Showing results by narrator "Karen Cass" in All Categories

Beth loves her job working in a care home, looking after its elderly residents, but she doesn’t love the cramped and dirty house-share she currently lives in. So, when she gets the opportunity to move to Nightingale Square, sharing a house with the lovely Eli, she jumps at the chance. The community at Nightingale Square welcomes Beth with open arms, and when she needs help to organise a fundraiser for the care home they rally round. Then she discovers The Arches, a local creative arts centre, has closed and the venture to replace it needs their help too.

Lightly dusted with snow and nestled on the edge of a sweeping Scottish loch, Finnglach Castle looks positively magical. Kitty Underhay, her husband, Matt, and their beloved dog, Bertie, are delighted to be celebrating the new year with a Hogmanay party, but just after midnight, a shot rings out across the grounds.

What is visible to the naked eye has been exhaustively raked over; in Underground London, acclaimed travel writer Stephen Smith provides an alternative guide and history of the capital. It's a journey through the passages and tunnels of the city, the bunkers and tunnels, crypts and shadows. As well as being a contemporary tour of underground London, it's also an exploration through time.

Like many women, Clare Pooley found the juggle of a stressful career and family life a struggle, so she left her successful role as a managing partner in one of the world's biggest advertising agencies to look after her family. She knew the change wouldn't be easy, but she never expected to find herself an overweight, depressed, middle-aged mother of three who was drinking more than a bottle of wine a day and spending her evenings Googling 'am I an alcoholic?'

When Hope loses her husband, she fears her happiest days are behind her. With her only connection to London broken, she moves home to York to be near her family and to begin to build a new life. Taking a job at the antique shop she has always admired, she finds herself crossing paths with two very different men. Will, who has recently become the guardian to his niece after the tragic death of her parents. And Ciaran, who she enlists to help solve the mystery of an Egyptian antique. Two men who represent two different happy endings.

When Ella wakes up in a hospital following a hit-and-run incident, she is scared and confused. Close to tears, her eyes fall on a get-well-soon card on the window sill, and the nurse reassures her that her loving husband will be back soon. But Ella has never been married. In fact, she has lived alone her whole adult life; working hard, rarely socializing, quietly harboring a terrible secret from her past.

In Australia, Simone has been widowed for four years and is ready to make a more interesting life. Her friends are driving her mad introducing her to eligible men; her busy daughters are just the opposite, wanting her available for babysitting. When she is offered a house swap with a couple in the UK she takes it, not without some trepidation. In the UK, Russ has just taken possession of his new house and wants only peace and quiet after a few months of rehab following a serious injury. Can these two help one another avoid meddling friends and relatives and build new lives?

The perfect escapist listen, for all fans of Cathy Bramley and Scarlett Bailey. A Year at the Star and Sixpence is Holly Hepburn's four Star and Sixpence novellas collected together as a novel for the first time. When sisters Nessie and Sam inherit a little pub in a beautiful country village, they jump at the chance to escape their messy lives and start afresh. But when they arrive at the Star and Sixpence, it's not quite what they imagined - it's pretty much derelict, ruined by debts, and it's going to be a huge job....

Cloverdale is known for its winding roads, undulating hills and colourful cottages and, more recently, its Library of Things. Need a ladder, a hedge trimmer or a waffle maker? You can borrow it from the Library of Things. When Single dad Adam joins the Library of Things and agrees to run a mending workshop, new friendships start to blossom. Jennifer is a volunteer at the Library of Things. When her younger sister Isla moves back to Cloverdale after their mother dies, Jennifer finds herself wondering whether Isla is hiding something.

How well do you know your neighbours? Would you notice if they lived or died? Police analyst Annabel wouldn’t describe herself as lonely. Her work keeps her busy and the needs of her ageing mother and her cat are more than enough to fill her time when she’s on her own. But Annabel is shocked when she discovers her neighbour’s decomposing body in the house next door, and appalled to think that no one, including herself, noticed her absence. Back at work she sets out to investigate, espite her police officer

Annabelle Carruthers can only dream of being kissed by a man as dashing as Lord Darkwood. She remains locked in misery - married to a rakish drunk who gambles their lives into financial and social ruin. His sudden death - and rumours of spies and treachery - only make matters worse. Burdened with her dead husband's gambling debts, Annabelle fears that she is on her way to the poorhouse. The only solution Annabelle can see to avoid this is to offer herself up as mistress to the mysterious Lord Darkwood!

1657. The youngest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, 18-year-old Frances is finding her place at England's new centre of power. Following the turmoil of Civil War, a fragile sense of stability has returned to the country. Her father has risen to the unprecedented position of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and Frances has found herself transported from her humble childhood home to the sumptuous palaces of Hampton Court and Whitehall, where she dreams of romance.

Sometimes a book grabs you by the heart and grows to mean everything to you. That’s what Hope Falls is to friends Emily, Rachel and Tori. So, when they get the chance to spend a whole summer at the cottage in Lakeside where the film adaptation was located, they know it is going to be the holiday of a lifetime. Spending six weeks away will give them a chance to re-evaluate their life choices.

England, 1920. Eleanor Swift has spent the last few years travelling the world: taking tea in China, tasting alligators in Peru, escaping bandits in Persia and she has just arrived in England after a chaotic 45-day flight from South Africa. Chipstone is about the sleepiest town you could have the misfortune to meet. But then, from the edge of a quarry, through the driving rain, Eleanor is shocked to see a man shot and killed in the distance. Before she can climb down to the spot, the villain is gone and the body has vanished.

It was Betty, defiant to the end, who sent Lorna back to Longhampton. If Lorna’s learned one thing from Betty it’s that courage is something you paint on like red lipstick, even when you’re panicking inside. And right now, with the keys to the town’s gallery in her hand, Lorna feels about as courageous as Betty’s anxious little dachshund, trembling beside her. Lorna’s come home to Longhampton to fulfil a long-held dream, but she knows, deep down, there are ghosts she needs to lay to rest first.

Ten years ago when she was living the rock star lifestyle as a music journalist - touring the country, going to gigs and hanging out with celebrities - she never thought she would end up living an uneventful life in suburbia, in a relationship that is well past its sell-by date. Nicole knows that her days of wild parties and tour buses are over, but yet there is something that keeps drawing her back to her old life. So when rock star Dylan King turns up on her doorstep needing her help to restore his public image, she can’t resist one last trip down memory lane.

Award-winning and critically acclaimed historian Helen Rappaport turns to the tragic story of the daughters of the last Tsar of all the Russias, slaughtered with their parents at Ekaterinburg. On 17 July 1918, four young women walked down 23 steps into the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg. The eldest was 22, the youngest only 17. Together with their parents and their 13-year-old brother, they were all brutally murdered. Their crime: to be the daughters of the last Tsar and Tsaritsa of All the Russias.

When Daisy’s mother falls ill she is forced to return home. With her twin sons in tow, she moves back to Half Moon Farm, her family’s ancient hop farm. But a new life in the Kent countryside isn’t necessarily as idyllic as it might seem. Daisy’s relationship with her mother is complicated and the tumbledown farm isn’t the only thing that needs rebuilding. Daisy and her sons must adjust to life with estranged family, a leaking roof, and no WiFi. Luckily for Daisy, she might yet find some distraction.

When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life for herself, with Innes at her side. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child.

For children’s book author Imogen, an idyllic life in the English countryside seems like the perfect fit for her and her husband. But when tragedy strikes, Imogen is left widowed, and finds herself moving into Storybook Cottage alone with only her monstrously narcissistic cat for company. After discovering she is pregnant, Imogen grows determined to embrace a new start in Middlemass, with its duckpond, cricket matches and village fêtes. The only thing Imogen can’t seem to shake is her neighbor—a brooding, artisan blacksmith named Gabriel—who she can’t quite decide is friend or foe.