Showing results by narrator "Victoria Riley" in All Categories

In 1939, lonely and without prospects, Evie Fraser accepts a marriage proposal by post from a man she barely knows. Evie leaves her quiet English village for a new life on the exotic tropical island of Penang. Soon she finds herself pitched against her new husband on the one hand and the shallow spiteful world of the expatriate British on the other. Has she made a terrible life-changing mistake?

Evie Fraser, paid companion to a crotchety spinster, seems destined for a lonely life. Then, out of the blue, a marriage proposal arrives by post. She met the handsome Douglas Barrington just once - at his wedding - but never forgot him. Now widowed, plantation owner Douglas offers her a new life on the lush, exotic island of Penang. How can Evie resist?

CrossFit superstar Sam Briggs, a.k.a. ‘The Engine’, is a true hero in the sport. This is the story of how she got to the top and battled with everything she had to stay there. Despite the numerous setbacks and debilitating injuries that have plagued her in the years that followed, when most other athletes would have thrown in the towel, Sam has fought and continues to fight, to be the very best that she can be.

Eight-year-old Grace is last seen in a sweetshop. Her mother, Emma, is living a nightmare. But as her loved ones rally around her, cracks begin to emerge. What are the emails sent between her husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is there more to the disappearance of her daughter than meets the eye?

When heart-broken Sarah Quinn is left to care for her father and siblings when her mother dies, it’s hard to watch their loving dad, Fred, drift into drink and despair. With money tight, Sarah is determined to keep the family together. But they receive a shock when Fred Quinn announces he is to marry Mavis Swindel, the landlady of a boarding house on the edge of the moors. Mavis seems to offer the answer to the family’s problems, and soon they are all moving into her shabby lodgings. It quickly becomes clear that their stepmother has plans for her new family.

Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Barrington hates everything about living in Kenya and longs to return to the island of Penang in British colonial Malaya where she was born. Expulsion from her Nairobi convent school offers a welcome escape - the chance to stay with her parents’ friends, Mary and Reggie Hyde-Underwood, on their Penang rubber estate.

In the third romance anthology of The Quill Collective series, 16 celebrated Austenesque authors write the untold histories of Austen’s heroines, brave adventuresses, shy maidens, talkative spinsters, and naughty matrons. Rational Creatures is a collection of humorous, poignant, and engaging short stories set in Georgian England that complement and pay homage to Austen’s great works and great ladies who were, perhaps, the first feminists in an era that was not quite ready for feminism.

After Penang is attacked by the Japanese at the end of 1941, Mary Helston believes Singapore will be a safe haven. But within weeks, the supposedly invincible British stronghold is on the brink of collapse to the advancing enemy. Mary and her mother are captured at sea as they try to escape and are interned on the islands of Sumatra. Imprisoned with them is Veronica Leighton, the one person on the planet Mary has reason to loathe with a passion.

Livvy knows that her family's survival rests on her shoulders - with her parents gone, it falls to her to support her grandfather, Morris, and younger sister, Joan. Times are tough, largely due to the hardships of war, and Livvy knows that she will struggle to keep her family safe with the meagre pay most jobs would afford her. When US soldiers are stationed nearby, Livvy decides to take advantage of the opportunity to make some easy and, along with her best friend Vera, begins selling herself on the streets.

Alice is used to taking photographs for a living – not having intimate pictures of herself posted for all the world to see, thanks to a disgruntled ex-boyfriend. Now her clients are cancelling appointments, and she’s almost out of cash. What else could go wrong? Oh yeah, her roommate has scarpered, leaving Alice completely out of luck.

Kendall McKenzie has vowed never to get married. She’s seen too many people give up their dreams for love and is determined that’s never going to happen to her. Travelling the world teaching English, Kendall dreams of turning her jewellery-making hobby into a proper business one day. ‘No commitment’ is high-flying businessman Jake Newman’s motto. He’s never met anyone he wants to settle down with, and that’s the way he likes it. But when Kendall and Jake meet, sparks fly.

When Karin enters a high-ranked university to start her PhD she is brimming with hope and positively overflowing with grit determination to prove she is worthy. After all, she knows that only the extraordinarily learned and the astonishingly intelligent ever hold chairs and professorships. She knows researchers are idealists yearning to enrich the stock of human knowledge. She knows university is the apotheosis of civilised culture... She knows very little.

Miss Valencia Ravensdale was only supposed to observe the festivities at her aunt’s masquerade ball on New Year’s Eve, 1814, but when the handsome Colonel Robert Clayworth sees her holding up the walls, everything changes. Valencia finds herself falling in love with the Colonel, but he only has the one night in London before he has to rejoin his troops in France.