Showing results by narrator "Harriet Carmichael" in Literature & Fiction

The Villa Girls is the story of four young women who decide that wherever they are in the world and whatever they're doing, they'll meet every few years for a holiday together somewhere sunny. Despite life's taking them in very different directions, their snatched days in the sun in little hidden villas are crucial to them all. Escape, celebration, recovery--over the years the holidays change their lives.

In a remote Sicilian mountain town, four women arrive at a cookery school, each at a turning point in their lives. Moll is a foodie and an exhausted working mum on the holiday of a lifetime. Tricia, a top London lawyer, is taking a break from the demands of her job and her family. Valerie, consumed by grief following the death of her partner, is trying to figure out how to live a life without him. And recently divorced Poppy has come to Sicily to learn about the place where her grandfather was born before emigrating to Australia.

On a sharp winter's morning, a man turns his back on prison. This is the story of Joseph, who killed his wife, Zoe. Of their three children who witnessed the event. Of Zoe's parents, Hannah and Frederick, who are bringing up the children and can't forgive or understand Joseph. They slowly adjust to life without Zoe, until the day Joseph is released from prison...

June, 1878. The body of a boy is pulled from the depths of the River Thames, suspected to be the beloved missing child of the widely admired Liberal MP Ralph Gethin. Four months earlier. Harriet is a young maid newly employed at Finton Hall. Fleeing the drudgery of an unwanted engagement in the small village where she grew up, Harriet is entranced by the grand country hall; she is entranced too by her glamorous mistress Clara Gethin, whose unearthly singing voice floats through the house. But Clara, though captivating, is erratic.

Seven years ago, two boys went missing at sea - and only one was brought to shore. The Sandbank, a remote stretch of coast dotted with beach huts, was scarred forever. Sarah's son survived, but on the anniversary of the accident, he disappears without trace. As new secrets begin to surface, The Sandbank hums with tension and unanswered questions. Sarah's search grows more desperate, and she starts to mistrust everyone she knows - and she's right to.

Set in the extreme landscape of Alaska, The Quality of Silence follows the story of Yasmin and her deaf daughter, Ruby. Yasmin arrives in Alaska to be told her husband, Matt, is dead, the victim of a catastrophic accident. Yasmin, unable to accept this as truth, sets out into the frozen winter landscape, taking Ruby with her, in search of answers. But as a storm closes in, Yasmin realises that a very human danger may be keeping pace with them.

Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life, Pandora, has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected. Still, without the dilemmas of modern life what would an intellectual poet have to write about…

Melissa and Paul: Five years after they split he's still looking for love in all the wrong places while all she wants is him. Chris and Vicky: They are deliriously happy, so why is Chris risking it all for an affair? Cooper and Laura: He wants to settle down, she wants to take a gap year - can their relationship survive a year apart?

Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life, Pandora, has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected.

Spitalfields, 1840. Catherine lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London's East End, with little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination. Then news reaches her of a disturbing murderer known as The Man of Crows. Catherine becomes more and more involved as she hungrily devours the news, and is soon snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears...

It’s Christmas Eve and Little Elf is thrilled to join the other elves in Santa’s workshop for the first year ever. And he’s even more excited to read out the very last letter to Santa, but all it takes is one little slip on the slidey ice and Little Elf drops the letter! He has no idea what the child wants for Christmas, and it’s only a few hours until Christmas morning. An accident-filled chase ensues, but will Little Elf be able to catch the letter and grant the last child’s wish before it’s too late?

Meet the Scruffs - the ugliest pets ever! There's a new addition to the Pet Shop, Lady, a beautiful pedigree cat with shiny fur and polished paws. But when there's trouble, Lady saves the day and proves that she's not just a pampered puss. Then disaster strikes - a customer wants to adopt Lady! The pets must make Lady less attractive to the potential owner. And in The Scruffs: Showtime! the scruffy pets accidentally get sent to Wufts, where they end up solving a crime - and winning best in show!

When Marianne comes home from work one day to find her husband talking to a glamorous woman in the kitchen, insecurities resurface from a time when she was bullied at school. Jealousy rears its head and her marriage begins to fall apart. Desperate for a solution, she finds herself trying to track down her first schoolgirl crush: Edward Harvey. Even thinking his name made her tingle with half-remembered childlike giddiness.

When her beloved father dies, Vivien Epstein - a 22 year old hairdresser from Manchester - leaves her hometown for London in the hope of finding Jack Fox - a man she had a brief, but intense, love affair with some months ago. All Vivien has to go is one letter Jack sent to her father, the address of a boarding house scribbled hastily on the back, and very soon her hopes of finding him are dashed.

February, 1926. The city of London is tense in the days leading up to The General Strike. Evelyn Gifford, (protagonist of The Crimson Rooms) has now qualified as a solicitor - and is one of the first women to do so - but her life remains full of conflict. Embroiled in two new cases, Evelyn finds herself encountering both sides of the strike.

Crippled 16-year-old Catalina is the one person unable to join in the festivities of the Feast of the Assumption. But then she has a vision of the Virgin, and is miraculously cured. In the dark days of the Spanish Inquisition, such a claim to blessedness has serious consequences, especially when Catalina seems more inclined to obey her heart than the demands of the Church. The last of Maugham's novels, Catalina is a romantic celebration of Spain and a delightfully mischievous satire on absolutism.