Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

Isobel arrives in the quiet Cornish town of Fallenbay determined to find peace - and answers - after her most intimate secrets have been splashed across the Internet. Cleo thinks she's happy running a small coastal café but has no idea of the trouble her children are getting themselves mixed up in. Sarah has finally put her horrible ex behind her and found the man of her dreams. Or has she? All three women have no idea how powerful their darkest secrets can be and how they will change the town of Fallenbay forever.

The local society could only speculate how a pair of turtledoves would cope as the guests of the scandalous Lady Dacey. Surely she would attempt to corrupt them - an act that both Pamela Perryworth and Honoraria Goodham would see as welcome entertainment in their rigid, joyless lives. Though Mrs Perryworth is married - most unhappily - and the young Honoraria has a cloying tendency to read too much Scripture, the purity and loveliness of both ladies nonetheless inflames the senses of two notorious lords.

The urge to explore and discover is a natural and universal one, and the edge of the unknown is expanded with each passing year as scientific advancements inch us closer and closer to the outer reaches of our solar system and the galaxies beyond them. Generations of writers have explored these new frontiers and the endless possibilities they present in great detail. The Final Frontier delivers stories from across this literary spectrum, a reminder that the universe is far large and brimming with possibilities than we could ever imagine, as hard as we may try.

Fifteen seventy-four, Devon. With Hugo and Maria finally wed and a strong line of Kendal heirs on their way, the Heron family have reached a prosperous point in their history. But when a deadly plague breaks out, their happy existence is threatened, and disaster creeps into the household when Alan Kendal’s wife, Harriet, is taken ill. With the Kendal heir now both wifeless and childless, Hugo and Maria insist upon arranging a new match. The beautiful Eloise sweeps into the family as the bride-to-be and immediately causes a stir.

The history of the Guinea Pig Club, the band of airmen who were seriously burned in aeroplane fires, is a truly inspiring, spine-tingling tale. Plastic surgery was in its infancy before the Second World War. The most rudimentary techniques were known only to a few surgeons worldwide. The Allies were tremendously fortunate in having maverick surgeon Archibald McIndoe - nicknamed ‘the Boss’, or ‘the Maestro’ - operating at a small hospital in East Grinstead in the south of England. McIndoe constructed a medical infrastructure from scratch.

Here today. Dead tomorrow? Last night I almost died. A fire consumed the hotel room where my best friend, Emily, and I slept. Emily was killed. But I can't afford to cry, to grieve. It was meant to be me. And he'll be coming for my daughter next. The press thinks it was me that died. At best that gives me 24 hours. Twenty-four hours to find Polly and disappear. Twenty-four hours to stay alive.

Emma had always played the role of dependable older sister, so it was not surprising that after smashing up Drake Harwood's brand-new Ferrari, Camilla, unable to pay, expected Emma to bail her out. But the shrewd and attractive entrepreneur saw a way of capitalising on her predicament. He exacted a highly unusual and very personal payment that cost Emma her career as a London TV newscaster - to say nothing of her pride. Emma was prepared to fight fire with fire - never thinking that, for her, Drake Harwood was as lethal as dynamite!

When Anna Flores' adored older sister goes missing as a teenager, Anna copes by disappearing too and eventually building a life for herself abroad. Thirty years later, the death of her mother finally forces Anna to return home. Tasked with sorting through her mother's possessions, she begins to confront not just her mother's death but also the huge hole Gabriella's disappearance left in her life - and finds herself asking a question she's not allowed herself to ask for years: what really happened to her sister?

The Chalet des Anglais should be the ideal locale for recently widowed Oxford don Emily to begin cutting through the fog of her grief. With no electricity, running water, or access by car, the rustic chalet nestled at the foot of the verdant, snow-topped Alps should afford Emily both time and space to heal. Joining her will be a collection of friends from the university, as well as other fellows, graduates, and undergraduates. Something feels off, though—heightening Emily's existing grief-induced anxiety.

Lucy has her rigid middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George. Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse.

The importance of a business's culture to sustainable success. An organisation's culture either gives it a competitive advantage or a competitive disadvantage. It is a crucial factor in determining how successful a business is and how much people want to work for an organisation. That is why managers are putting more and more emphasis on getting their organisation's culture right.

Julia and Lauren are sisters, but definitely not best friends. They rarely even speak to each other. But when Lauren's fortieth birthday is ruined by her latest boyfriend dumping her, Julia feels a sudden and unexpected burst of sympathy, and offers to go with her on the special holiday he'd paid for as a birthday present. Unfortunately the holiday turns out not to be a glamorous hotel in a holiday hotspot, but a self-catering cottage in a tiny village called Deepcombe, in the middle of Dartmoor. And it's January.

A breathtakingly tense thriller from the author of The Wrong Girl, about one woman's determination to defend what's hers - and how quickly a straightforward plan can spiral out of control. Perfect for fans of Katerina Diamond's The Secret and Fiona Barton's The Widow. Shortly after Christmas, a message arrives at Sophie's house, scrawled across her own round robin newsletter: 'He's going to leave you. Let's see how smug you are then, you stupid bitch.'

Kirsty was an ambitious young actress until her career was nearly wrecked by one blistering review from arrogant drama critic Drew Chalmers. Furious and resentful, Kirsty vowed she'd take her revenge on him. And exposing his affair was the perfect way to do it. But when Drew turns the tables on her, Kirsty is forced to pretend to be engaged to him. Now, Kirsty must learn to play the part of Drew's lover...to perfection!

Teenager Edie Hudson was nobody’s little darling, which made vanishing all too easy. Two decades later, she’s been forgotten by everyone except her mother, Samantha. And the person who knows what happened to her. Samantha has had a long time to remember, and to regret. Having seen how little her daughter mattered to the community in the months following her disappearance, she wonders if Edie was lost before she was even gone. Or was it guilt, not indifference, that made the locals turn a blind eye? When she meets Frances, she at last starts to hope for answers.

Kathy Courage has never visited the famous Italian city of Florence before, so she's thrilled when she and her boyfriend, Neil, are invited there for a wedding. Unfortunately, with Neil's constant complaining and his teenage children in tow, it's not exactly the romantic break Kathy was hoping for. But when a mix-up with her flights leaves Kathy stranded in the city, she decides to embrace the unexpected and stay on alone.

England, 1898. When Evelyn first married the famous novelist William Aubrey, she was dazzled by his brilliance. But their newlywed bliss is brief when William is gripped by writer’s block, and he becomes jealous of Evelyn’s writing talent. When he commits the ultimate betrayal—stealing a draft of her novel and passing it off as his own—Evelyn decides to write her way out of their unhappy marriage.

Madeleine Frost knows she has to get away from her partner Liam. His behaviour has become increasingly controlling and Maddie fears for her safety and that of her young daughter Poppy. Desperation leads Maddie to the hotel owned by her estranged father – the extraordinarily beautiful Wrea Head Hall. The reunion is tense, but Maddie’s father agrees to her staying. Maddie’s whereabouts must stay a secret; but as she spends time getting to know her new home, she discovers the house has its own shocking past and secrets of its own. Secrets that could cost her dearly.

An isolated Tuscan farmhouse on the edge of an ancient wood is the perfect setting for a late September holiday. As a group of old friends from university and their families gather to relax and unwind, all are hoping it will be a chance to put the tragic events of the previous year behind them. There were six of them once; now they are five. Watching the British visitors arrive from her own terrace is Anna Viola, whose family has lived for centuries in the crumbling red-brick farmhouse above Il Vignacce.

England, 1919: Rose and Ivy board a ship bound for Australia. One is travelling there to marry a man she has never met. One is destined never to arrive. Australia, 2016: Amongst her late-grandmother's possessions, Molly uncovers a photograph of two girls dressed in First World War nurses' uniforms, labelled 'Rose and Ivy 1917', and a letter from her grandmother, asking her to find out what happened to her own mother, Rose, who disappeared in the 1960s.