Showing results by narrator "Katie Scarfe" in All Categories

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.

How many lifetimes would you travel to find a love that lasts for ever? When single career girl Jo-Jo steps onto a zebra crossing and gets hit by a car, she awakes to find herself in 1963. The fashion, the music, her job, even her romantic life: everything is different. And then it happens three more times, and Jo-Jo finds herself living a completely new life in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The only people she can rely on are Harry and Ellie, two companions from 2013, and George, the owner of a second-hand record store.

May Day 1646: The Civil War is raging and what should be a rare moment of blessing for the town of Ely takes a brutal turn. Ruth Flowers is left with little choice but to flee the household of Oliver Cromwell, the only home she has ever known. On the road to London, Ruth sparks an uneasy alliance with a soldier, the battle-scarred and troubled Joseph. But when she reaches the city, it's in the Poole household that she finds refuge.

Eleanor of Aquitaine's story is legendary. She is an icon who has fascinated readers for over 800 years. But the real Eleanor remains elusive - until now. Based on the most up-to-date research, best-selling novelist Elizabeth Chadwick brings Eleanor's magnificent story to life, as never before. Young, vibrant, privileged, Eleanor's future is golden as the heiress to wealthy Aquitaine. But when her beloved father dies suddenly in the summer of 1137, her childhood ends abruptly.

Inspired by the work of Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill and set in a crumbling country mansion, The Silent Companions is an unsettling Victorian gothic ghost story that will send a shiver down the spine.... Newly married, newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband's crumbling country estate, The Bridge. With her new servants resentful and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie only has her husband's awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks.

In London, the snow is falling and Christmas is just around the corner - but Allegra Fisher barely has time to notice. She's pitching for the biggest deal of her career and can't afford to fail. And when she meets attractive stranger Sam Kemp on the plane to the meeting, she can't afford to lose her focus either. She learned to shut off her emotions long ago and only her sister and best friend Isobel knows why. But when Allegra finds herself up against Sam for the bid, their passion quickly turns sour.

Last winter she had a plan. Lucy fell in love with tumbledown Rosemary Cottage as a child. So 30 years on, when she loses her city job and discovers the cottage is for sale, it feels like fate. She'll raise her children in Burley Bridge and transform the cottage into a B&B with her husband. But a year can change everything.... Now Lucy is juggling two children and a B&B, but on her own. Christmas looks set to be their last on Rosemary Lane until she meets James, a face from her past and someone who might offer a different kind of future.

Growing up in a quiet Yorkshire village, Roxanne couldn't wait to escape and find her place in the world in London. As a high-powered fashion editor, she lives a glamorous life of perennial singlehood - or so it seems to her sister, Della. But when Roxanne gets her heart broken by a fashion photographer, she runs away, back to Della's welcoming home above her bookshop in Burley Bridge. But Burley Bridge, Roxanne discovers, is even quieter than she remembered.

Adele touches the hearts of millions of people who love her for her music and share the real and honest emotion she brings to each and every song. In Adele, best-selling biographer Sean Smith talks to those close to her as he follows her astonishing journey to fame that began on the gritty streets of Tottenham. Through compelling new research and interviews, he reveals that there is far more to Adele than the superstar we all think we know.

A crown can be won; blood cannot be changed. The Conqueror's Queen is the third title in Joanna Courtney's sweeping historical series, The Queens of Conquest. William of Normandy is a rough man, but what more can you expect of an illegitimate son trying to muscle his way into a dukedom? After a violent start to their courtship, Mathilda of Flanders discovers William to be a man of unexpected sensitivity.

Lady Bette, the 14-year-old heiress to the vast Northumberland estates, becomes the victim of a plot by her grandmother, the Countess Howard, to marry her to the dissident fortune-hunter Thomas Thynn, a man three times her age with an evil reputation. Revolted by her new husband, Lady Bette flees to Holland. Within weeks, Thynn is gunned down in the street by three hired assassins. Who is behind the contract killing? Is it the Swedish Count Coningsmark, young and glamorous with blond hair down to his waist?

Ex-lawyer Noah has never forgotten his first love. When, years later, he hears that she's suspected of murder, he knows with certainty that she's innocent. With April on life support and the evidence pointing towards her guilt, he's compelled to help her. But he's also unprepared as he's forced to confront what happened between them all those years ago. A secret she would never reveal.

In the far reaches of space, a tour group embarks on what will be the trip of a lifetime - in more ways than one.... At Sigma Station, a remote mining facility and luxury hotel in deep space, a group of tourists boards a small vessel to take in the stunning views of the Horsehead Nebula. But while they're out there, a mysterious ship with devastating advanced technology attacks the station. Their pilot's quick thinking means that the tourists escape with their lives - but as the dust settles, they realise they may be the only survivors....

When the body of a woman is found stabbed to death, the blame falls to her twin sister. But who killed who? And which one is now the woman behind bars? Zara and Miranda have always supported each other. But then Zara meets Seb, and everything changes. Handsome, charismatic and dangerous, Seb threatens to tear the sisters’ lives apart - but is he really the one to blame? Or are deeper resentments simmering beneath the surface that the sisters must face up to?

In the idyllic early summer of 1914, life is good for the de Witt family. German Rudolf and his aristocratic English wife, Verena, are planning the wedding of their daughter, Emmeline, while their elder son, Arthur, is studying in Paris, and Michael is just back from his first term at Cambridge. Celia, the youngest of the de Witt children, is on the brink of adulthood and secretly dreams of escaping her carefully mapped-out future and exploring the world.

When they were children, Megan adored her younger sister, Chloe. Now she can’t bear to be in the same room as her. Megan believes Chloe is a psychopath, and her sister does appear to be a textbook case: cold, cruel and lacking in empathy. Why does Chloe want to taunt Megan at every opportunity? And why does she persist in manipulating their mentally ill mother, Tilly? When Tilly, under Chloe’s malignant influence, becomes dangerously unstable, the consequences are ugly. Megan’s world falls apart.

Bo Luxton has it all - a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District and a clutch of best-selling books to her name. Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend. When they meet at a writers' retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops.... Or does it?

Forty-something Maggie is facing some hard truths. Her only child has flown the nest for university, and without her daughter in the house, she's realising her life, and her marriage to Dan, is more than a little stale. When she spots an announcement on Facebook about a uni reunion, she can't help wondering what happened to Jude Hanson. The same night Dan proposed, Jude asked Maggie to run away with him, and she starts to wonder how different her life might have been if she'd broken Dan's heart and taken Jude up on his offer.

Three women, once enemies. Their secrets will unite them. The First World War is over. The war-torn area of Flanders near Ypres is no longer home to troops but groups of tourists. Controversial battlefield tourism now brings hundreds of people to the area, all desperate to witness firsthand where their loved ones fell.

Absorbing and richly observed, The Restless Sea is a masterful story of the turbulent years of the Second World War. Three lives collide in a way that only the war makes possible.... Jack, a child of the Blitz, has fled the law to become a seaman in the Merchant Navy. The frozen world of the Russian Arctic convoys may be harsh, but it opens his eyes to a new life.