Showing results by narrator "Katie Katie" in All Categories

Debilitated by scoliosis as a child, Marissa Bonaventure seems the unlikeliest woman in the world to carry a rare, powerful gene. But it is exactly for her unique genetics that she’s snatched from her bed one dark night, a coveted prize in a battle between demons. Her world rapidly unravels in unspeakable terror, until a shadowed, black-haired stranger rescues her.

Each morning Livia Moretti makes her way from an apartment overlooking Florence’s famous Duomo to a nearby café, where she drinks espresso and reads the newspaper. To the crowds of tourists who pass by, nothing about Livia will be memorable. She is simply an old lady. They walk on without knowing the part she played in ensuring the future of this beautiful city. And to Livia now, those dark days feel very far away. But today, when she opens the paper, she sees a name she has not heard for a long time. A name that will bring memories flooding back.

England, 1176. Imprisoned by her husband, King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England, refuses to let her powerful husband bully her into submission, even as he forces her away from her children and her birthright. Freed only by Henry's death, Eleanor becomes dowager Queen of England. But the competition for land and power that Henry stirred up among his sons has intensified to a dangerous rivalry.

Ghosts and ghouls beware! London’s smallest, shabbiest, and most talented psychic detection agency is back. Life is never exactly peaceful for Lockwood & Co. Lucy and George are trying to solve the mystery of the talking skull trapped in their ghost jar, while Lockwood is desperate for an exciting new case. Things seem to be looking up when the team is called to Kensal Green Cemetery to investigate the grave of a sinister Victorian doctor.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are spending the Christmas hols in snowy Cambridge. Hazel has high hopes of its beautiful spires, cosy libraries and inviting tearooms - but there is danger lurking in the dark stairwells of ancient Maudlin College. Two days before Christmas, there is a terrible accident. At least it appears to be an accident - until the Detective Society look a little closer and realise a murder has taken place.

Lucy has a kind and adoring husband, a job she loves as a teacher, and a house on Mulberry Avenue with floaty curtains and the softest bed linen. After her troubled childhood, she knows life will never be perfect, but it’s pretty close. She’s also got Amber, right next door. They never run out of things to talk about. Even if Amber’s life - with her high-profile job and handsome, wealthy boyfriend - is more glamorous than Lucy’s, they share a down-to-earth sense of humor. But then Amber starts to hint that her life isn’t all it seems....

Nobody has a “normal” family; but Vesper Wright's is truly... something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn't return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.

Sukey Reynolds is treasuring the late-summer sun, taking long walks in the countryside, and enjoying the golden views across the Cotswold hills. At home, she’s busy cooking up feasts for her growing teenage son - amateur sleuthing is definitely off the menu. When she is called to photograph a crumbling manor, the day suddenly turns cold. In the charming garden, the body of beautiful Una May has been discovered, and all fingers are pointed at the tempestuous owner of the house, who was overheard arguing with Una that morning.... But who is the rotten apple in this beautiful orchard?

Thirty years after Douglas Coupland broke the fiction mould and defined a generation with Generation X, he is back with Binge, 60 stories laced with his observational profundity about the way we live and his existential worry about how we should be living: the very things that have made him such an influential and bestselling writer. Not to mention that he can also be really funny.

When Tara Fitzpatrick tells a string of lies during the world’s most informal job interview, she has no idea of the path she’s set herself on. Renovating the rundown bookshop with her new boss, James, turns out to be more fulfilling than she could ever have imagined. Soon, she finds herself falling in love with the quaint little shop. And with James. But Tara has never let herself dream of a happy ever after. Ever since she was a little girl, she knew she would never have children.

Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich is a rollicking and poignant romantic comedy about a young widow who decides to get in shape... and winds up getting her groove back - and a whole lot more! Holly Brennan used food to comfort herself through her husband's illness and death. Now she's alone at age thirty-two. And she weighs more than she ever has. When fate throws her in the path of Logan Montgomery, personal trainer to pro athletes, and he offers to train her, Holly concludes it must be a sign.

Lizzy Beresford is at home alone when she finds a chilling letter in her kitchen. Someone has been into her home - someone who wishes Lizzy harm. In her little country cottage, with her doting boyfriend, not far from the close-knit village, Lizzy can’t imagine who might want to hurt her. But when the threatening letters keep coming, she starts to suspect everyone around her. Desperate, Lizzy reaches out to her sister, Emma. They haven’t spoken in years, not since the argument that tore them apart. But Emma says: ‘I’ve been receiving letters too....’

When a stranger asks Jo Blackmore for a lift, she says yes, then swiftly wishes she hadn't. The stranger knows Jo's name; she knows her husband, Max, and she's got a glove belonging to Jo's two-year-old daughter, Elise. What begins with a subtle threat swiftly turns into a nightmare as the police, social services and even Jo's own husband turn against her. No one believes that Elise is in danger. But Jo knows there's only one way to keep her child safe - run.

A milestone in the history of the novel, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary and elaborate Clarissa follows the life of a chaste young woman desperate to protect her virtue. When beautiful Clarissa Harlowe is forced to marry the rich but repulsive Mr. Solmes, she refuses, much to her family’s chagrin. She escapes their persecution with the help of Mr. Lovelace, a dashing and seductive rake, but soon finds herself in a far worse dilemma. Terrifying and enlightening, Clarissa weaves a tapestry of narrative experimentation into a gripping morality tale of good versus evil.

In Friends Forever?, third in Tina Wells’s delightful middle-grade series, Zee and the rest of her class from the Brookdale Academy are off on a camping trip to compete in an environmental scavenger hunt. Zee is extra psyched because her best friend, Ally, is visiting from Paris. It should be fabulous having all her friends in one place, but for some reason everyone is fighting!

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are famous for solving murder mysteries. But there are many other intrigues in the pages of Hazel's casebook, from the macabre Case of the Deepdean Vampire, to the baffling Case of the Blue Violet, and their very first whodunit: the Case of Lavinia's Missing Tie.

Marcus Rashford, MBE, is famous worldwide for his skills both on and off the pitch—but before he was a Manchester United and England footballer, and long before he started his inspiring campaign to end child food poverty, he was just an ordinary kid from Wythenshawe, South Manchester. Now the nation's favourite footballer wants to show YOU how to achieve your dreams, in this positive and inspiring guide for life.

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong have returned to Deepdean for a new school term, but nothing is the same. There's a new Head Girl, Elizabeth Hurst, and a team of Prefects - and these bullying Big Girls are certainly not good eggs. Then, after the fireworks display on Bonfire Night, Elizabeth is found - murdered. Many girls at Deepdean had reason to hate Elizabeth, but who might have committed such foul play?

When Mara Hughes inherits her late mother’s tumbledown beach house overlooking the bright, sandy sweep of Magpie Cove, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. With her marriage on the rocks and her husband threatening to take the family home, the beach house - with all the bittersweet memories it holds - might be the thing that finally sends Mara’s world crashing down around her. She tells herself she’ll spend only a few days there, sell it, and move on to rebuilding her life.