Showing results by narrator "Jan Cramer" in All Categories

Marina is a gentle soul who makes a modest living in her corner shop. Her husband died years ago, and her children have grown up. Life is pleasantly predictable, if a little dull. But not even her daughters know that 35 years ago Marina spent lonely months on a nearby island, and the events of that summer have haunted her ever since.

Since Coco Pinchard found first husband Daniel in bed with another woman, she hasn't just picked up the pieces: she's now a best-selling author married to her hunky soul-mate Adam. She feels stronger and wiser and surely the second time round she'll have learnt from her mistakes?

When Bartholomew Fair, London's largest public festival, is threatened in 1589 by 500 armed soldiers dismissed from service without pay, the authorities act swiftly and decisively to prevent trouble. Yet other trouble is brewing. Young physician and code-breaker Christoval Alvarez stumbles upon a sinister troupe of Italian puppeteers bent on making mischief, but it soon becomes apparent that more than mischief is in the air.

Cassandra stands silent upon a ravaged battlefield, watching as the druids prepare the dead for the pyres, embers drifting up into the still winter darkness. She can barely breathe through the agony of her grief, but she cannot waste another second on tears. Because Londinium, the Caesar, the empire…all of it is still out there. The empire whose code she had followed, whose prince she had promised to marry, whose schemes she had been swept up in since birth. They tried to use her magic against her. To silence her. So she will use her magic against them. To silence them. Forever.

In Elizabethan London, no child is safe. Children are misused and exploited by parents, masters, strangers, and society at large. Even the children of the rich are in danger. When a five-year-old heiress to great estates is kidnapped, Christoval Alvarez, the players of James Burbage's company, and a disreputable group of child beggars all become involved in the search. At Seething Lane, matters are approaching a crisis.

Summer 2018. Britain is basking in a rare heatwave. And Hazel and Dorothy Wilding are working together to clear their family farm high on the North Yorkshire moors. The sisters have been estranged for 42 years. And they’re not happy to be forced together now. Dorothy has always been a dutiful daughter. She’s a regular chapel-goer. She never married. And she’s stayed on the farm all her life, working in the family B & B. Hazel, is lesbian. She lives in London, where she runs her own business in partnership with her gay best friend Vinny.

It's 1985, and 18-year-old Coco Pinchard is home in London for Christmas after her first term at Aberystwyth University. She has started to write, and has fallen hopelessly in love with Daniel Pinchard, a devilishly handsome musician from the wrong side of the river. But Coco's overbearing mother has other plans and resumes her campaign for Coco to meet and marry the 'right sort of man', preferably Kenneth, son of her best friends Adrian and Yvonne Rosebury, who will be joining them for Christmas.

It's summer and renowned actress, Dame Pamela Harcourt, has organized a treat: the first Purley Hall Jane Austen holiday - to the home of Mr. Darcy no less. With Katherine and Warwick, Robyn, Doris Norris and the rest of the gang, it's going to be a trip to remember.

Ben Stratton and Bryony Nightingale. Everybody thought they’d be together forever. But when Ben leaves the small market town of Castle Clare to travel the world, Bryony is heartbroken, seeing his departure as the ultimate betrayal. Throwing herself into her work, Bryony is determined to forget Ben. Then, after six long years, the unexpected happens, and Ben returns, determined to win Bryony back.

It's December 1992, and children are going crazy for the Tracy Island toy - almost as crazy as the parents! Christmas day is fast approaching and Coco Pinchard is desperately trying to track one down for her four-year-old son Rosencrantz. Throw into the mix a horrible boss, a lazy husband, and the prospect of her in-laws arriving for the festivities, and Coco wishes she could cancel Christmas and sail off to a desert island somewhere - preferably with the gorgeous-yet-unattainable Tom from work.

Having grown up in rural Norfolk, author Victoria Connelly never thought she'd ever live in London. But after surviving 11 years in the noisy suburbs, she finally persuades her husband to move to Suffolk - to a county with no motorways, a village with no shops, and a cottage with no main drainage.

When Kit Alvarez returns from Muscovy, it is to discover that her post as physician at St. Thomas' hospital has been given to another. Trying to eke out the small income she earns from some of Dr. Nuñez's private patients, she undertakes paid work as a copyist with James Burbage's company. But the players' companies find themselves under threat. Two of Burbage's men are murdered. One of Henslowe's men is attacked. And two important new plays go missing, one by Will Shakespeare and one by Christopher Marlowe.

After the death of their father, sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood face financial ruin. At the mercy of their half brother, John, and his greedy wife, their only hope is to make a good match. But reduced circumstances make courtship difficult - especially after being turned out of their home. While responsible Elinor takes a practical approach to matters of the heart, Marianne throws herself in unreservedly. In Jane Austen’s first novel, two of literature’s most iconic characters discover that love demands a balance of passion and pragmatism.

After failing to escape the Roman metropolis of Londinium with Devyn, her lover, and Marcus, her betrothed, Cassandra wakes in inky darkness to find the ground giving way to sand beneath her feet. All three of them have been carted back to the notorious arena at the heart of the city to stand trial by public vote. Cass knows they must escape at any cost: to warn the Celts of the mysterious blood curse ravaging their kin, to foil the schemes of the imperial council....

Gina Gambino wants revenge. Her life has been turned upside down with the murder of her two hoodlum sons, but she knows who's done it. Her target is Don Francini, leader of one of the most powerful mafia families in Palermo. Using her brain and her body, Gina worms her way into his household, becoming first his housekeeper then his mistress, weaving a complicated web of poison and murder. It seems her plans are going well until one disastrous night.

Journalist Anna McCall has never understood people who collect things. So, when she's asked to interview local collector and eccentric, William Kitson, she isn't exactly looking forward to the experience. But she soon falls under the charm of Fox Hill Manor as well as its owner, even though she thinks there's something very strange about the collection there.

Gayle Hargreaves has never read a Brontë novel so, when a film crew descends on her small Yorkshire town and her life is thrown into disarray, she isn't impressed. And she's even less impressed when the handsome actor playing Mr. Rochester starts flirting with her. But she can handle it, can't she? After all, she just isn't the sort to fall for a man in period costume.

Which of the worlds was real? And where were the boundaries? As a child, Helen and her friend Rianna had wandered freely through Charnwood Forest into an enchanted otherworld of brightly-coloured creatures and strangely beautiful, charismatic people. Then Rianna moved away and the enchantment vanished. Now, fifteen years later, she has returned suddenly, secretive and haunted. And soon Helen finds herself drawn back across those half-forgotten, ever-shifting boundaries between reality and fable.

When a violent storm cuts off their only contact with the outside world, stranding them in the haunted manor, Tara and Kyle must find a way to protect themselves from their increasingly erratic grandparents… and from the ghosts that haunt the Folcrofts' house. All at once, they're forced to confront the secrets of the manor. But can they ever hope to escape the unforgivable secret that has ensnared their family for generations?

Emma Storey is 32, trying to balance her love life, friends, and work. She has been in a relationship with Chris for two years and is eagerly anticipating his proposal over a romantic meal. But the proposal doesn't go quite to plan, and Emma's world is flipped upside down.