Showing results by author "Sarah Lovett" in All Categories

In the sleepy village of Cookingdean, Dr Nell Ward is busy working in the grounds of a local manor house. Whilst inspecting an old tunnel, she did not expect to overhear a murder. As the only person with any clues as to what happened, Nell soon finds herself in the middle of the investigation. Desperate to clear her name Nell, along with her colleague Adam, set out solving the murder using their skills as ecologists to uncover details no one else would notice. But it soon becomes clear that playing Agatha Christie is much harder than it might, at first appear.

Dr Nell Ward is in the lush, emerald hills of Ireland, to attend the wedding of two dear friends at a picture-perfect farmhouse. But family tensions are running high in the days before the happy couple tie the knot. And when Nell sees a fox kill a hare in the early morning light, it sends shivers down her spine. Almost like it is a sign of something to come... Then one of the locals makes a gruesome discovery in a nearby peat bog. Famous for the ancient bodies these habitats preserve, what has been found instead is a woman who died much more recently...

The dawning twentieth century brings change to New Zealand - and new opportunities for any woman bold enough to grasp them. Atamarie Turei, whose mother fought for suffrage, has enrolled as the first female student at the Canterbury College of Engineering. On a surveying trip she meets Richard Pearse, who shares her passion for aviation. Being part Maori, part white, and thoroughly independent, Atamarie is soon vilified by Richard’s conservative farm community, forcing her to navigate the next step in a liberating life. 

 As the nineteenth century draws to a close, the struggle for women’s suffrage has finally reached New Zealand. But when the tide of change rolls in, it threatens to engulf two young women from very different backgrounds, who are coming of age amid the tumult. 

In mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, charming Kathleen and dashing Michael harbor secrets and dreams. Imagining a life beyond the kitchen and fields of the wealthy family they both work for, they plot to leave their homeland, marry, and raise the child Kathleen is secretly carrying. The luck of the Irish, however, is not on their side. Soon, they find themselves swept up in circumstances they never could have fathomed. Kathleen is forced to marry against her will and immigrate to New Zealand.

New Zealand, 1893: William Martyn is better educated and more cultivated than the other men breaking their backs searching for gold near Queenstown. William is the son of landed Irish nobility, and he comes to town ready to invest in the best equipment. On his search for supplies, he encounters spirited and beautiful young Elaine O’Keefe, who promptly falls in love with him.

Hardworking London governess Helen Davenport longs for a family of her own but knows the prospect of finding a suitable husband grows dimmer each year. Then she spots an advertisement seeking wives for the churchgoing bachelors of colonial New Zealand and begins an affectionate correspondence with a gentleman farmer.Meanwhile, not far away in Wales, society life bores Gwyneira Silkham, beautiful, daring daughter of a wealthy sheep breeder.

The great-granddaughter of Gwyneira McKenzie - who arrived in New Zealand as a naïve young bride in In the Land of the Long White Cloud - Gloria Martyn has enjoyed an idyllic childhood at Kiward Station, her family’s sprawling sheep farm in the Canterbury Plains. When her parents send word from Europe that it’s time for Gloria to become a proper “lady” by attending boarding school half a world away in England, Gloria must leave everything and everyone she loves most in the world, including her steadfast protector Jack McKenzie.

In the chaos of World War II, Polish teenagers Helena and Luzyna Grabowski have lost everything. Without parents or a home, they are shipped to a refugee camp in Persia, where the days ahead hold only darkness. When they hear that orphans are being selected for relocation to New Zealand, Helena is filled with hope - until the officials say they have a place only for her younger sister. On the morning she is to be transported, Luzyna fails to join the chosen group, and Helena takes her place.

When Dr Nell Ward stumbles across a woman's body amongst the purple heather on Furze Heath, she was on the lookout for nests of poisonous adders. But something is lurking out here far more dangerous than vipers. A cold-blooded killer is on the loose and this is not his first victim. As DI James Clark begins to investigate, a pattern emerges pointing towards this being the work of a serial killer. Every victim shares the same physical characteristics - all of which are a match to Nell herself.

Dr Nell Ward is delighted when her childhood friend Percy announces she's engaged to handsome businessman Hawke McAnstruther - and rashly offers to host the wedding at Finchmere, her family's estate. But she hadn't anticipated Percy's parents' fiery disapproval of the groom. The ceremony is barely over before Hawke's shady personal and professional life starts to unravel, and tension ripples through the assembled guests.

Covert CIA ops officer Vanessa Pierson is finally close to capturing the world's most dangerous international nuclear arms dealer: Bhoot, alias the ghost. One of her assets has information about Bhoot's upcoming visit to a secret underground nuclear weapons facility in Iran - in only a few days. But just as Pierson's informant is about to give her the location, they're ambushed by an expert sniper. Pierson narrowly escapes. Her asset: dead. Desperate to capture Bhoot and the sniper before they inflict more damage, Pierson enlists all of the Agency's resources to find them.

Back in her natural habitat, Dr Nell Ward heads to a woodland pond to survey local newt populations. She's shocked to discover a car submerged in the water - with the driver dead behind the wheel. Nell recognises the dead man as professional racing driver, and tabloid love rat, Jack Rafferty, whose performance on (and off) Finchmere's racetrack had earned him enemies. Suspecting this isn't the tragic accident it appears DI James Clark calls upon Nell and her ecological skills to help find the murderer.