Showing results by narrator "Eilidh Beaton" in All Categories

Saxford St Peter is Eve Mallow’s beloved home, but she can’t resist the chance to spend a weekend in the nearby Abbey Hotel, famed for its glamorous owner, Debra Moran, and an array of celebrity guests. For a confirmed people-watcher like Eve, it’s perfect: She can observe the rich and famous while sipping tea in the gardens, her faithful dachshund, Gus, by her side. But her relaxing break takes a shocking turn when Debra is found lying dead in the shadowy woods around the hotel.

When Olivia Tennyson - or Ollie to her friends - was 16, she wrote a Dream List of all the things she wanted for her life, including a happy marriage and a family. But at 29, Ollie is single, living at home with her over-protective and manipulative mother and is feeling like her dreams are getting further out of reach. It’s time for a change. It’s time to take matters into her own hands.

When novelist Julian Fisher buys Farfield Castle to turn the charming old building into a writers’ retreat, he wants the neighbours onside. But he has his work cut out: Saxford St Peter locals tried to buy the castle for the village, and are furious that only the very rich will be able to enjoy it.

Everyone in Saxford St Peter is desperate to know more about Harry Tennant, the newcomer who owns the Old Mill. He usually keeps himself to himself, but he’s finally invited the villagers round for drinks, and Eve Mallow isn’t the only one looking forward to having some questions answered. But two days before the party, a terrible fire sweeps through the mill, and Harry is found dead. When Eve passes the burned remains of his beautiful house, she can’t resist the call to investigate.

There was no doubt that things had definitely looked better for Gabriel Atwood, one time Viscount Northwood. Mainly because everyone who knew him or of him almost certainly believed him dead—the bastard who'd betrayed him had made sure of that. His only hope was to seek aid from Nicholas Sinclair, his former mentor, now the current Duke of Blackmore, before his enemies realised that news of his demise had been greatly exaggerated.

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them. But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show.

Everyone in the small town of Denton is searching for Isabelle Coleman, a missing 17-year-old girl. All they've found so far is her phone and another girl they didn't even know was missing. Mute and completely unresponsive to the world around her, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Detective Josie Quinn can get from her is a name: Ramona. Currently suspended from the force for misconduct, Josie takes matters into her own hands as the name leads her to evidence linking the two girls.

On the tiny Scottish island of Mure, Christmas preparations are even more hectic than usual.... Especially when their motley staff includes a temperamental French chef, a spoilt Norwegian kitchen boy who can't peel a potato without mutilating his own hand and a painfully shy kitchen assistant who blushes when anyone speaks to her. Can they pull it together in time for the big opening? And can Flora help her family find happiness this Christmas?

They live 500 miles apart. Yet their lives are about to collide. Lissa loves her job as a nurse, but recently she's been doing a better job of looking after other people than looking after herself. After a traumatic incident at work leaves her feeling overwhelmed, she agrees to swap lives with someone in a quiet village in Scotland. Cormac is restless. Just out of the army, he's desperately in need of distraction and there's precious little of it in Kirrinfief. Maybe three months in London is just what he needs.

Thirty-year-old Dee and her husband Luke are blissfully happy. Every day she makes her loyal parents incredibly proud. Jen has been her best friend since their days of teenage crushes, bad '90s makeup and huge hair. They are just like any other group of family and friends - living life and getting by. Until one day everything changes. Dee is gone, killed by a reckless driver, leaving the people she loved to deal with their grief in different ways. A marriage is rocked as a parent seeks justice. A husband struggles to accept the loss of his wife.

Gertie has always had her head in the clouds, wondering what her life might be like if she could only pluck up the courage to leave the remote Scottish island where she was born. It's the only place she knows, but you can't do anything there without everyone knowing - the glue of this close-knit community is the Knitting Circle, a group of strong, capable and frankly nosy women who work hard, gossip, knit and support each other through thick and thin. At the centre of this sisterhood is Gertie's mum Jean and her grandmother Elspeth, and the three generations of women live together.

When Stefania Carmichael steps into the mysterious world of Bletchley Park, she immediately finds herself signing the Official Secrets Act. In whispers, she is told that she’s been recruited because of her talent for languages. Before the war ripped Europe apart, Stefania was living in Rome, charming everyone she met, and engaged to the man of her dreams, handsome and brave Matteo. And now everything has changed. With secrets swirling around the building, Stefania finds it hard to know who to trust, until she forms a close bond with two other new recruits.

Escape to the Scottish Highlands where a tiny bookshop perches on the edge of a loch. Zoe is a single mother, sinking beneath the waves trying to cope by herself in London. Hari, her gorgeous little boy, is perfect in every way - except for the fact that he just doesn't speak at all. When her landlord raises the rent on her flat, Zoe doesn't know where to turn. Then Hari's aunt suggests Zoe could move to Scotland to help run a bookshop. Going from the lonely city to a small village in the Highlands could be the change Zoe and Hari desperately need.

from the start, Eve finds herself in a sticky situation. Famous guest artist Nena Field is a complete nightmare, painting everyone in a bad light. So when Eve finds her body in Blind-Eye Wood, there’s no shortage of suspects. But who could have hated her enough to take her life? Was it the curiously over-qualified cook, the secretive manager, or the chatty receptionist, mysteriously missing at the time of the murder? Determined to find the killer and save Simon’s business, Eve sets to work sketching out a theory of the crime.

Siblings Greta and Valdin have, perhaps, too much in common. They're flatmates, beholden to the same near-unpronounceable surname, and both make questionable choices when it comes to love. Valdin is still in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who left the country because he thought he was making Valdin sad. Greta is in love with fellow English tutor Holly, who only seems to be using her for admin support. But perhaps all is not lost. Valdin is coming to realize that he might not be so unlovable, and Greta, that she might be worth more than the papers she can mark.

It’s been over a decade since renowned author Beckett Ryan set foot in her bleak childhood hometown on the southern coast of England. When her estranged parents die within a week of each other, she reluctantly returns to bury them, only to find herself as reviled in the community as they were revered. Of course, the locals didn’t really know her parents. Nobody did. Then a warm welcome emerges from the sea of cold faces: Leanne. Beckett’s best friend when they were younger, and now a super-fan. Only… Beckett is pretty sure she’s never met her before in her life.

Charged with drama and beauty, this memorable collection by a master storyteller weaves a magical world of possibility and power from female myths of physical renewal, creation and change. It is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, Sharon Blackie brings to life women's remarkable ability to transform themselves in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances.

Valerie Rousseau is burning with determination to help free her beloved France from the Nazi regime. Working at the mysterious Bletchley Park, she strikes up an unexpected bond with smart, fiercely loyal Fran Morgan as they spend long days together with their heads bent over maps of France in preparation for the Allied invasion.

When Amy Ashton's world fell apart 11 years ago, she started a collection. Just a few keepsakes of happier times: some honeysuckle to remind herself of the boy she loved, a chipped china bird, an old terracotta pot.... Things that others might throw away, but to Amy, represent a life that could have been. Now her house is overflowing with the objects she loves - soon there'll be no room for Amy at all. But when a family move in next door, a chance discovery unearths a mystery, and Amy's carefully curated life begins to unravel.

Thea’s having a bad month. Not only has she been made redundant, she’s also discovered her husband of nearly 20 years is sleeping with one of her friends. And he’s not sorry - he’s leaving. Bewildered and lost, Thea doesn’t know what to do. But, when she learns the great-uncle she barely knew has died and left her his huge collection of secondhand books and a house in the Scottish Lowlands, she seems to have been offered a second chance. Running away to a little town where no one knows her seems like exactly what Thea needs.