Showing results by narrator "Juanita McMahon" in All Categories

Life hasn’t always been kind to Emma, but now finally her life appears to be looking up. She and her childhood sweetheart, Seth Jago, are to marry. However, when Emma is haunted by mysterious circumstances surrounding her family, and Seth is hounded by a jealous ex-lover set on revenge, Seth plans for their escape to Canada. But Emma finds herself uncertain of whether a move to Canada is really what she wants…

Jen, Andrew, Lilah, Natalie and Dan were inseparable at university, but in the last seventeen years they have hardly seen each other. Until Jen invites them all to her house in the French Alps, where they once spent a golden summer before tragedy tore them apart. When a snowstorm descends, they find themselves trapped and forced to confront their unresolved issues and broken friendships. And Jen realises that perhaps some wounds can never be healed...

Fancy getting snowed in with your family over Christmas? No. Neither did the Thorne family. But that's what happens when, on Christmas Eve, the remote village where they've gathered together gets cut off by the worst winter storms of two hundred and fifty years. Temperatures plummet. Winds howl at ninety miles an hour. Snowdrifts pile high and freeze. Roads become impassable.

Jane Berry has always dreamed of moving to the country. When she uproots her family and takes them to live in a rural paradise, at first it all seems perfect. But when her marriage comes under pressure the dream starts to fall apart and Jane finds her life spiralling out of control. Then one night a line is crossed that threatens to ruin her and her family forever.

One winter's afternoon, Sonia, 43, married and respectable, answers the door to 15-year-old Jez. He’s come to borrow some music. Sonia invites him in and soon decides that she isn't going to let him leave. As Sonia's desire to keep Jez hidden and protected from the outside world becomes all the more overpowering, she is haunted by memories of an intense teenage relationship, which gradually reveal a terrifying truth.

Paul lives in the Welsh countryside with his wife Elise, and their two young children. Over in London, Cora plans to move back to Cardiff, to the house she has inherited from her parents. She is escaping her marriage, and the constrictions and disappointments of her life. Connecting them is the London train, and a chance meeting that will have immediate and far-reaching consequences for both Paul and for Cora.

Sofia Solanas grows up on a beautiful ranch in the middle of the Argentine pampa. In a world of old-fashioned values, she carves out a place as a rebellious and passionate young woman. But eventually, her stubborn nature leads her to trouble. When Sofia’s mother Anna discovers that Sofia has embarked on a forbidden love affair, she must act in order to save the family from shame. She sends Sofia to Europe - away from her friends and family and the man Sofia loves. 

Married couple, Miranda and David, move out of London into a beautiful country house with an idyllic garden. But reality turns out to be very different from their bucolic dream. Soon the latent unhappiness in the family begins to come to the surface, isolating each family member in a bubble of resentment and loneliness. Then a mysterious Frenchman arrives on their doorstep. With the wisdom of nature, he slowly begins to heal the past and the present.

A stunning story of loss, love and the summer that changed everything from the number one best-selling author of Songs of Love and War. 1958. Celestria, the charismatic daughter of an aristocratic family, lives in Pendrift Hall, a pale stone mansion with gardens that tumble down to the Cornish sea. It is summer, and the weeks ahead hold the promise of self-discovery and the thrilling possibility of illicit love affairs. 

The war has ended, and Rita Fairweather is waiting for George Bolton, her childhood sweetheart, to return home to Devon. She wants their future to be a continuing reassurance of their past. But George comes back as a man changed by the horrors he has experienced. Unable to settle back into a small-town life, George decides to travel to Argentina. And Rita promises to wait. But George faces irresistible temptation and an agonising choice. As the years pass, Rita keeps her word, but how long should she wait for the love of the life?

Audrey Garnet lives a sheltered life in the exclusive Argentinian community of Hurlingham. That is, until Cecil and Louis Forrester arrive, travelling from England to make their fortunes. Admired by all for her beauty and grace, Audrey quickly catches the eyes of both brothers, but it is talented-but-troubled outsider Louis with his musical flair whom she is drawn to most. Cecil, however, is a better match – a decorated war hero who has charmed the entire community, including Audrey’s parents, forcing Audrey to keep her true feelings a secret.

Federica is moved from Chile to Cornwall when her parents separate, and all she has left of the relationship she cherished with her father is a wooden box, which has a secret beauty hidden within. Swiftly embraced into the eccentric Appleby family, it isn’t long before Federica falls for her friend’s older brother, Sam, who barely notices the little girl until it is too late. Years later, from the sanctuary of a seemingly perfect marriage, Federica embarks on a painful journey of self-discovery. Will she finally learn the true lesson of the butterfly box?

Out they came, away from natural predators, nesting in damp corners and in the tops of trees, crossbreeding with common cousins and laying thousands upon thousands of eggs. 'Then...the eggs hatched and an army of hungry caterpillars spread their tiny toxic threads on every breath of wind.’ The threads spell doom for humanity - half of it, at least. All around the world, men are dying in their sleep or turning into rage-fuelled killers. The world, as we know it, ends. However, humanity adapts and society moves on. 

Sally, a cynical 15-year-old schoolgirl, is much too clever for her own good. When partnered with her best friend, Pamela—a mouthy girl who no one else much likes—Sally finds herself unable to resist the temptation of rebellion. The pair play truant, explore forbidden areas of the old school and—their favourite—torment posh Sylvia Rose, with her pristine uniform and her beautiful voice that wins every singing prize. One day, Sally ventures up to the greenhouse on the roof alone. Or at least she thinks she's alone, until she sees Sylvia on the roof, too. 

London, 1665. Hidden within the growing pile of corpses in his churchyard, Rector Symon Patrick discovers a victim of the pestilence unlike any he has seen before: a young woman with a shorn head, covered in burns, and with pieces of twine delicately tied around each wrist and ankle. Desperate to discover the culprit, Symon joins a society of eccentric medical men who have gathered to find a cure for the plague. Someone is performing terrible experiments upon the dying, hiding their bodies amongst the hundreds that fill the death carts.

Two Jewish sisters, one in London, the other in Warsaw, see their worlds fall apart as Hitler invades Poland. Hanna escapes The Blitz, while her sister and parents are forced into the Ghetto. Hanna joins the Special Operations Executive in an attempt to free her family from the ever-tightening Nazi stranglehold, and is aided by a Polish woman who befriends them. Casting light into one of the darkest periods of World War II, acclaimed author V.S. Alexander's powerful novel tells of two Jewish sisters of Polish descent who unite in a fight to save their family from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Everyone knows that if you fall afoul of the People, you must travel the miles to Gyrford, where uncounted generations of fairy-smiths have protected the county with cold iron, good counsel and unvarnished opinions about your common sense. But shielding the weak from the strong can make enemies. Ephraim Brady has money and power, and the bitter will to hurt those who cross him. And if he can't touch elder farrier Jedediah Smith, he can harm those the Smiths care about.

If you asked the folks of Gyrford, they'd tell you Jedediah Smith looked up to his father. After all, Corbie Mackem was the Sarsen Shepherd: the man who saved the Smith clan from Ab, the terrifyingly well-meaning fey who blighted a whole generation with unwanted gifts. Corbie was a good fairy-smith. And if he wasn't a good father, well, that isn't something Jedediah likes to talk about. Especially since no one knows where Corbie's body lies: the day of his son's wedding, forty-odd years ago, he set off to travel and was never seen again.

On Emilia Morris's thirteenth birthday, her mother Rachel moves into a tent at the bottom of their garden. From that day on, she never says another word. Inspired by her vow of silence, other women join her and together they build the Community. Eight years later, Rachel and thousands of her followers around the world burn themselves to death.