results by narrator "Claire Storey" in All Categories

Everyone in the village loves Joni Blackwood. She is beautiful and bold, and it's no surprise to anyone when on the annual village bonfire, she is crowned 'queen' of the festivities. After all, despite fierce competition from the charity-giving and churchgoing mothers in the village, she has won this honour five years in a row.

Between jobs and out of her rented accommodation, Clara Harrington decides to take a break and stay with her beloved, yet eccentric aunt. Vanessa Harrington is an award-winning crime novelist. When it comes to crime, and murder, there’s not a lot that she doesn’t know. Clara’s hope for peace and quiet is shattered when, on her first night at Chadwick Lodge, the local town councillor is murdered, falling face down into his dessert. Finding herself in the middle of one of her books, Vanessa happily takes on the task of uncovering the murderer and drags Clara along with her.

1944: Bologna, Italy, and the streets are crawling with German soldiers. Nineteen-year-old Leila Venturi is shocked into joining the Resistance after her beloved best friend Rebecca, the daughter of a prominent Jewish businessman, is ruthlessly deported to a concentration camp. 1981: Exchange student Rhiannon Hughes arrives in Bologna and meets Leila, her landlady. Soon, Rhiannon finds herself being drawn into a web of intrigue. Leila’s nephew seems to be interested in a far-right group, but how is the nefarious leader connected to Leila?

A split-second decision has life-changing consequences for Metropolitan Police firearms officer Jessica Raker when she fatally wounds the son of a notorious organized crime chief during a robbery in Greenwich - and discovers her husband has been having an affair. With her career, her marriage and her life in danger, Jess is sent back to her home town of Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley to take up a sergeant role in Lancashire police.

When Faith Divine pulls up outside the Duckton-by-Dale cafe on a dazzling red Ducati motorbike she takes Drew Pettigrew’s breath away. Faith is cool, sexy, and desirable, and there isn’t one villager who disagrees. Completely smitten, Drew has no choice but to come out. The fact that Drew is a lesbian doesn’t come as a surprise to those who know her. Except, that is, for her mother, Esther.

December, 1919. Clever crime reporter Lillie Mead hoped to celebrate a peaceful Christmas in the English countryside. But when a close friend's colleague turns up dead, Lillie knows there'll be little festive spirit until she unwraps this mystery. Following the clues to the wintery Scottish Highlands, she hopes to stop the killer cold before the next body hits the snow. But after she connects the victims to a clandestine wartime committee, she puts herself firmly in the murderer's sights.

Duckton-by-Dale has never been your average quintessential English village. And as preparations for the annual pantomime and winter solstice reach fever pitch, you just know that things are going to get even more bizarre! With new visitors bringing mystery, suspicion, flamboyance, and lust, past secrets and current desires will be revealed, bringing a dramatic conclusion to the Duckton-by-Dale series. Expect humor, paranormal happenings, fun and laughter, and of course a large dose of romance in this bestselling lesbian romantic comedy series. Merry Christmas one and all.

Hannah Driver's life is on the skids: single, newly jobless, and nursing ambitions of becoming a drag king that make her traditional family baulk. She's at a crossroads. Enter Cordy Starling, the charming and composed pianist who moves in with Hannah, and quickly becomes the nudgeor—or rather, full-on shove—Hannah needs to chase her dreams. The prospect of romance with Cordy twinkles on the horizon like a disco ball, promising glitter but guaranteeing chaos.

This is the story of Josie, a British expat living in New York City. Or rather, it is the tale of two Josies, as her life path split three years ago, when she did or did not meet the love of her life—wealthy, handsome Rob. One Josie is now a single radio show host living in Brooklyn, with a huge crush on her friend Peter; the other is happily married to Rob and living in a fabulous Manhattan penthouse. It’s both Josies’ 36th birthday, and each is set to celebrate when they crash their bicycles at the exact spot where their lives split three years ago.

For book eight of the London Romance series, time-travel back to 1958 for a front-row seat to Eunice and Joan’s epic love story. Watch as they meet, court, and fall head over heels. Feel your heart break as family pressure rips that love from their grasp. Then swoon as a bunch of lost love letters mean they meet again, 60 years later. Their happy ending might not have happened then, but in the present day, Eunice and Joan have another chance at love. Are the pair destined to finally live out their big London dreams?

She’s not ill. She’s not in imminent danger. But she is sure it’s going to happen. Because many years ago… she’d made a promise to a stranger, in the woods. Elena’s mother was in hospital, after a life-threatening accident. The promise would keep her mother safe, but put Elena’s own life at risk, instead, when she grew up and turned thirty. Elena put the promise to the back of her mind, over the years. But she’s twenty-nine now, and when something happens that puts her life in danger, she remembers. And she knows.

A modern update on the ageless idea that girls should know appropriate and courteous responses to any situation. Good manners aren’t just a quaint and old-fashioned concept. They’re an essential aspect of every young lady’s path to adulthood and the skills she’ll need in whatever she chooses to do.

Have you ever used a dating app or website? Then you have more in common than you know with lonely homesteaders in 18th century New England. At once heartwarming and heartbreaking, Matrimony, Inc. reveals the unifying thread that weaves its way through not just marriage and relationships over the centuries, but American social history itself: advertising for love. Amazingly, America’s first personal ad appeared in the Boston Evening Post as early as 1759.

Pride and Prejudice is a romantic novel of manners written by Jane Austen in 1813. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the dynamic protagonist of the book who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness. Its humour lies in its honest depiction of manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in Great Britain.

1943. Lidia De Angelis has kept a low profile since Mussolini’s laws wrenched her from her childhood sweetheart. But when the Germans occupy Venice, she must flee the city to save her life. Lidia joins the partisans in the Venetian mountains, where she meets David, an English soldier fighting for the same cause. As she grows closer to him, harsh German reprisals and her own ardent patriotic activities threaten to tear them apart.

Deacon Katerina Rowe had a quiet life before she discovered her husband’s criminal activities. Now Leon is on the run, and Kat has started a private investigation business with her good friend Beth, who goes by Mouse. It’s plenty for any Deacon to handle—let alone one who’s heavily pregnant. When a widow asks Kat and Mouse for help, the sleuthing duo find themselves searching for the birth mother of the widow’s husband. But when it becomes clear that the widow isn’t telling the whole truth, Kat and Mouse are drawn into a deadly chase where nothing is what it seems.

After catching the menstrual murderer red-handed, Annie and Kerry are now the Tampon Two, Barbourough’s most famous—well, only—detective duo. So Annie (and decidedly not Kerry) is enjoying her five minutes of fame. Except life in the spotlight seems to be a magnet for death these days. After a famous prankster is found dead with a condom stretched over his entire head, the Tampon Two are on the scene at their small village’s Festival of Fame to catch another killer.

It has been a year since Tess had to trade the hustle and bustle of London life for pulling pints and moonlighting as a Cher impersonator in a backwater country pub. The sleepy Yorkshire village of Cherrywood would always be home, but a return to rural life wasn't quite the path she'd paved for herself. Still, being back with her oldest friends, Raven and Oliver, was a definite upside and she was beginning to settle into the slower pace. That is until Clemmie Ackroyd, a stalwart member of the community, is brutally murdered.

Kerry had different plans for her first high school party—like not going. All she wanted to do was stay home in the safety of retro rom-coms and her strict retainer schedule. Instead her BFF, fiercely outgoing mystery-fanatic Annie, has roped her into going to the party to investigate who’s cyberbullying Heather, the most popular girl in school. Finding herself getting close with her dreamy crush is odd enough, but when the two of them discover Heather’s second in command, Selena, suffocated with a menstrual cup, things get really weird.

Lady Calliope Andrews was warned to stay away from Jonah Adams, the Viscount of Goodland. More than one person issued that warning, but her brother emphasized it the loudest. So of course, she had to do the exact opposite. The charming rogue intrigued her....