Showing results by narrator "Julia Franklin" in All Categories

Second day back at work. Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis drops off her seven-year-old son at school. As she drives off, a car breaks fiercely with a squealing sound. Janine sees the child flung to one side, the small body flying limp like a puppet, then landing hard. With a sickening feeling, Janine recognizes her as Tom’s classmate—Ann-Marie Chinley. Janine gives chase, but the hit-and-run driver gets away. When she finally gets to work she hears a body has been fished out of the river. The victim is in her early twenties, newly pregnant, malnourished as a child.

Dedicating a monument to an eminent member of a Cambridge college should be a simple matter of course, but despite already commissioning an artist to complete the work, the meddling daughter of the deceased is determined to enlist her own sculptor to create the statue. It's convenient for her, then, when the university's chosen candidate turns up dead...Felix Smythe and Professor Cedric Dillworthy, a benefactor to the project, are invited to Cambridge to participate in the preparations. Unbeknownst to them, Rosy Gilchrist is also there, attending a reunion at Newnham College.

Who would want to kill widowed mother of two Ellen Tailor, a seemingly innocent, inoffensive woman, and leave her body for her children to find? Rina Martin’s policeman friend Mac can’t find anything that looks like a motive and not much more in terms of suspects. While it is true Ellen didn’t get on with her mother-in-law, it seems hard to believe their arguments escalated into a brutal killing. A former abusive partner seems a more likely suspect, but unfortunately for Mac he seems to have a watertight alibi....

Suffolk, 1955. Rosy Gilchrist is asked by her friend Lady Fawcett to join her on a trip to Southwold to visit Delia Dovedale, an old school chum she hasn’t seen in years. Rosy reluctantly agrees to be her companion on the reunion jaunt, but on arrival they discover that their hostess is dead - recently murdered at the local flower festival. Faced with incompetent village police officers and a stern manservant with an eyepatch, Rosy and her friends face the impossible task of finding the murderer in a town of suspicious characters - before the body count rises.

Ataxerxes, king of Persia, needed a wife. This powerful warrior lord picked the one girl who would have given anything to have been passed over - a Jewish scholar, Esther, from the back streets of his capital, Shushan. To a king bored by the chattering of women wreathed in musky scents, this changeling was a breath of fresh air. But the new queen of Persia was lost in a world of protocol and soon lost her husband;s favour.

Manchester, 1942. A new year brings new hope for the railway girls. Alison's romance with the charming Dr Maitland is blossoming, but then she is posted away from Manchester. Working in a canteen isn't part of her plan, nor is meeting her beau's old girlfriend. Margaret is supportive of her friend's new relationship, until she realises exactly who he is. Torn between keeping her secret and warning Alison, she turns to Joan for help. Working in Lost Property wouldn't be Joan's first choice of job, but with a baby on the way she knows she can't continue being a station porter.

She was far more than mistress to the king; Henrietta Howard was a dedicated patron of the arts, a lively and talented intellectual, and a passionate advocate for the rights of women long before the dawn of feminism. The mark that this enigmatic royal mistress left on the society and culture of early Georgian England was to resonate well beyond the confines of the court, and can still be felt today.

With Peaceful Repose Cemetery, Drew Slocombe is determined to revolutionise the entire death industry. Unfortunately, Drew’s Gravedigger has just discovered that their cemetery has one too many corpses when the body of an elderly woman is found. The police seem to think that the body is that of a vagrant, but for Drew things don’t add up. The mystery deepens when Genevieve Slater turns up at Drew’s door. As a man looking to escape both money worries and marriage problems, Genevieve proves impossible to resist.

Librarian Pru Pearce is preparing for her wedding to police detective Andy Barnes. But after one of her Women's Institute friends suffers a suspicious accident at Rookery Grange, a home for the elderly and infirm, Pru and the other ladies are on alert. And when one of the residents is asphyxiated with a pillow, no one can rest easy.

When Gabrielle Newman throws her cheating husband out, Stu cares more about the money than the break-up, getting more than his fair share from their house sale. An unexpected bequest offers Gabrielle a new start and she tries to leave the past behind, heading north with Des Monahan, the private investigator sent to find her. Meanwhile, Stu has got entangled with organized crime in Eastern Europe and is desperate to pay his gambling debts. Gabrielle needs Des's help to protect herself and her inheritance. She's very attracted to Des - but dare she trust any man again?

Richard and Christine Clay have been married for decades. Their relationship has stood the test of time despite Christine appearing passive while her husband is unmistakably dominant - at times bullying and controlling. Nurse Florence Shaw has seen Christine at the surgery a number of times with minor complaints over the past year, none of which has led to a serious diagnosis. But when Florence hears that the couple appear to have entered into a suicide pact, she is shocked, though not surprised that Richard has survived.

Spring has brought many new beginnings into the world of Persimmon ‘Simmy’ Brown. Not only has her baby arrived, but she and her fiancé, Christopher, have moved to the historic village of Hartsop - and their forthcoming nuptials are only a short month away. But when a former acquaintance of Christopher’s reminds him of an undertaking made a decade previously that he hasn't fulfilled, their lives soon take a sinister turn. Yet even with a young baby to consider, Simmy cannot ignore her instinct to investigate.

A spate of robberies targeting elderly women is disturbing enough, but especially so in a town as peaceful and sedate as Leek. Then one attack turns to murder, and Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy is called to the eerily named Spite Hall. For the body of Nan Lawrence has been found bludgeoned to death, lying over the tapestry she was in the process of embroidering. When Joanna calls on Nan's neighbours she is surprised to find that they are none other than the old lady's estranged brother and his teenage grandson, neither of whom seems particularly willing to co-operate.

With trembling hands Arabella dons the mask of Miss Noir for her first night at Mrs. Silver's House of Pleasures. Thinking of her young son, she prepares to smile prettily at the next gentleman who enters…. Dominic Furneaux, Duke of Arlesford, is stunned to see that the woman who shattered his heart has fallen so low. He offers her a way out - by making her his mistress!

Duncan, Gemma and their children are guests at Beck House, the country estate belonging to the family of Melody Talbot, Gemma’s trusted detective sergeant. A centerpiece of this glorious autumn getaway is a charity luncheon catered by up-and-coming chef Viv Holland. The event could make Viv a star. But a tragic car accident followed by a series of mysterious deaths could ruin her ascent. Each piece of information that surfaces makes it clear that the killer had a connection with Viv’s pub - and perhaps with Beck House itself.

In Honor-Bound Groom, Alexander del Castillo and Loren Dubois have been betrothed almost all their lives - thanks to an agreement made between their old-fashioned dads. But playboy Alexander never really gave the matter any serious thought - until now. With some recent bad press and his family’s wine empire to uphold, Alexander thinks a wedding will help turn things around. Yet convincing Loren to be his bride may not be as easy as he had hoped.

Summer, 1914. Amy Fletcher’s life is transformed when she meets Edmond Derwent, son of one of the wealthiest families in the small town of Larchbury, and student at Cambridge University. When war breaks out, Edmond signs up as an officer and Amy trains as a VAD nurse. Separated by war, Edmond and Amy share their feelings through emotional letters sent from the front line. But when Edmond is critically wounded at Ypres, their love faces the biggest test of all.

To their friends, Lily and Freddy have a great marriage. He taught her to love again after the death of her first husband. But when Freddy becomes tense and distracted, a life-changing truth is revealed. Freddy has built up massive gambling debts that threaten to destroy not only his life, but Lily's as well. Her friends and family urge her to forget him and move on - easier said than done. Is her willingness to give him a second chance just down to loyalty? Or is the truth something altogether darker?

Two lives. Two families. One tragedy.Lauren Scott is bright, talented and beautiful. At eighteen, she is the most precious gift in the world to her mother, and has a dazzling career ahead of her. Oliver Lomax is a young man full of promise, despite the shadow his own, deeply troubled, mother casts over him. Then one fateful night, Oliver makes a decision that tears their worlds apart.

The book opens with Neville celebrating her 43rd birthday and contemplating middle age now that her children are grown. Her mother, in her 60s, seeks answers to her melancholy in Freudianism. Her sister, Nan, a writer who has hitherto led a single and carefree life in London, experiences the loss of love and with it her plan for the future. And Neville's principled daughter, Gerda, who is determined not to follow her mother's generation into the institute of marriage, finds herself at an impasse with the man she loves.