Showing results by narrator "Bea Holland" in All Categories

Vicky Lewis is a force to be reckoned with: not yet 30 and already Crew Manager in the London Fire Brigade, she's destined for great things. But when she enters a burning building to save a man's life and leaves it with catastrophic injuries, all that changes. She's shunted over to the Fire Investigation Unit, where she's forced to team up with cantankerous veteran Des Farmer, aka the Grouch.

Alex Parkinson is in love with his writing tutor, Siobhan. He has never loved anyone like this, but how can he convince Siobhan that they are meant to be together? So Alex stalks her on Facebook and finds out where she lives, buys her presents using her own credit card and sends her messages telling her exactly what he wants to do to her. He breaks into her house, reads her diary and secretly listens to her while she takes a bath. Isn't that what all lovers do?

Anna’s aunt has always warned her of the dangers of magic. Its twists. Its knots. Its deadly consequences. Now Anna counts down the days to the ceremony that will bind her magic forever. Until she meets Effie and Attis. They open her eyes to a London she never knew existed. A shop that sells memories. A secret library where the librarian feeds off words. A club where revellers lose themselves in a haze of spells. But as she is swept deeper into this world, Anna begins to wonder if her aunt was right all along.

From Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Kernick - the UK's answer to Harlan Coben - come two electrifying novellas and three gripping short stories published in book form for the very first time. Fans of David Baldacci, Stuart MacBride and Peter James will not be disappointed.

As the Battle of Britain rages, the Castle family are standing their ground at the heart of the community, running Castle's Café. German guns shell Dover and danger lurks around every corner, but despite this, Lily Castle is excited to be starting her nursing career at last. Lily is enjoying her life. She's a good nurse, has a group of friends at the hospital and there is romance on the horizon. That is until her world comes crashing down around her. When she tries to help an injured prisoner of war at the hospital, she ends up implicated in a crime.

All is not well at Castle's Café. Since the fatal shooting, customers have been staying away, and now Nellie finds herself in debt to the sinister Terence Carter. But when a deadly attack strikes close to home, these troubles pale into insignificance. Meanwhile, Jimmy Castle's relationship with family friend Reenie Turner has deepened, and in the aftermath of the attack that could so easily have killed them, they decide to get married. But the return of an old friend threatens to expose a long-held secret, leaving the wedding teetering on the brink of disaster.

The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, living in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items. A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destroy Clod's world.

Librarian Thea Rush was looking forward to exploring the beautiful Cornish town of Port Karadow with her best friend. But when she is dumped for a better offer, Thea isn’t sure if she can survive the three-week holiday on her own. Her holiday doesn’t get off to the best start when she arrives at her rented cottage to discover a noisy building site next door, and a grumpy (and handsome!) builder, Ben, in charge. When a series of mishaps and misunderstandings throw Thea and Ben together, she discovers there is more to him—and to the town—than she thought.

All Meredith Verran has ever wanted is to escape the holiday season without having to wear a Christmas jumper. Her new job at the cosy gift shop in a picturesque Cornish tourist spot is making it impossible for her to maintain her Scrooge-like manner. With their seasonal hampers on everyone’s wish list, Meredith must paste on a smile and fake some holiday cheer. Then she meets handsome new arrival, Finn, who wishes it could be Christmas every day and wants her to feel the same way, too. Can she embrace the holly and the ivy before the decorations are packed away for another year?

Sally never meant to cave her husband's head in with a skillet. Or at least she didn't until suddenly, she did. But Sally isn't the only woman in town being pushed to breaking point. When coincidence brings four strangers together, a surprising solidarity is formed. So can they find the best way to bury their husbands - and get away with it?

Louise has had to watch her husband, Andrew, start a new family in the four years since he left her. The ‘other woman’ is now his wife - but Louise isn’t ready to let Caz enjoy the life that was once hers or to let go of the man she still loves. As Louise starts to dig into Caz’s past, the two women’s pretence of civility starts to slip. But in trying to undermine each other, they discover more about the man they both married. And when Andrew is murdered at a family party, both women are found standing over the body. It’s always the wife. But which one?

Cynthia and Alex have always been like sisters. Living and working for years on Cynthia's mother's sprawling farm, they've raised their families together. It was the perfect life until the fateful night that Alex finds Hannah, one of Cynthia's eighteen-year-old twins, inexplicably murdered in her own home. Soon Alex's life is spiralling out of control as she questions everything she knows and everyone she trusted. And when local detective, Stefani Warner starts investigating Hannah's murder, one prime suspect quickly rises to the fore: Daniel, Alex's nineteen-year-old son.

Exploring the dichotomy between one's inner and outer self is central to Behind Her Eyes. When a vulnerable woman is drawn into the lives of an enigmatic couple, she finds it hard to differentiate between reality and what truly lies beneath a seemingly perfect exterior.

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother - who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community - she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life. When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep. Then Lucy goes missing.

In a crumbling old mansion in the English countryside, 11 people gather, each one famous in their field. They have been invited for a three-day house party, to celebrate the launch of a groundbreaking virtual reality game that promises to unite the worlds of technology, politics and the environment. DCI Marten Jansen has been summoned to join the house party. His instructions are to offer police protection in case of an outside attack. Instead, he finds simmering tensions, long-buried secrets - and a murderer in their midst.

The characters in Samanta Schweblin's wildly imaginative new novel, Little Eyes, reveal the beauty of connection between far-flung souls but they also expose the ugly truth of our increasingly linked world. Trusting strangers can lead to unexpected love, playful encounters and marvellous adventures, but what if it can also pave the way for unimaginable terror? Schweblin has created a dark and complex world that is both familiar but also strangely unsettling, because it's our present and we're living it - we just don't know it yet.

A horrific car crash in Belize has devastated Helen Pengilly’s family, leaving her daughter in a coma and her husband Michael missing. Alone and terrified, Helen’s memory is dragged back to that day 22 years ago. To protect their family, Helen and Michael both said they would forget what happened. But now it seems that there is someone who will stop at nothing to make them remember....

Hannah Swan is looking forward to Christmas for the first time in years. Her new job as an eco-consultant is taking her - and her geeky colleague, Noah - to the beautiful Cornish village of Porthgolow for the first time. They’re are helping the Crystal Waters Hotel to ramp up its green credentials, though after a bumpy journey, Hannah can’t shake off the feeling that Porthgolow is strangely familiar. Never able to resist a mystery, her interest is piqued when the hotel’s staff and customers report odd noises and sightings, believing the hotel to be haunted.

Two suburban women. Two dark secrets. The almost perfect murder. Everybody needs good neighbours.... Melissa and Hester have lived next door to each other for years. When Melissa's daughter was younger, Hester was almost like a grandmother to her. But recently they haven't been so close. Hester has plans to change all that. It's obvious to her that despite Melissa's outwardly glamorous and successful life, she needs Hester's help.

Includes exclusive access and interviews with Prince Harry. Once a reckless rebel, now a respected role model, Prince Harry is one of the world's most popular royals and the force behind giving the British royal family a 21st-century makeover. How has he done it? Harry: Conversations with the Prince is a three-dimensional look at what Harry is really like, both on and off royal duty. It is written by distinguished journalist and author Angela Levin, who accompanied Prince Harry on many of his engagements and had exclusive access to him at Kensington Palace.