Showing results by narrator "Patricia Gallimore" in All Categories

The scene of this entertaining story is laid in a charming English village. The plot centres round Miss Barbara Buncle, a maiden lady who was obliged to write a book because – as she naively explained – her dividends were so poor. Unfortunately, Miss Buncle had no imagination, so she wrote about her friends – quite kindly and truthfully, of course, for she was a benevolent and veracious soul.

Strong of will and slender of ankle, 20-year-old orphan Flora Poste is blessed with every virtue save that of being able to earn her own living. Casting around for suitable relatives with whom she can make her home, Flora alights on the mysterious Starkadders and, ignoring the horrified shrieks of her friends, heads down to darkest Sussex.

Folkestone, 1921. Newly-wed Maude Brent couldn't be happier. When her much-loved elderly housekeeper Aunt Biddy starts to grow forgetful, her husband Lionel suggests that Maude hire a companion - and he knows just the girl. Initially reluctant, Maude trials the young Alice, and soon it's as if she'd always been part of the family. But when Lionel takes Maude on holiday to Hastings, tragedy strikes and he disappears.

December 1941, North East England. Despite the loss of her father, Sarah is settling into her new role at the munitions factory. Her blossoming romance with pitman Stan is a welcome distraction from the dangerous working conditions. But a shocking revelation puts everything on the line. Meanwhile Fran is missing her sweetheart Davey, who has been conscripted to Bletchley Park. Beth is longing for someone too - and it's not her husband on the front line. As the factory girls face hardship on the home front, they will discover that the heroes they need are already by their side.

August 1941: As war sweeps across Britain and millions of men enlist, women must fight the battle on the home front. Fran always thought she would marry her childhood sweetheart and live in Massingham, the beloved pit village she has always called home. But the opening of a munitions factory in the north-east of England presents a new opportunity. Against her father's wishes and with best friends Sarah and Beth by her side, Fran signs up to join the ranks of women at the factory. It's dangerous work, but the friends discover that their lives are only just beginning. 

Shattered by a recent bereavement, Minna and husband Tom retreat to an isolated village on the Dorset coast, hoping to find the solitude that will allow them to cope with their loss and rebuild their foundering marriage. Walking on the beach one day, they unearth a human skeleton. It is a discovery which will plunge Minna into a mystery which will consume her for months to come. The remains are soon identified as those of Private Lew Campbell, a black American GI who, it seems, drowned during a wartime exercise in the area half a century before.

While Jane waits for renovations to be completed on her new permanent home, she remains in temporary accommodation under the watchful eye of her landlord, Brian Dawes, chair of the governors at Wrayford School. Her work life is dominated by preparations for the all important school play, but behind the scenes the threat of major cuts to the school's budget puts a strain on morale. Alongside these concerns are her landlord's deteriorating health and the odd behaviour of her neighbours - both mysteries she could do without. 

DCI James Carrick is playing rugby for police team The Ferrets when an injury sends him off the pitch. His substitute is DS Cliff Morley, an undercover policeman investigating a criminal gang. The next day Morley's horribly mutilated body is found dumped in woodland near Bristol, the initials RK carved on his torso.

Actress Vena Burford is 'resting' between jobs. But needs must, and with few voice-over jobs in the pipeline, Vena takes on a few jobs for friends and family around the idyllic Stratford-Upon-Avon. But interior design leads her to violent threats and showing prospective buyers around houses ushers in a drug-smuggling ring. Vena comes to know all too well that the countryside is far from quiet.

As the Second World War ends, Faye Harvey struggles against the stigma of being a single mother. Then Mark Fuller, badly ravaged by his POW experiences in the Far East, arrives in Cornwall. Faye finds herself drawn to him - but the father of her son, a Scottish laird, turns up, offering marriage now that his wife is dead.

This journey through the changing seasons at Rowfoot Farm - tupping time in the autumn, winters as wet, bleak and cold here in Cumbria as elsewhere, lambing and the glories of spring, a bucolic, bee-filled Eden Valley summer with its many shows and fairs - will reveal much that you need to know about the countryside, its quirky customs and ways, and most likely a great deal that you don't.

Having been deceived by her father and her fiance, Jenefer Trevanion values honesty above all things. After losing her father and her home in a devastating fire, Jenefer supports herself by book-keeping for various businesses in the Cornish village of Porthinnis and acting as agent for the Guernsey merchants who supply local smugglers. But her independence appalls the village’s well-to-do families.

A bloody gang war has erupted in the World Heritage designated city of Bath, leading DCI James Carrick to enlist the help of his old friends, husband and wife team Patrick Gillard and Ingrid Langley, late of MI5 and now working for the Serious Organized Crime Agency, to hunt down the criminals. One for the country’s most notorious and feared crime lords, “Uncle”, is spotted in the city, and they are soon embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse to catch him and his gang.

When firemen are called to an intense blaze at the Grange in Melverley, they find the bodies of Christie Barton, her daughter, Adelaide, and father-in-law, William, along with evidence that suggests the fire was started deliberately. Detective Inspector Alex Randall enlists the help of coroner Martha Gunn, but the puzzle deepens with a second house fire - the occupant, retired nurse Monica Deverill, is missing. Where is she, and what links the two fires? The answers lie in a secret buried in the past…

In the peaceful setting of the National Trust near Church Stretton, Tracey Walsh drives herself and her four-year-old daughter, Daisy, up the remote Burway in the early hours of the morning, tragically loses control of her car and crashes into the valley below. Tracey is rushed to hospital, but where is Daisy? She has vanished, provoking an intense police search of the area around the Devil’s Chair – land that is rife with legends and stories of witchcraft, sorcery and unexplained disappearances.

It is 1648, and the Civil War, which an exhausted nation had believed over, has been resurrected by a king still determined to be an absolute ruler, and a parliament unable to agree how to govern without him. Blacksmith Jamie Hudson is weary and disillusioned but faces prison if he refuses to re-enlist in the army, and so he is hauled ruthlessly around England as the blood continues to flow. Meanwhile, Jamie’s wife, Lucy, is struggling to survive as a lone woman in London, while working to support the Leveller demands for democracy and freedom.

In 1849, the Poltraze Estate has been deserted by Squire Nankervis, and 16-year-old Clemency Kivell is stunned when her father, Seth, announces that he wants to buy it. Trespassing in the abandoned big house, rebel-in-spirit Clemency encounters Kingsley Faraday, who tells her he’s bought Poltraze, but will not be the new squire.

Ingrid Langley isn’t pleased when her husband, Patrick Gillard, late of MI5 and now with the Serious Organized Crime Agency, is sent on assignment just days after the birth of their son. She has no time to dwell on it though, what with nursing a newborn, overseeing house renovations – and discovering a dead body in the Church vestry.

Wind, rain and hail lashed the cottage. And Bun had just run out of knitting wool. What to do? Far too wet for walking up to the shops, she decided to have a poke at their drawing-room walls. Surely there must be alcoves hidden either side of that huge fireplace? Digging revealed a woman’s body…getting rid of it should have been easy, but for a young detective and a scoop-happy newspaper reporter. But when Bun’s younger sister has afternoon tea with their murder suspect, Bun is worried for her safety.

On a bright spring morning, John Hyde opens the gates to the grounds of Moreton Corbet Castle, a local medieval ruin, and discovers the body of a homeless man with his throat slashed. Detective Inspector Alex Randall and his team soon face some disturbing questions: was this a random attack, or does someone have a vendetta against the homeless? For coroner Martha Gunn, establishing the man's identity is essential, but there are no clues.