Showing results by narrator "Rosie Akerman" in All Categories

After the death of his wife, Jack is starting to get his life back on track. But things are about to get complicated. A woman lies in a hospital bed, clinging to life after being shot in the head. She claims to remember nothing, not even her own name. Who is she? That is the question Jack must answer. All he has to go on is a mysterious facial tattoo.

Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete with her father and the other Professors. Outside, where the land is thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live the Barbarians, who raid and pillage in order to survive. Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilised world but, fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape. There, beyond the wire fences, she will discover a decaying paradise, encounter the tattooed Barbarian boy Jewel and go beyond the darkest limits of her imagination.

When Natalie snoops through her boyfriend's possessions, she finds more than she bargained for - Mark was once convicted of a brutal killing. However, he was not the only person sentenced for the murder of two-year-old Abby Morgan. The violent and twisted Adam Campbell was also convicted...and Mark knows more about the murder than he will admit. Can Mark ever break free from Adam and his past?

Bath, England, 1890. Mystery author Lady Amy Lovell receives an anonymous letter containing shocking news: her fiancé, Mr. Ronald St. Vincent, has been dabbling in something illegal, which causes her to promptly break their engagement. Two evenings later, as Lady Amy awaits a visit from Lord William Wethington, fellow member of the Bath Mystery Book Club, her former fiancé makes an unexpected and most unwelcome appearance at her house.

Lady Jane Everard cannot abide the new earl of Hadley. The unmannered Scot is a menace to genteel ladies everywhere, what with his booming laugh and swishing kilt and endless supply of “ochs” and “ayes”. Jane wishes Lord Hadley would behave as an earl should and adhere to English rules of polite conduct.

Ewan Campbell fought to free himself from his past - quite literally. A former prizefighter, he now earns his living as an artist. But he still fights more figurative opponents: dark memories that threaten to overwhelm him. Worse, when he is hired to assist a famous painter, he finds himself falling for the man’s highborn niece, Lady Kildrum. Such feelings are pointless. Countesses do not fall in love with impoverished Highlanders, no matter what fairy tales say.

Lord Rafe Gilbert longs for freedom - freedom from his controlling father, freedom to live his life as he chooses. He knows playing the rake keeps his autocratic father in check, but Rafe longs to determine his own destiny. Case in point, he fell in love with Lady Sophie years ago, but his father’s threats and his mother’s health prevent him from pursuing Lady Sophie in earnest. So when Fate thrusts Sophie into his path, Rafe knows he must turn her away and distance himself. But doing the right thing has never been so impossibly difficult.

Belle Moriarty was there one moment and gone the next. Ten years ago, she disappeared walking home from school, under the supervision of her older sister, Eve. Eve has never recovered from the guilt of turning her back on her. But then Eve receives a phone call that changes everything. Belle has been found - alive. But who took her? Why did they keep her alive all these years? And now that Belle has escaped, will they try to silence her for good? With Belle in a coma and Eve receiving increasingly terrifying threats, she must discover the kidnapper's identity before they return.

Jack has it all - a beautiful wife and daughter, a home, a career. Then his wife, Rebecca, plunges to her death from the Sussex coast cliffs. Was it an accident, or did she jump? He moves to Manchester with his daughter to start afresh...but things don’t go as planned. He didn’t think life could get any worse.... Then, Jack sees a woman in a window who is the image of Rebecca. Attraction turns into obsession as he returns to the window night after night. But he isn’t the only one watching her.... Jack is about to be drawn into a deadly game.

A female thief, with four husbands, a lover, and, reportedly, over 12 children, is arrested and tried for the murder of her stepson in 1872, turning the small village of West Auckland in County Durham upside down. Other bodies are exhumed, and when they are found to contain arsenic, she is suspected of their murder as well. The perpetrator, Mary Ann Cotton, was tried and found guilty and later hanged on 24 March 1873 in Durham Gaol. It is claimed she murdered over 20 people and was the first female serial killer in England.

The Real Beatrix Potter is a fascinating and revealing biography of one of the world's most cherished children's authors. Beatrix Potter's famous little white books have enchanted generations of young admirers who adored the characters she created and, of course, her own distinctive illustrations.

With Christmas approaching, the Brogan family of London's East End are braving the horrors of the Blitz. With the men away fighting for King and Country and the ever-present dangers of the German Luftwaffe's nightly reign of death and destruction, the family must do all they can to keep a stiff upper lip. For Jo, the youngest of the Brogan sisters, the perils of war also offer a newfound freedom. Jo falls in love with Tommy, a man known for his dangerous reputation as much as his charm.

When Hattie Brown is tricked back to Somewhere-Nowhere, she’s walked into a trap. There’s a drought in the realm and Lord Mortimer, its brutal leader, wants to capture her and her friend Arthur because he knows they can make rain. But Hattie isn’t about to go home. She’s discovered that Lord Mortimer has thrown her friend Victor into prison for his part in helping her and Arthur free an army of kidnapped children, and she’s determined to rescue him.

The Duke of Azureford isn’t the arrogant, aloof lord his peers perceive him to be. Yes, he’s awkward, but he has a plan to fix it. In order to woo a respectable lady, he must learn how to flirt. The completely inappropriate girl next door would make a perfect instructor, but a terrible duchess. So why can’t he walk away? Incorrigible hoyden Miss Carole Quincy likes fast carriages, carom billiards, and the beautiful, buttoned-up Duke of Azureford. She’d be delighted to help him out of his shell and into her arms. Who cares if they’re just pretending to flirt?

Single father and confirmed bachelor Jack Skeffington is the mastermind behind an international smuggling ring, yet unable to control his rambunctious ten-year-old twins. What he needs is a stern, experienced, no-nonsense governess. What he gets is his business partner’s untouchable sister, whose delectable body Jack yearns to pull close. Mademoiselle Désirée le Duc cannot wait to return to France and regain her lost vineyard. But to do so, she must repay crippling debt. Determined to buy freedom, she accepts temporary employment from an Englishman with a wicked smile and a big… wine cellar.

Unpaid and under-appreciated journalist Miss Eve Shelling never goes anywhere without a trusty notebook and her overprotective Duenna—who happens to be a bullmastiff. Eve learned the hard way that men are not to be trusted. She’s definitely not falling head-over-heels for the deceptively charming subject of her front-page column.

Poppy’s life has never been easy. Becoming a mom at sixteen, falling out with her family, and being abandoned by her boyfriend has left her feeling lost and alone, but her son is a ray of light in her life, and the pair form a strong bond: it’s the two of them against the world. Many years later, with her son grown up and away at university, Poppy arrives desperate, exhausted, and half-starved to a pretty doorstep, hoping to find sanctuary in the home of her old school friend Harriet—and it is clear things have gone horribly wrong.

When Edgar dies in a Far East prisoner-of-war camp, it breaks the heart of fellow prisoner Starling, the man who loved him. When he visits Edgar’s family after the war, Edgar's mother, Clementine, mistakes him for another man, and he fails to correct the mistake. Playing the role of someone else and being in Edgar’s home with those who loved him stirs powerful and disorientating emotions in Starling. Edgar’s loss has driven his sister, Aida, to seek solace in the arms of a series of men–but the meeting with Starling sparks a powerful and complex connection.

This year, the Duke of Nottingvale's Christmastide house party doubles as a bride hunt. The handsome duke seeks a blue-blooded debutante as respectable as he is, and his parlor is brimming with paragons of propriety. Inveterate spinster and unapologetic hoyden Miss Cynthia Louise Finch does not fit the mold. Any mold. Her younger cousin is perfect for the duke! By matchmaking the two, Cynthia will save her favorite cousin from a horrific fate. The only problem? Cynthia has always held a tendre for the duke. And for the first time, she seems to have caught his attention.

In the shadowy streets of Hull, Paige Carrigan forges a new life, haunted by a past that refuses to stay buried. Orphaned and once entrapped by an abusive ex, but now eerily close to freedom, she finds solace in her writing and in a local group filled with secrets of their own. As Paige’s first proofreading client draws her into an enthralling yet unsettling romance, a sinister text shatters her fragile peace: You can run but you can’t hide. With every new chapter she writes, the line between fiction and reality blurs, exposing a web of deceit spun by those she trusts most.