Showing results by narrator "Mary Woodvine" in All Categories

In August of 1939, as Britain watches the headlines in fear of another devastating war with Germany, three childhood companions must choose between friendship and country. Erstwhile, socialite Nora is determined to find her place in the Home Office’s Air Raid Precautions Department, matchmaker Hazel tries to mask two closely guarded secrets with irrepressible optimism, and German expat Marie worries that she and her family might face imprisonment in an internment camp if war is declared. 

Everyone is hiding a secret. One of them is murder. The book club was her idea, of course. It was her way into our group. A chance to get close. I knew from the day she arrived that she couldn't be trusted. And I was right. Alice didn't come to the village for peace and quiet. She came for revenge. A deliciously addictive psychological thriller about a book club that unravels dark and scandalous secrets between one circle of neighbours. 

All Jamie Allenby ever wanted was space. Even though she wasn't forced to emigrate from Earth, she willingly left the overpopulated, claustrophobic planet. And when a long relationship devolved into silence and suffocating sadness, she found work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit. Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that's left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive.

Julia Thayne is a valued and loving wife, a successful mother and a beautiful woman. She is everything most other women strive to be. But beneath the surface is a terrible secret that threatens to tear her perfect world apart. Joshua is Julia's husband—a dynamic, devastatingly handsome man with great style, charisma and humour. He is utterly devoted to his wife and children, but as the ghosts of Julia's past begin to move into their marriage, he finds himself losing the struggle to keep them together. Then two telephone calls change everything.

Rose is moving. For her and her son, Noah, this is going to be a fresh start. She’s almost finished packing, but Noah is determined to spend one last night camping out in the garden like he used to. Rose agrees as long as he wraps up warm inside their small tent. Four hours later, she’s woken by a frantic banging on the window. It’s Noah. There’s someone in the garden.

Kate thinks all her wishes have come true when she opens her little craft shop down on the harbour in the pretty Cornish seaside town of St Felix. It's been her life-long dream to open her own shop, and now she's finally got the chance, she's loving selling her own quirky handmade textile designs to the many holidaymakers that flock into St Felix every year. But there's a mystery about Kate's shop - one that Jack, the owner of a new art store in town, wants to help Kate solve. A series of mysterious paintings and beautiful embroidered pictures hint at a love story over 60 years old.

Meteorologist Sky Matthews does not like surprises. Sky monitors her life like she does the weather, carefully and with a scientific eye. So, when she misses out on her dream job abroad and finds herself with no choice but to take a position on a tidal island off the Cornish harbour town of St Felix instead, she feels completely at sea. Worse still, she has to work alongside TV weatherman Sonny Stevens, who barely knows his storms from his tsunamis. 

Bridget has a secret - one she keeps from everyone, even her husband. One that threatens to explode when her childhood music teacher, Carmichael, walks into her dress shop. With him is a young girl on the cusp of adulthood, fresh-faced and pretty. She reminds Bridget of herself at that age, naive and vulnerable. Bridget wants him away - away from her, away from that girl. But Carmichael won’t leave her alone, won’t stop stalking her. And Bridget’s not a little girl anymore. When he pushes her too far, she snaps. 

They called them the Orchid Girls. Grace. Molly. Charlotte. One of them is in love. One of them is a liar. One of them is dead. On a jagged Dorset cliff, wind whipping their hair, waves crashing on the rocks below, three friends became two when Charlotte’s body was pulled out of the sea. Fifteen years later Grace and Molly are worlds apart. Grace has a glittering career and a loving husband. Molly is a lonely, unemployed alcoholic. Grace has everything to lose. Molly has nothing.

When Juno Browne finds a life-sized effigy floating in the River Ashburn, a note attached claims it as the work of Cutty Dyer, Ashburton’s mythical blood-drinking demon. But despite Juno’s instinct that this is a sign of trouble ahead, the police dismiss her find as a practical joke. Then the body of a woman is discovered by the river, and it becomes clear that a killer has taken on Cutty’s identity. As suspicion falls on someone close to her, Juno finds herself drawn into solving the mystery, desperate to prove her friend’s innocence.

On the day Juno Browne’s van goes up in flames and nearly cooks a dog, Juno meets James Westershall, owner of Moorworthy Chase, a large family estate. She is invited, along with her friends from Old Nick’s, to bring along their goods for sale to an upcoming garden fete. Included in the invitation is the newest and most irritating member of the Old Nick’s team, Gavin. During the fete, Gavin wanders off and is later discovered dead in nearby woods, apparently the victim of a bizarre accident.

Emily's instincts tell her that best friend Joanne's new boyfriend is bad news. Emily fears for Joanne. Fears for Joanne's children. But Joanne won't listen because she's in love. So Emily watches and waits...and then she makes a choice. But Emily has a past, and secrets, too. And is she really as good a friend to Joanne as she claims?

Everyone knows Melissa Silk and her two best friends: a walking poster for friendship and community. People might hate them if they weren't so infectiously likeable. But when tragedy strikes, Melissa can't move on. Everyone urges Melissa to let things go before obsession and paranoia pull her friendship group apart. But she knows that something isn't right. And she owes it to her friends to find out what it is. But what if learning the truth means losing everything she cherishes? Because friends don't lie. Or do they?   

Cracow, 1893. Thirty-eight-year-old Zofia Turbotyńska has assured her husband’s rise through the ranks to university professor and is now looking for something to fill her long days at home. To stave off the boredom and improve her social standing, she decides to organise a charity raffle. To recruit the requisite patronage of elderly aristocratic ladies, she visits Helcel House, a retirement home run by nuns.

Socialite Nora is determined to find her place in the Home Office's Air Raid Precautions Department while matchmaker Hazel tries to mask two closely guarded secrets with irrepressible optimism, and German expat Marie worries that she and her family might face imprisonment in an internment camp if war is declared. When Germany invades Poland and tensions on the home front rise, Marie is labelled an enemy alien, and the three friends find themselves fighting together to keep her free at any cost. 

Jamie Allenby wakes alone and realises her fever has broken. But could everyone she knows be dead? Months earlier Jamie had left her partner, Daniel, mourning the miscarriage of their baby. She'd just had to get away, so she took a job on a distant planet. Then the virus hit. Jamie survived as it swept through our far-flung colonies. Now she feels desperate and isolated, until she receives a garbled message from Earth. If someone from her past is still alive - perhaps Daniel - she knows she must find a way to return.

Rose Fell's friends think she's taking a big risk when she leaves the security of home and career to move to the beautiful but isolated village of Grosso, near Genoa. But after a year of emotional turmoil Rose no longer has any ties back home, and she relishes the challenges of a new start. Making a home, however, in the ravishing, haunted landscape of Italy's Riviera coast turns our to be lonelier than Rose had anticipated. And it is only when she is asked to write a profile on one of her reclusive neighbours, the once-glamorous film star Elvira Vitale, that Rose feels her new life is really beginning.

When a handsome but clearly delusional man named Dan bursts into Frida's office and insists that she is fated to save the world, she has him ejected faster than you can say 'prenup'. But a creepy meeting, a demon or three and one attempted kidnapping later, Frida is beginning to face the inconvenient truth: Dan is in fact The Oracle, the gods of Greek mythology are real and Frida herself appears to be everyone's only hope. The world is doomed.

Bridget's life is small and safe: she loves her husband and her son and works hard to keep her own business afloat. Then one day her world is changed forever. The music teacher who abused her walks into a shop with the teenager he's clearly grooming. Bridget is sent spiraling back into her past. Anthony begins to stalk Bridget, trying to ensure her silence - until suddenly she snaps. And now Bridget must find a way to deal with the aftermath of her actions....

Alone at Christmas, will she find somewhere to call home? No more than 18 years old, alone and heavily pregnant, Kathleen stumbles through the snow, desperate for somewhere to rest her weary head. As the Christmas bells chime around her, she glimpses a man through the haze before collapsing into his arms.