Showing results by narrator "Cathleen McCarron" in All Categories

Lily Crawford and Jeanie Taylor, from very different backgrounds, are firm friends from their childhoods in Kirkcudbright. They share their ambitions for their futures, Lily to be an artist, Jeanie to be a dancer. The two women's eventful lives are intertwined. In the years before the First World War, the girls lose touch when Jeanie runs away from home and joins a dance company, while Lily attends The Mack, Glasgow's famous school of art designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Seven years after her mother's death, Leonie Charlton is still gripped by memories of their fraught relationship. In May 2017, Leonie trekked through the Outer Hebrides in the company of a friend and their Highland Ponies in search of closure. When Leonie's pony has a serious accident, she begins to realise that finding peace with her mother is less important than letting go. Leonie Charlton blends travel and nature writing with intimate memoir in this beautifully written account of grief and acceptance.

As leader of his clan, Black Rob Brunson has earned every dark syllable of his name. But having taken hostage his enemy's daughter in a fierce act of rebellion, he is tormented by feelings of guilt and torn apart with the growing need to protect her--and seduce her! Stella Storwick feels Rob's disdain from the first. Then slowly she starts to see behind his eyes to a man in turmoil. Something he has no words for, something that can only be captured in a heart-wrenching kiss...

To marry him will be to betray her family… Bessie has sacrificed herself for her family’s honour and is at the mercy of the court of King James. She’s enticed not only by her mortal enemy, Lord Thomas Carwell, but also by the opulence of a world far removed from her own. When the King demands her brother’s head, Carwell is the only one to whom she can turn. But she must pay the ultimate price for his protection...

Word in the Royal Court has spread that the wild Scottish borders are too unruly. Upon the King's command, John Brunson must return home. Once part of a powerful border clan, John has not set eyes on the Brunson stone tower in years. With failure never an option, he must persuade his family to honor the king's call for peace. To succeed, John knows winning over Cate Gilnock, the daughter of an allied family, holds the key. But this intriguing beauty is beyond the powers of flattery and seduction.

Word in the Royal Court has spread that the Wild Scottish Borders are too unruly. Upon the King’s command, John Brunson must return home to persuade his family to honour the King’s call for peace. To succeed, John knows winning over the daughter of an allied family, Cate Gilnock, holds the key. But this intriguing beauty is beyond the powers of flattery and seduction…

Erin Paterson runs her grandfather's law firm in Glasgow, and is an uncompromisingly aggressive negotiator. But the success of her practice is not echoed in her personal life. Erin's father has had a stroke. She can't stand her mother. Her sister's a flake and their brother, Leland, committed suicide. She's not doing too well with her boyfriend either, whom she discovers in flagrante the day that an old school friend, Lucy Grant, is murdered.

Wish I was Here features tales of passion and jealousy, lust and romance from the award-winning author of Red Dust Road. This fierce, funny, and compassionate collection explores every facet of that most overwhelming and complicated of human emotions: love. With winning directness, Jackie Kay captures her characters' greatest joys and greatest vulnerabilities, exposing the moments of tenderness, of shock, of bravery, and of stupidity that accompany the search for love, the discovery of love and, most of all, love's loss.

This is a book about memories, love, sex and the power of the imagination to see us through the most difficult times. The women of Reality, Reality are mesmerising, whether in love or in solitude. Jackie Kay’s newest and most luminous of collections is full of compassion, generosity, sorrow, and joy. In 15 extraordinary stories, she celebrates the richness and power of dream-life to inspire, to repair, and to make real.

A tale of love and betrayal set in the borderlands of medieval Scotland. Badly disfigured Lady Isobel has fought to defend her Keep, with little thought for her safety. Why, then, has she let a stranger within her walls? Marc de Courtenay is a mercenary and a loner, drawn to the damaged, beautiful Isobel. But she has unwittingly given him secrets that will enable him to betray her. What would she do if she were ever to find out who he really is?

Sebastian Hunter has shown his last hand at the card table. Nights once spent womanising and gambling are now spent in the dark shadows of Blackloch Hall. That is until the mysterious Phoebe Allardyce – his mother’s new and far too pretty companion – interrupts his brooding.

In Jackie Kay’s first collection of stories, ordinary lives are transformed by secrets. Her world might seem familiar – sex, death and family cast long shadows – but the roles of mothers, daughters and lovers are imagined and revealed in the most surprising of ways. Jackie Kay sees the extraordinary in everyday life, and lights it up with humour and generosity in a way that is uniquely her own.

Elizabeth Murray has been condemned to burn at the stake when a strange man visits her. He offers her a deal: her soul in return for immortality. What he offers is not a normal life. To survive, Elizabeth must become Death. Elizabeth must ease the passing of all those who die, using her compassion to guide them. She accepts and, for 500 years, whirls from one death to the next. Until one day, everything changes. She - Death - falls in love. Desperate to escape from her deal, she summons the man who saved her. He agrees to release her the condition that she gives him five lives.

One week before Fliss' wedding and all her old friends are back on Mistletoe Island to celebrate...Fliss cannot wait to get married, but before she says 'I do' she needs to clear up one little thing. Because now she's finally ready for her future, she won't let the past get in the way. Ten years ago, Lara broke Jon's heart. Now back at Holly Cottage, it's the first time they've been together in years, if only seeing him again didn't make Lara wonder, what if....

Based on true crimes, The Specimen is a mesmerizing story about one woman’s search for truth and vengeance in the darkest of places—where the deadliest secrets lie hidden in plain sight on a freshly dusted shelf.

1988. The body of Moira Mackie, a St Andrews University student, is found on a clifftop path. Her ex-boyfriend is found days later, hanged in his uncle’s garage with a suicide note confessing that he killed her. The case is abruptly closed. Thirty years later, Ros Maitland has seemingly moved on from the horrific murder of her housemate Moira. Then her daughter takes up a place at the same university, and old demons reawaken. Was Moira murdered in a lover’s quarrel? Or was her death part of something far larger, uglier and more calculated?

Even perfect mothers have secrets... Meet Leah, the perfect wife and mum with a closet full of skeletons - and if the secret gets out, her carefully crafted world could crumble. Then there's Annie, the gangster's moll with a sharp mind. She's not afraid to get her hands dirty, but no one knows the devastating secret haunting her. And lastly, Terry, the king of Glasgow gangland. He's ruthless when it comes to growing his empire, but his weakness is women.