Showing results by narrator "Hannah Curtis" in All Categories

Thirty-three years ago two little girls disappeared from a notorious run-down neighborhood in south London. One was found dead within a few days; the body of the other was never discovered. Today, the man convicted of murder three decades ago is back on the streets, and another girl vanishes. Hard-nosed investigative journalist Angela Tate reported on the old case and is back to cover the new story, determined to persuade the mother of the missing girl, Trisha Collins, to reveal a secret she’s been keeping about the original killing. But Trisha is terrified and refuses to talk.

Lucy Duff Gordon knows she is talented. She sees color, light, and texture in ways few people can begin to imagine. But is the male dominated world of haute couture, who would use her art for their own gain, ready for her? When she is deserted by her wealthy husband, Lucy is left penniless with an aging mother and her five-year-old daughter to support. Desperate to survive, Lucy turns to her one true talent to make a living. A

Washed-up author Rufus Orton needs money. It's the main reason he takes the gig teaching creative writing to inmates at HMP Holderness - that, and the flattery of Prison Officer Annabeth Harris, who contacted him out of the blue and begged him to take the job. HMP resident Griffin Cox has no black marks against his name. He claims he's been wrongly convicted of the sex offense that put him in prison, but he's lying. He has a plan - and everything hinges on him securing a place in the classroom with Rufus and Annabeth.

Annja Creed is in London on a secret archaeological dig on the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. The body of a decapitated medieval woman is unearthed. Annja helps to determine her cause of death and identify her. Who murdered her and why was she silenced? The grisly discovery leads Annja and Roux Dupree to a secret society of knights as they uncover a royal conspiracy. In the 1500s, King Henry VIII had two of his wives arrested and beheaded. Is this new body connected to the dead queens?

When Indian Princess Alexandrina is left penniless by the sudden death of her father, the Maharaja of Brindor, Queen Victoria grants her a grace-and-favor home in Hampton Court Palace. Though rumored to be haunted, Alexandrina and her lady's maid, Pooki, have no choice but to take the Queen up on her offer. Aside from the ghost sightings, Hampton Court doesn't seem so bad. The princess is soon befriended by three eccentric widows who invite her to a picnic with all the palace's inhabitants, for which Pooki bakes a pigeon pie. But General-Major Bagshot dies after eating said pie....

In her second collection from Trepidatio Publishing, award-winning author Gemma Files takes her listeners on journeys out beyond safe borders—from the trackless depths of the sea, to the empty desert frontiers of the Weird West, even to the edges of cracks between worlds. Here, in these narrow spaces between the known and the unknown, behind the paper-thin curtains of reality, lurk monsters both human and ancient: selkies and avenging revenants, voodoo priestesses and pirate sorcerers, ghosts and vampires, and the most famous murderer of all time.

After a mysterious fire at their home in Regency London displaces Gentlewitch Edith Rookwood and her now much-reduced family to their ancestral seat of Netherford Hall in Kent, she faces a new threat in the form of her tenant—the chaotic and lovely Poppy Brightwell. The repairs on the old pile are prohibitive, Edith's standing is uncertain, and her inheritance has been challenged by a forgotten American branch of the family. It is clear she needs to marry, soon and wisely—but the lively girl from Harrow House gradually comes to occupy all of her thoughts.

Verity finds out her mother is secretly dating a man she met online. After five long years of widowhood, Eleanor is finally happy—and back to her old self. Verity thinks he's after her money and her smart Cirencester townhouse. Her mother thinks that Verity just can't let her move on.

The two oldest Dashwood sisters approach romance differently. One impulsively jumps into love while the other is far more prudent. When tragedy strikes they find themselves searching for suitable husbands. Elinor feels ill-equipped to compete with the self-centred, fortune-driven society she finds herself in, whilst Marianne's unshakeable belief in her own feelings makes her susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men. Can they find true love?

German power is rising again, threatening a war that will be even worse than the last one. The English aristocracy turns to an age-old institution to stave off war and strengthen political bonds—marriage. Debutantes flock to Germany, including Viviane Alden. On holiday with her sister during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Viviane’s true purpose is more clandestine.

My husband’s dead. They say my best friend did it. I can’t believe it. Not Lisa. There’s no way she could have done something so terrible. I look around at her shaken family, her two devastated children and her shocked husband, as they watch the most important woman in their lives being arrested for murder… I always thought Lisa was the perfect wife and mother. We’ve been best friends ever since I moved to Dragonfly Close. But then I remember the day I saw her at the coffee shop with Russell.

The Clarke family—Penny, Rod and their two young boys—are delighted when they are offered a holiday in a high-end guest house on a remote and beautiful island. Their hostess Anna seems like a lovely woman. But what the Clarkes don’t realise is that this is no random invitation, that Anna has carefully selected the family to satisfy her own sinister agenda. Penny soon begins to sense there’s something off about Anna. She often speaks about her husband and son, but is it odd that they are both away? And that Anna seems perfectly content to be alone in this isolated place?

A stunning debut novel from the Northern Irish poet Eoghan Walls, The Gospel of Orla is the coming-of-age story of a young girl, Orla, and the man she meets who has an astonishing and unique ability.

Madly in love, Diana Foyle and Brent Somerville married in London as the bombs of World War II dropped on their beloved city. Without time for a honeymoon, the couple spent the next four years apart. Diana, an architectural historian, took a top-secret intelligence post at Bletchley Park. Brent, a professor of theology at King's College, believed his wife was working for the Foreign Office as a translator when he was injured in an attack on the European front.

It’s 1830s England, and Culinarians—doyens who consult with society’s elite to create gorgeous food and confections—are the crème de la crème of high society. Helena Higgins, top of her class at the Royal Academy, has a sharp demeanor and an even sharper palate—and knows stardom awaits her if she can produce greatness in her final year. Penelope Pickering is going to prove the value of non-European cuisine to all of England. Her contemporaries may scorn her Filipina heritage and her dishes, but with her flawless social graces and culinary talents, Penelope is set to prove them wrong.

London, 1952: Forty-six-year-old Elizabeth Dalloway feels she has failed at most everything in life, especially living up to her mother, the elegant Mrs. Dalloway, an ideal socialite and model of perfection until she disappeared in the summer of 1923—and hasn’t been heard from since. When Elizabeth is handed a medal with a mysterious inscription from her mother to a soldier named Septimus Warren Smith, she’s certain it contains a clue from the past.

Eleanor did not come to London to be proper and boring. After the death of her husband and a year of mourning, the seventeen-year-old wants nothing more than her independence and to have a little fun. She’s hardly looking to remarry, despite pressures from her late husband’s nephew, who is keen on obtaining her inheritance. Eleanor quickly devises a plan that includes a fake engagement. What’s not a part of the plan? Falling for a dashing, quiet man outside of her social circle—a man who is not her betrothed. Can she survive the Season with her heart and her fortune intact?