Showing results by narrator "Katie Scarfe" in All Categories

Somewhere deep in her mind, Christine Marsden is witnessing the murder of young girls. And now she has urges to hurt her own children. After a head injury which left her having nightmares and visions, Christine is convinced that something inside her brain has broken and that she is slowly sinking into insanity. She is terrified of what she might be capable of. She fears that in losing her mind, she will also lose her children and husband.

In the idyllic early summer of 1914, life is good for the de Witt family. German Rudolf and his aristocratic English wife, Verena, are planning the wedding of their daughter, Emmeline, while their elder son, Arthur, is studying in Paris, and Michael is just back from his first term at Cambridge. Celia, the youngest of the de Witt children, is on the brink of adulthood and secretly dreams of escaping her carefully mapped-out future and exploring the world.

Forty-something Maggie is facing some hard truths. Her only child has flown the nest for university, and without her daughter in the house, she's realising her life, and her marriage to Dan, is more than a little stale. When she spots an announcement on Facebook about a uni reunion, she can't help wondering what happened to Jude Hanson. The same night Dan proposed, Jude asked Maggie to run away with him, and she starts to wonder how different her life might have been if she'd broken Dan's heart and taken Jude up on his offer.

When the body of a woman is found stabbed to death, the blame falls to her twin sister. But who killed who? And which one is now the woman behind bars? Zara and Miranda have always supported each other. But then Zara meets Seb, and everything changes. Handsome, charismatic and dangerous, Seb threatens to tear the sisters’ lives apart - but is he really the one to blame? Or are deeper resentments simmering beneath the surface that the sisters must face up to?

Last winter she had a plan. Lucy fell in love with tumbledown Rosemary Cottage as a child. So 30 years on, when she loses her city job and discovers the cottage is for sale, it feels like fate. She'll raise her children in Burley Bridge and transform the cottage into a B&B with her husband. But a year can change everything.... Now Lucy is juggling two children and a B&B, but on her own. Christmas looks set to be their last on Rosemary Lane until she meets James, a face from her past and someone who might offer a different kind of future.

The De Witt family, who once led an idyllic and privileged life, are struggling to piece together the shattered fragments of their lives in the aftermath of the Great War. In 1939, the world is on the verge of turmoil with the approaching storm of the Second World War. The fragile peace of the De Witts' world is threatened once again as the family must deal with the consequences of another devastating war.

Meet the Reading Group: forever friends you can count on in good times and bad. No topic is off-limits: books, family, love and loss...and don't forget the glass of red! Grace, Anne-Marie, Kate, Jojo and Serena couldn't be more different, but each month they meet in Serena's cliff-top cottage to discuss a good book - oh, and their lives, which are stranger than fiction. Or are they? Between new loves and old flames, cheating husbands and wayward children, there's always a surprise around the corner....

Ex-lawyer Noah has never forgotten his first love. When, years later, he hears that she's suspected of murder, he knows with certainty that she's innocent. With April on life support and the evidence pointing towards her guilt, he's compelled to help her. But he's also unprepared as he's forced to confront what happened between them all those years ago. A secret she would never reveal.

Lizzy lives with her father, Julian, and her brother, Ig, in North London. Two years ago her mother died, leaving a family bereft by her absence and a house still filled with her things: for Margaret was lively, beautiful, fun, loving; she kept the family together. So Lizzy thinks. Then, one day, Lizzy finds a letter from a stranger to her father and discovers he has another child. Lizzy invites her into their world in an act of outraged defiance. Almost immediately, she realises her mistake.

In the aftermath of the Great War, the de Witt family are struggling to piece together the shattered fragments of their lives. Rudolf and his wife, Verena, are still reeling from the loss of their second son and don't know how to function in the postwar world. Stoneythorpe Hall has become an empty shell, with no servants to ensure its upkeep. Celia, the de Witts' youngest daughter, is still desperate to spread her wings and see more of the world.

1963: The year the Beatles first top the charts. The year Martin Luther King has a dream. The year Truman Bird moves his family from their home in Brighton to a dilapidated caravan in the Ashdown Forest - then disappears. Truman's a charmer, a chancer, a liar. He's always got away with it, too. But now he's gone a dangerous step too far and only has one day to put things right - before he loses everything. For Truman's wife, Christie, life has not turned out the way she'd imagined.

Lady Bette, the 14-year-old heiress to the vast Northumberland estates, becomes the victim of a plot by her grandmother, the Countess Howard, to marry her to the dissident fortune-hunter Thomas Thynn, a man three times her age with an evil reputation. Revolted by her new husband, Lady Bette flees to Holland. Within weeks, Thynn is gunned down in the street by three hired assassins. Who is behind the contract killing? Is it the Swedish Count Coningsmark, young and glamorous with blond hair down to his waist?

May Day 1646: The Civil War is raging and what should be a rare moment of blessing for the town of Ely takes a brutal turn. Ruth Flowers is left with little choice but to flee the household of Oliver Cromwell, the only home she has ever known. On the road to London, Ruth sparks an uneasy alliance with a soldier, the battle-scarred and troubled Joseph. But when she reaches the city, it's in the Poole household that she finds refuge.

2017. Rachel Taylor’s mother hasn’t got much time left to live. Their relationship has often been strained, and Rachel has never quite understood why. When clearing out her mother’s things she thinks she finds an answer....