Showing results by narrator "Eilidh Beaton" in All Categories

Two weddings and a baby...but who will get their happy ever after? Emily Prescott’s life isn’t going to plan. Her dreams of starting a family with fireman boyfriend Greg and opening up her own bakery in London feel like they will never come true. So when a wedding invite arrives from her oldest friend, Beth Williams, Emily is thrilled. Not only will she get to return to her childhood home in Scotland, but best of all - Beth wants her to bake the wedding cake! However, her excitement is cut short when she discovers that Greg has cheated on her.

From the moment Fern Lucas arrived at its stunning shores, she knew Apple Hill Bay would forever be the place she calls home. Living in her little beach hut with her beloved dog Bones and her artist business on the verge of taking off, life couldn’t be more perfect. Or so Fern thinks....

Kate is sick of being taken for granted by her husband Vince. It’s bad enough that she allowed herself to be dragged away from the London life she loved, but now she’s constantly compelled to keep up with the (very smug) Joneses in this small home counties town. She hates it here. What happened to the fun-loving woman she used to be? At almost 50 Kate feels lost, overlooked and like nothing is ever going to change. That is, until she comes home to an unexpected party – one that she has to cater. And that’s it. The final straw. Breaking point.

June 1914. Edie Moore is a Governess for Lord and Lady Moreland, living comfortably at the grand Downland House in Sussex. But, wanting more from life, she flees to Littlehampton, where she spent many idyllic childhood holidays. Desperate for work, Edie begins working as a chambermaid at the prestigious Beach Hotel, despite the menial tasks being a far cry from her previous job. But as she navigates her new life, friendships, and rivalries, she also grows closer to charming, cheerful porter, Charlie Cobbett, and finally finds the happiness she has been searching for.

1976: Peggy Hillcoat is eight. She spends her summer camping with her father, playing her beloved record of The Railway Children, and listening to her mother's grand piano, but her pretty life is about to change. Her survivalist father, who has been stockpiling provisions for the end, which is surely coming soon, takes her from London to a cabin in a remote European forest. There he tells Peggy the rest of the world has disappeared.

Naomi thought she had it all figured out: a gorgeous husband, adorable twins and a monthly cocktail catch-up with her three best friends. But when Zara, the fifth member of their once inseparable Girlfriends’ Club, resurfaces with a bombshell secret, Naomi's carefully balanced life is turned upside down. As Zara’s revelations send shockwaves through the group, the once lively WhatsApp chat falls silent and Naomi finds herself sitting at home instead of sipping margaritas with the women who know her best, confronting the cracks in her marriage and the truth about her past.

Hetty Affleck is working as a maid at the prestigious Beach Hotel in Littlehampton. Her beau, Lorcan, is away at war and has recently stopped replying to her letters but she is determined to keep her spirits up. When she meets wealthy shipbuilder's son Victor Perryman, they pass the time of day and they both feel a connection but she can't allow herself to think anything more of it - not only does she have Lorcan to think of, but she and Victor are divided by wealth and class.

Charged with drama and beauty, this memorable collection by a master storyteller weaves a magical world of possibility and power from female myths of physical renewal, creation and change. It is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, Sharon Blackie brings to life women's remarkable ability to transform themselves in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances.

At the bottom of a great stone staircase, dressed in her mother's black lace evening dress, twisted in murderous death, lies Janet. So end the 16 years of Janet's short life. A life spent in a draughty Scottish castle, where roses will not grow, and a jackdaw decides to live in the doll's house. A life peopled by prettier, smoother-haired siblings, a Nanny with a face like the North Sea and the peculiar, whisky-swigging Cousin Lila. A life where Janet is perpetually misunderstood - and must turn from people, to animals, to books, to her own wild and wonderful imagination.

Ria's Christmas wish list: A secluded inn, beautiful decorations, lots of snow and a man who could change her life forever. After a messy breakup, interior designer Ria Porter has been dedicated to her job. Now one of the best in the business, she's been hired to work on a beautiful inn in the snow-covered mountains of New Hampshire. A career-making opportunity she couldn't refuse, Ria's determined to make it her finest work. Ria has a decision to make: keep her focus on her work or she can allow herself to dream, letting this place open up a future she never thought possible.

Our dashing heroine, a famous revue artist, takes to the slopes with her coterie of admirers. Champagne flows and wherever Miriam goes she leaves a trail of gossip in her wake. Fellow ski-resort guests include the celebrated Russian ex-ballerina Natasha Nevkorina, whose beauty is matched only by her languor, Natasha's burly husband, nightclub owner Johnny DuVivien, and the wealthy Flahertés, a family that has made its money importing scents: handsome playboy Barney, his wife, Regan, their two obnoxious children and the governess Rosalie.

It’s been a long time since the Hardwicke family left their home in Midtown, Essex, to go on holiday. But thirteen-year-old Galen has wanted to see the wild dolphins in Scotland’s Chanonry Point for as long as she can remember, and her mother Christine – a lone parent since her beloved husband Charlie left - is determined she gets her wish. When DC Saul Anguish is called to the scene of a shooting at the home of an ex-police officer in Midtown, he quickly discovers that this is the first of a trail of killings by a damaged young couple.

When Emma and Aidan decide to expand The Guesthouse at Lobster Bay by merging their two homes, Emma feels certain it's the project she needs to develop her flourishing retreat. Emma has three months to complete the project before her guests arrive for a sumptuous Christmas in Lobster Bay, but as soon as the work begins, Emma's dream of expansion begins to fall apart.

Anna moves to Crovie, a tiny fishing village on the Moray Firth, for a fresh start. But when she arrives, she realises her new home is really no more than a shed, and the village itself sits beneath a cliff right on the edge of the sea, in constant danger of storms and landslides. Has she made a terrible mistake? Yet as she begins to learn about the Scottish coast and its people, something she thought she’d lost reawakens in her.

Putting his player ways behind him, Jasper Dane is now strictly a one-woman man. Jasper, desperate to start a family with his wife, Abby, is devastated when she puts their baby plans on hold. Holly has just arrived back in town for the summer, and after landing a job with Jasper, the two form an unlikely friendship. Abby’s immediate dislike of Holly and Jasper spending time together causes him to question his wife’s fidelity.

Moving to Prospect Close has been everything I’d hoped for. In the city, Oliver and I barely saw each other, irritable at home and rushing around after the kids. But here, the neighbors have been so friendly and welcoming, and we’re now at barbeques and playdates every weekend, all together, as a family. It’s the type of life I always dreamed of. One that’s a million miles from...before. Not that Oliver would know anything about that.

When Hattie is made redundant and evicted from her flat in one horrible week, she needs time to rethink. Uncle Albert left her and her father each half of Fisherman's Rest, his home in the Cornish town of Port Medden, so this seems the perfect place to escape to until she can figure things out. As Hattie stays in the cottage, clearing it out, tidying it up and getting it ready to sell, she starts to find her feet in Port Medden and making a new home here begins to feel right.

One summer’s day seventeen years ago Edie and Joel meet. Their connection is instant and a friendship is born, although Edie can’t help but wish for more. But just as she builds up the courage to lay her heart on the line, one night changes everything… Edie’s moved on from the heartbreak of years ago. So the last thing she expects to receive on her thirty-fifth birthday is an email… from her eighteen-year-old self. As more emails arrive, she starts to remember what–or rather who–she left behind.

In The Silo Effect, award-winning journalist Gillian Tett examines the structural development of institutions such as UBS, Sony and the Bank of England. While the world is increasingly interlinked in some senses, it remains profoundly fragmented in others. As organisations become larger and more global than ever before, they are apt to be divided and subdivided into numerous different departments to facilitate productivity. However, there is a trap to the inevitability of these silos.

The last surviving city of the fae is about to fall, and only one person can save it. The Mirrors are decimated. Travel to and from the human world is at a standstill. Ænathlin teeters on the brink of destruction. It falls to Julia, the Head of the dreaded Redaction Department, to stand between order and chaos. As the baking heat of summer dries Ænathlin to a crisp, a cascade - an irreversible collapse - is predicted to occur before year's end. Food and supplies are running out, and support for the anti-fairy group Ænathlin Again is growing.