Showing results by narrator "Lucy Paterson" in All Categories

Rebecca Neumanner's marriage is on the brink of collapse as her desire to be a mother becomes an obsession. Then she receives news from her estranged family in Rhodes. Called back to the beautiful Greek island of her birth, she realises how little she knows of the grandmother she has eluded for over a decade. Bubba has never spoken of the Nazi occupation during her youth, but there have always been whispers. What desperate measures did she take that terrible day in 1944 when her family was ripped apart? Can the rumour she had blood on her own hands really be true? But Bubba intends to take her secrets to the grave.

For years, Aidan Cullen has dreamed of becoming a successful crime writer. When his hard work finally pays off and his first book is published, what should have been a night of celebration unravels into an evening of horror. Left for dead after a brutal attack, trauma leaves him paranoid and reclusive, and he retreats to the remote countryside with only his dog Nanook for company. With the world kept at arm’s length, he begins to feel safe. That is, until a woman is murdered at the end of his road.

Zoe didn't meet her daughter the way most mothers do. She finds five-year-old Maddie alone and dirty on a countryside road. Frightened for Maddie's safety, she picks her up and takes her back to her father, not knowing what she's about to step into. Because Maddie wasn't just lost; she was there to lure her serial killer dad's new victim. After escaping from the clutches of Maddie's dangerous father, she bonds with the little girl. Only Maddie knows what it was like to be at that house. And when no family members come forward to claim Maddie, Zoe decides to adopt her.

On the 25th anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, this book captures an important moment in contemporary history: how a grassroots women's movement, harking back to the suffragettes and second wave feminists of the 1970s and 1980s, took on the political establishment - and changed the course of history. Through a collection of over thirty essays and photographs, some of the women involved tell the story of the five-year campaign to protect women's sex-based rights.

Best-selling author and historian Lucy Worsley tracks a new course through Queen Victoria's life, examining how she transformed from dancing princess to the Widow of Windsor and became one of Britain's greatest monarchs along the way. Taking 24 significant days from Victoria's life, from her birth, her wedding and her coronation to her husband's death, and many more in between, allows us to see Victoria up close and personal, examining how she lived hour to hour.

Can one woman's marriage survive her best friend's divorce? Fans of Veronica Henry and Erica James, this is the next book to add to your reading list. It's time to get back to where it all began.... Octavia Sheldon thought she'd have a different life. One where she travelled the world with an exotic husband and free-spirited children in tow. But things didn't turn out quite like that.

'My life is free, random and spontaneous. This in itself creates enormous energy and clarity in body and mind.' (Miriam Lancewood). Miriam Lancewood is a young Dutch woman living a primitive, nomadic life in the heart of the mountains with her New Zealand husband. She lives simply in a tent or hut and survives by hunting wild animals, foraging edible plants and using minimal supplies. For the last six years she has lived this way, through all seasons, often cold, hungry and isolated in the bush.

Can you ever re-create that first great love? Victoria Bradshaw fell in love with London playwright Oliver Dobbs when she was just 18. But he left her and disappeared from her life. Now, years later, he is a widower standing on her doorstep with his two-year-old son in his arms. And Victoria is foolish enough to want to take him back. Their early spring journey to a castle in Scotland becomes an odyssey of emotional discovery....

The Safe House is a scintillating psychological thriller by the Top Ten bestselling author, Nicci French. You open your home and your heart to a victim. But your house is anything but safe.... Samantha Laschen is a doctor specialising in post-traumatic stress disorder. She's moved to the coast to escape her problems and to be alone with her young daughter. But now the police want her to take in Fiona Mackenzie, a girl whose parents have been savagely murdered.

Anna and Zoe are twins. Identical in appearance, utterly different in personality, they share a bond so close that nothing - or no one - can rip them apart. Until Anna meets charismatic Nick. Anna is trusting, romantic and hopeful; she thinks Nick is perfect. Zoe is daring, dangerous and extreme; she thinks Nick is a liar. Zoe has seen Anna betrayed by men before. She'll stop at nothing to discover if Nick is as good as he seems. The problem is, lies may hurt. But honesty can kill.

Soaked in mist and old magic, Storyland tells a history of Britain and the politics of its people through medieval eyes. Grounded in research, related as fiction, it begins before the Great Flood, with a troop of African giants quarrying stones. Later, the first migrants enter the Atlantic, calling themselves the Scoti and Britons, followed by the English and the Normans, crossing the North Sea.

As Villanelle returns to face her childhood demons and the Russian winter, Eve finds herself on the run from the Twelve, who want her dead. As the action moves between London and St Petersburg, and Eve and Villanelle finally admit their mutual erotic obsession, the chess game approaches its lethal, unforgettable conclusion.

When 11-year-old Evan vanishes without trace, his parents are plunged into their worst nightmare. Especially as the police, under massive pressure, have no answers. But months later Evan is unexpectedly found, frightened and refusing to speak. His loving family realise life will never be the same again. DI Naylor knows that unless those who took Evan are caught, other children are in danger. And with Evan silent, she must race against time to find those responsible....

On a jagged, bleak lava field just outside Reykjavik stands the Gallows Rock. Once a place of execution, it is now a tourist attraction. Until this morning, when a man was found hanging from it. The nail embedded in his chest proves it wasn't suicide. But when the police go to his flat, a further puzzle awaits: a four-year-old boy has been left there. He doesn't seem to have any link with the victim, his parents cannot be found and his drawings show he witnessed something terrible.

Phoebe, an eight-year-old girl, lies comatose following a car accident. She is a body without a spirit, a stolen child. Ceres, her mother, can only sit by her bedside and read aloud to Phoebe the fairy stories she loves in the hope they might summon her back to this world. But it is hard to keep faith, so very hard. Now an old house on the hospital grounds, a property connected to a book written by a vanished author, is calling to Ceres. Something wants her to enter, and to journey - to a land coloured by the memories of Ceres's childhood, and the folklore beloved of her father.

Mary has raised a family in this house. Watched her children play and laugh and bicker in this house. Today she is getting married in this house, with all her family in attendance. The wedding celebrations have brought fractured family together for the first time in years: there's Phoebe and her husband Michael, children in tow. The young and sensitive Rosie, with her new partner. Irene, Mary's ex-mother-in-law. Even Emma, Mary's eldest, is back for the wedding - despite being at odds with everyone else.

Eight years ago, Kathleen Hart was diagnosed with breast cancer. Further complications led to a protracted recovery and months spent in hospital, where Kathleen had to learn how to walk again. While recuperating, she came across a small whitewashed cottage for sale in Wigtown, Scotland. Driving hundreds of miles on nothing more than a few photographs and an inkling, she bought it that very same day and named it Devorgilla after the formidable 13th century Scottish princess.

A mother walks into the sea...and never comes back. Why? One perfect summer day, mother of two Alice walks into the sea...and never comes back. Her daughters - loyal but fragile Lily and headstrong, long-absent Marietta - are forcibly reunited by her disappearance. Meanwhile, with retirement looming, DI Fox investigates cold cases long since forgotten. And there's one obsession he won't let go: the tragic death of an infant 20 years before. Can Lily and Marietta uncover what happened to their mother? Will Fox solve a mystery that has haunted him for decades?

Flora and Rose are identical twins who do not know of each other's existence. Rose has been raised by her frivolous mother with the glossy international jet set. Flora has spent her childhood in the beauty and quiet of her father's Cornish cottage. And then, by chance, they meet. The encounter seems heaven-sent to Rose, who longs to escape from a man she no longer desires. Flora can free her, and, in taking her sister's place, her uneventful life is changed forever.

The Battle of Galen's Vale is over, but the war for the Empire's future has just begun. Concerned by rumours that the Magistratum's authority is waning, Sir Konrad Vonvalt returns to Sova to find the capital city gripped by intrigue and whispers of rebellion. In the Senate, patricians speak openly against the Emperor, while fanatics preach holy vengeance on the streets.