Showing results by narrator "Prendergast Colleen" in All Categories

When Lewis Harley has a health scare in his early 40s, he takes it as a wake-up call. So he and his wife, Charlotte, leave behind life in the fast lane, and Lewis opens the antiques shop he has dreamed of. Bonnie Brookland was brought up in the antiques trade and now works for the man who bought out her father's business, but she isn't happy there. So when she walks into Lew's shop, she knows this is the place for her.

Football fans will love this insight into the life and mind of Big Sam. With nearly 20 years as a player - plus almost 25 years as a coach and manager - under his belt, Sam Allardyce is one of the most recognisable figures in British football. 'Big Sam' has been a robust defensive general throughout the seventies and eighties, and an imposing touchline presence as a gaffer since 1994. Over the last four decades, Allardyce has seen it all.

After the death of her husband, Helen Dexter is contemplating her future as the now-sole proprietor of the Seaview Hotel. There's an offer from a hotel chain developer to consider, but also a booking from a group of 12 Elvis impersonators, a singing troupe called Twelvis. Tom loved Elvis, and for Helen, this is a sign that she should stay. But the series of mysterious events that follows suggests that the developer is not going to give up easily. Then, shortly after Twelvis arrive, one of the group disappears. His body is found floating in a lake, with his blue suede shoes missing.

Sebastian James Murphy is 20 years, six months and two days old. He loves swimming, fried eggs and Billy Ocean. Sebastian is autistic. And lonely. Veronica wants her son Sebastian to be happy. She wants the world to accept him for who he is. She is also thinking about paying a professional to give him what he desperately wants. Violetta is a high-class escort, who steps out into the night thinking only of money.

After their success in their last investigation, DCI David Stone has been promoted and moved to the Murder Investigation Team, taking DS Frankie Oliver with him. But there's a catch: the case they are given is the latest in a series of undetected murders. It's a baptism of fire for MIT's newest recruits. In the incident room, the murder wall makes grim reading: three women have been killed within the past year and nothing links the crimes: no day of the week, geographical area, similarity between victims and, most importantly, no forensic evidence.

A rising death toll. A city in panic. A young mother is found dead in her home with no obvious cause of death. As DI Hannah Robbins and her team investigate, it soon becomes clear that the woman is the first in a long line of murders by poison. With the body count climbing and the city of Nottingham in social meltdown, the team find themselves in a deadly race against a serial killer determined to prove a point.

The small city of Stockleigh is in shock as three women are brutally attacked within days of each other. Are they random acts of violence, or is there a link among the victims? For Detective Eden Berrisford, it's her most chilling case yet. The investigation leads Eden to cross paths with Carla, a woman trying to rebuild her life after her marriage to a cruel and abusive man ended in unimaginable tragedy. Her husband, Ryan, was imprisoned for his crimes, but now he's out and coming for her.

Gina Moss is single and proud. She's focused on her thriving childminding business, which she runs from her cottage at the edge of The Evergreens: a charming Victorian home to three elderly residents who adore playing with the kids Gina minds. To Gina, they all feel like family. Then a run-in (literally) with a tall, handsome American stranger gives her the tummy-flutters....

A social media shaming. A killer with a message. A deadly combination. When the body of a man is left in the city centre set up as a realistic police crime scene, DI Hannah Robbins is forced to enter a world that can break a person, a case and a reputation. Social media platforms light up, and Hannah is pitted against the raging online monster and a killer who has already lost everything. Can she catch the killer and put him behind bars, or will she become part of his sadistic game?

Thirteen-year-old Jessamine Grace and her mother make a living as sham spiritualists - until they discover that Jess is a mesmerist and that she really can talk to the dead. Soon she is plunged into the dark world of Victorian London's supernatural underbelly and learns that the city is under attack by ghouls, monsters, and spirit summoners. Can Jess fight these powerful forces? And will the group of strange children with mysterious powers she befriends be able to help?

In 1959 Milly starts her new life as a housemaid at Rutherford House, working for the aristocratic Rutherford-Percy clan. Entranced by her new mistress, Vivienne, she becomes deeply embroiled in the household and the keeper of dark secrets the family conceals beneath the mansion’s grand exterior. In the present day, Christie is working as a psychiatric nurse when she meets troubled patient Lillian Percy, Vivienne’s granddaughter and heiress to Rutherford House. They soon bond over the loss of their mothers.

When librarian and budding Private Investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder. A year ago, Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found. Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery.

Shay Bastable is the woman in the middle. She is there for everyone else, holding them all together, looking out for them all. She is part of the sandwich generation—caring for her parents and her children—and she loves it that way. But Shay is so busy supporting everyone else, she hasn’t thought for a moment about herself. And when her family start to find their own ways in the world, she is finally able to look forward to some breathing space. But when her whole world collapses, who is left to her support her?

Tick… In the city of Stoke, a teenage girl is murdered in the middle of the day, her lifeless body abandoned in a field behind her school. Tock… Two days later, a young mother is abducted. She’s discovered strangled and dumped in a local park. Time’s Up… DS Grace Allendale and her team are brought in to investigate, but with a bold killer, no leads and nothing to connect the victims, the case seems hopeless.

Having conducted over 100 hours of interviews with 60 British women aged 16-25, Nancy Tucker - the author of The Time In Between, an ‘astonishingly good’ (Sunday Times) memoir of a life consumed by eating disorders – explores what it’s like to suffer from serious mental illness as a young woman. With raw honesty, sensitivity and humour, That Was When People Started to Worry examines real experiences of anxiety, self-harm, borderline personality disorder, OCD, binge eating disorder, PTSD and dissociative identity disorder. Giving a voice to those like Abby who can’t speak out themselves, Tucker presents a unique window into the day-to-day trials of living with an unwell mind.

One warm spring evening, five teenagers meet in a local park. Only four will come out alive. Six months after the stabbing of 15-year-old Deanna Barker, someone is coming after the teenagers of Stockleigh, as a spate of vicious assaults rocks this small community. Revenge for Deanna? Or something more? Detective Eden Berrisford is locked into a race against time to catch the twisted individual behind the attacks - but when her own niece, Jess Mountford, goes missing, the case gets personal.

It’s December 1902, and Rose O’Leary is looking forward to her baby girl’s first Christmas. But then tragedy strikes: her husband dies at the shipyard where he works, and within days his friend Nathaniel makes it plain he’s determined to have her. Rose flees with her child but soon finds the world is a cruel place for a beautiful woman with no protection. More tragedy ensues, and yet, although she’s bruised and broken, Rose is a fighter.

A serial killer is loose in Yorkshire and has claimed three victims in three months. Eleven days before each murder, a large purple V is painted on the front door of the victim's house. The victims, all of whom have some association with the occult, are found drained of blood with two red marks on their neck. When Ruby Barnett comes home one evening to find a large purple V on her front door, it becomes clear she is the so-called Vampire Killer's next victim.

It is 1940s coastal Lincolnshire, and Carolyn Holmes is keen to do what she can for the war effort. Raised on the family farm, she battles with her mother to further her education, although nothing is too good for her brother. Phyllis Carter, a bitter widow from the Great War, lives close by with her son, who works on the farm. When Peter decides to volunteer, a distraught Phyllis blames Carolyn, who leaves to join the ATS where she meets Beryl. Carolyn and Beryl are posted to Beaumanor Hall in Leicestershire as ‘listeners’, the most difficult of signals intelligence gathering.

Private Investigator Kitt Hartley and her twin sister, Rebecca, are preparing for a holiday in Scotland when cruise ship entertainer Errol Jackson appears at the door. Errol breaks the news that Bryce Griffin, a former smuggler and an old friend of Kitt's, has been murdered; his body found washed up by a lighthouse, bearing a gunshot wound. Kitt persuades Rebecca to cancel their trip, and, together with Kitt's assistant, Grace Edwards, and best friend, Evie Bowes, book onto the next cruise to Norway to help with the ongoing murder investigation.