Showing results by narrator "Kate Handford" in All Categories

For Samantha Miller's young fans—her 'girls'—she's everything they want to be. She's an oracle, telling them how to live their lives, how to be happy, how to find and honour their 'truth'. And her career is booming: she's just hit three million followers, her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the best-seller lists and she's appearing at sell-out events. Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she's written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her female best friend, Lisa.

Katherine has everything under control. After years of struggling to conceive with her partner, she finally gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child. But she's afraid that Rose may not be her daughter, her pale skin not matching Katherine's own. Tess never got her happy ending. Just like Katherine, she was also a hopeful IVF mother, but her daughter, Hanna, was stillborn. Now divorced, broke and stuck in a dead-end job, she's beginning to lose all hope. But when Rose is ten months old, both women get a call from the fertility clinic. There was a mistake: their eggs were switched.

When I wake up with the sun in my eyes the morning after my daughter’s birthday party, I know something is very wrong. I go straight to her room but feel a surge of panic when I see an empty bed. Downstairs everything is totally quiet, and the front door is locked. Why didn’t I hear her scream? Who took our little girl?

In Afghanistan, an experienced pilot is shot down during a covert mission. The man survives the crash but is pursued into the mountains by Russian operatives. In New York, a wealthy businessman hires Jack Morgan to track down his daughter, who has gone missing along with her two children. But it is more than a missing-persons case.

On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay. She heads out to check what she expects to be a false alarm—and stumbles upon the first alien visitors to Earth. These aliens have crossed the galaxy to save humanity, convinced that the people of Earth must leave their ecologically-ravaged planet behind and join them among the stars. And if humanity doesn't agree, they may need to be saved by force. But the watershed networks that rose up to save the planet from corporate devastation aren't ready to give up on Earth.

1944, London. When Lily meets enigmatic GI Matthew in war-torn London, she doesn’t expect to fall in love. While her sister starts a reckless affair with another GI, Lily tries to hide her growing feelings for Matthew. But Matthew has a devastating secret. One that could change their lives forever.

Her pulse pounded in her ears as she scanned the house. Her eyes traveled over the porch where three empty chairs lazily rocked in the breeze, surrounded by scattered children’s toys. In the yard, there were mounds of earth. Graves. Only big enough for children....

A week ago the body of a young woman named Mia Gallagher was found in an elevator shaft, 48 hours after she was snatched from her apartment in Lakemore, Washington. When a local man confesses to her killing in his suicide note, the police department believe the case is closed. But then another woman goes missing, and 48 hours later is found dead.

Detective Mackenzie Price knows what makes a killer tick. But when she finds the body of a young woman dumped in the trunk of her car, she knows this case is going to be the most personal and twisted yet. Looking down at the victim, Mack recognizes her instantly: Sophie Fields, the fiancée of Mack’s coworker who vanished months before. Reeling in shock, Mack keeps one crucial piece of evidence to herself, too horrified to share it: a crumpled piece of paper bearing the words “You’re welcome, Mackenzie”.

For modern-day detective Mallory Atkinson, being trapped in the body of a Victorian housemaid means overcoming endless obstacles. Her current challenge is winning over the suspicious young parlormaid, Alice. Mallory’s plan starts with teaching the girl to make Molotov cocktails, which is a perfectly valid science experiment and not at all a desperate ploy to gain Alice’s attention. Before the lesson can begin, though, Alice receives a letter that has her slipping off in the night. Concerned for her safety—and naturally curious—Mallory follows.

After slipping 150 years into the past, modern-day homicide detective Mallory Atkinson has embraced her new life in Victorian Scotland as housemaid Catriona Mitchel. Although it isn’t what she expected, she's developed real, meaningful relationships with the people around her and has come to love her role as assistant to undertaker Dr. Duncan Gray and Detective Hugh McCreadie. Mallory, Gray, and McCreadie are on their way to the Scottish Highlands for McCreadie's younger sister's wedding.

In house in a wood, Ada and her father live peacefully, tending to their garden and the wildlife in it. They are not human, though. Ada was made by her father from the Ground, a unique patch of earth with birthing and healing properties. Though perhaps he didn’t get her quite right. They spend their days healing the local human folk - named Cures - who visit them, suspiciously, with their ailments. When Ada embarks on a relationship with a local Cure named Samson, she is forced to choose between her old life with her father and a new one with her human lover.

It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the season: a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

As well as being a master of the macabre, Shirley Jackson was also a pitch-perfect chronicler of everyday family life. In Life Among the Savages, her caustically funny account of raising her children in a ramshackle house in Vermont, she deals with rats in the cellar, misbehaving imaginary friends, an oblivious husband and ever-encroaching domestic chaos, all described with wit, warmth and plenty of bite.

When two bodies are found dumped in a vast lake in Lakemore, Washington, Detective Mackenzie Price is first on the scene. She identifies one of the victims as Katy Becker, a local known for her work helping the community. The other victim looks strikingly similar. Still grappling with a shocking revelation from her past, Mack is only too happy to throw herself into the case. But when she goes to break the news to Katy’s husband, the investigation takes an unexpected turn: Katy is very much alive and has never met the women who resemble her so closely.

When three nine-year-old boys go missing on a field trip to Lakemore’s annual spring festival, panic tears through the small town. Detective Mackenzie Price and her partner, Nick Blackwood, lead the search, but no trace of the boys is found - until one of them is found murdered, a note stuffed down his throat.

Single mother Beth loves her seven-year-old son Dylan with all her heart. He’s her world. But life with Dylan isn’t easy — and his emotional issues push Beth to her very limit. When a misunderstanding leads Dylan to be taken into foster care, she is determined to do whatever she can to get him back. Mother of two, Ally has always dreamed of fostering — it feels like her chance to give back when she has been so lucky in life. But when Dylan joins their family, Ally finds herself struggling to balance his needs with those of her own children and husband.

When her gram passes away, Melanie Simpson feels utterly lost. She has no idea what to do with her life after she has devoted years to looking after her beloved grandmother. But Gram’s will may hold the answer, instructing Melanie to use her inheritance to buy a crumbling house in Rosemary Bay. They used to visit the village every summer, sit by the sparkling gulf on a beach the color of a fresh pearl, and daydream about turning the place on the corner into a bed and breakfast.

Boston, 1838: Once upon a time Isobel Moore was thought to be one of Boston’s most eligible young women. But, after a marriage proposal gone wrong, she is now at threat of being labelled a spinster. And, though her work at a small school for impoverished immigrants brings her great joy, she can’t help but wish for more in life. When her dream of finding love fails to come true, she knows - if she’s to have the family she dreams of - it will take desperate measures.

When Samantha Claymore doesn’t return home after an afternoon bicycle ride on Martha’s Vineyard, Detective Abby Pearce acts immediately. She knows from experience how quickly a lost girl can become a tragedy. Back on the island for the first time since she ran away as a teenager, Abby hopes solving Samantha’s case will make up for her past mistakes....