Showing results by narrator "Elizabeth Knowelden" in All Categories

When her marriage breaks down, Mel moves back to her hometown to live with her twin, Abbie. Mel just needs some space so she can recover from a painful separation and get ready to begin a new phase in her life. But something is wrong with Abbie - where she used to be outgoing and gregarious, now she’s sullen, hostile and secretive. Even more disturbing, Mel is being followed by a sinister man she has never seen before. She doesn’t know what he wants, but she’s pretty sure it’s nothing good. And Mel is right to be worried.

1938, London. The four queens of British crime fiction, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham, are hosting a gala to raise money for the Women’s Voluntary Service to help Britain prepare for war. Baronet Sir Henry Heathcote has loaned Hursley House for the event, and all the elites of London society are attending. The gala is a brilliant success, despite a few hiccups, but the next morning, Sir Henry is found dead in the library. Detective Chief Inspectors Lilian Wyles and Richard Davidson from Scotland Yard are quickly summoned.

The rite has existed for as long as anyone can remember: When the king dies, his son the prince must slay a fierce dragon and rescue a damsel to be his bride. When Ama wakes in the arms of Prince Emory, she knows none of this. She has no memory of what came before she was captured by the dragon or what horrors she faced in its lair. She knows only the story the prince tells of her rescue and her destiny of sitting on a throne beside him. It’s like something from a fairy tale. As Ama follows Emory to the kingdom of Harding, however, she discovers that not all is as it seems.

Berlin, 1944: Amira and Gisele have been best friends since they were children, and now Gisele is the only person who knows Amira’s secret. A secret that puts her and everyone she loves in unimaginable danger amid the daily horror and violence of Nazi Germany. With the threat of exposure drawing closer, Gisele’s suggestion that Amira marries her friend Fred, a famous pianist, might just be the lifeline she needs to keep them both safe. Because Fred has secrets too.

In a bustling suburban neighborhood in Kent, England, sits an unassuming house. There is no sign of life behind the unwashed windows, but Robin Marshall is inside. Driven by fears and obsessions, racked by anxiety, Robin is frantically pushing her body through punishing workouts, eating little, haunted by what happened to her family when she was a girl. Robin's only connection to the outside world is through her rear windows and the lives she spies upon in the apartment house across the way.

When Caroline and Francis receive an offer to house swap - from their city apartment to a house in a leafy, upscale London suburb - they jump at the chance for a week away from home, their son, and the tensions that have pushed their marriage to the brink. As the couple settles in, the old problems that permeate their marriage - his unhealthy behaviors, her indiscretions - start bubbling to the surface. But while they attempt to mend their relationship, their neighbor, an intense young woman, is showing a little too much interest in their activities.

Happy-go-lucky journalist Summer has always managed to focus on the silver lining. But nothing in her life has prepared her for her husband Seth’s recent revelation: He wants a six-month break from their marriage. Determined to stay positive, Summer decamps to Jersey to spend six months by the sea, where every passing week makes Seth more of a distant memory. Then she meets sweet, charming Jude, whose life seems to be on permanent hold even before he receives devastating news of his own.

Meghan Smith has always been a protective mother. Her baby son, Harry, has a life-threatening condition and is never far from her sight. But on the evening of her wedding anniversary, as she and her husband celebrate in the garden with friends, Harry disappears from his cot without a trace. In an instant, the perfect life she always longed for is in tatters, her family exposed to interrogation and accusation in the glare of media attention.

London, 1894. Albertine Honeycombe never wanted a husband and certainly not the one with fifteen children that her cousin, Aubrey, is trying to marry her off to. She reinvents herself as Countess Von Dagga, a private detective aiding the upper echelons of women in society. As the Countess, she is a married woman, with a conveniently absent husband who doesn’t exist, which allows her far more freedom than being single. When Lord Grendel, from whom she has recovered blackmail letters, is murdered, Albertine is suspect number one—having been the last person to see him.

Coventry, 1939. Days before the outbreak of World War II, a terrorist bomb explodes on a busy street, killing and maiming innocent civilians. A man is hanged on the evidence given by a young witness. As time goes on, the witness doubts her recollection of events, but her testimony has already had far-reaching consequences. Over sixty years later, in the wake of the 7/7 London bombings, Sara returns to her childhood home to find that her sister, Polly, missing for more than ten years, has finally come back too.

Swinging London, Summer 1967. Sixteen-year-old Estella, gifted with talent, ingenuity, and ambition, dreams of becoming a renowned fashion designer. But life seems intent on making sure her dreams never come true. Having arrived in London as a young girl, Estella now runs wild through the city streets with Jasper and Horace, amateur thieves who double as Estella's makeshift family and partners-in-(petty)-crime. How can Estella dedicate herself to joining the ranks of the London design elite when she's sewing endless costumes and disguises for the trio's heists?

It’s a Mediterranean winter in 1888. Though Cannes glistens, it’s darker behind closed doors. A real estate crisis has ripped through the city’s storied fortunes, upending lives. Courtesan Lola Deslys has survived the ruins unscathed...until she’s drawn into the desperation of a former, and unfaithful, acquaintance. With the threat of debtors’ prison hanging over her head, Lola’s latest client is running out of time and luck. Her client has solicited Lola to reclaim an incriminating contract from the ruthless banker at the heart of the crisis.

The Romans left Briton years before. The great King Arthur has been gone two decades as well. There were scattered invasions, of course, but in one village, those of Celtic, Frisian, Angle, Saxon, Jutes, and even descendants of the Roman legion lived in peace. Kyleigh grew up there. Though she had been a foundling, she’d been taken in by a kind and learned couple and allowed all the learning she might enjoy with Father Peter. The greatest difficulty she had to deal with day by day was gently rejecting a dear friend who longed for marriage.

Confined in a cell four meters long, imprisoned on absurd, Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, written from his prison cell, Altan reflects upon his sentence, on a life whittled down to a courtyard covered by bars, and on the hope and solace a writer's mind can provide, even in the darkest places.

When Daisy Cooper’s new husband joins the RAF to fight the Battle of Britain, she’s terrified she’s going to lose him. So when her mother Ivy suggests she join the gardeners at Kew to keep busy, Daisy’s intrigued. After all, Ivy worked at Kew during the last great war and made friends along the way. Louisa Armitage, not ready to hang up her gardening gloves just yet, and Beth Sanderson, an aspiring doctor looking to make a difference, decide to enlist as well. When tragedy strikes, the women are forced to come together to support one other during their darkest hours.

On a chilly morning in rural Suffolk, Cassandra Hawke is woken by a gunshot. Her mother is clinging on to her life, the weapon still lying nearby. Everyone thinks it’s attempted suicide - but none of it makes any sense to Cass. She’s certain there’s more to it than meets the eye. With her husband and father telling her she’s paranoid, Cass finds an unlikely ally in student paramedic Holly. Like Cass, she believes something is wrong, and together they try to uncover the truth. But is there more to Holly’s interest than she’s letting on?

With Everland and Umberland both destroyed, the survivors have taken refuge in a small village tucked within the shadows of the Bloodred Queen's castle. Doc has found an actual cure for the Horologia virus, while Gwen, Pete, and Alyssa begin plotting the assassination of the queen with the help of Gail, an excellent huntress. But killing the queen won't be enough. The world has been destroyed and its needs a ruler to set things right again. A ruler who is good, kind, and fair. Someone like the former king of Germany. But he's dead...or is he?

Stevie Gordon is lonely, filling her time by stalking her ex-boyfriend, James Cowley. He might be married, but neither his wife nor his girlfriend knows as much about him as Stevie does. But when James’ latest mistress is brutally murdered, her body carefully posed amongst the bluebells of Thamespark, Stevie is as shocked as anyone. But with her troubled childhood taking a toll on her mind, and her heavy drinking leading to frequent blackouts, can Stevie really know she is innocent?

Gracie Mueller is a proud mother of two and devoted wife, living with her husband Randy in upstate New York. Her life is complicated by the usual tedium and stressors and she’s settled down comfortably enough. But when Randy’s failing career as a real estate agent makes finances tight, their home goes into foreclosure, and Gracie feels she has no choice but to return to the creatively illegal and high-stakes lifestyle of her past in order to keep all that she’s worked so hard to have. Gracie has a lot to hide about where she’s from, who she is, and who she’s been.

It’s Christmastime, 1919. Three years before, seventeen-year-old Margot Allan, a respectable vicar’s daughter, fell passionately in love. But she lost her fiancé, Harry, to the Great War. In turn, she gained a desperate secret, one with the power to ruin her life and her family’s reputation, a secret she guards at all costs. Now Margot’s family is gathering at the vicarage for the first time since the War ended. And Harry, it turns out, isn’t dead. He’s alive and well, and looking for answers.