Showing results by narrator "Kate Handford" in All Categories

The girl in the photo was laughing, her head thrown back, her lips painted a bright red. Jessie could feel the simple joy reflected in that moment. And as she looked closer, she saw the same gold cross and chain that had adorned the first victim’s neck. When a young woman falls to her death from a parking garage, the Boston police department rule it as a suicide. But when Jessie Novak examines the scene, she isn’t so sure... The girl’s delicate hands are bruised and her fingernails torn: evidence of a struggle.

My daughter is gone. She’s been taken. I grip the phone so hard I think it might break, and try to focus on what they’re saying. I realize I’m not crying, even though I feel like I’ve been split in two. And then they say a name that makes my blood run cold. Suddenly, my past and present collide. My heart pounds in my chest, memories flooding my head. I have to focus on my daughter, Nelle, but I can’t escape the panicked questions rushing in. How do they know about Betty? And what else do they know?

Summer 1982. Deep in the Adirondack Mountains, over three hundred people live off-grid in a secret community. Atlas is a refuge for broken souls who long for a different life. Founded by the enigmatic Sol, the group now prepares for their final ceremony: the opening of the Golden Door. They believe they will cross to another world, to a new life where their past decisions never ended in tragedy. James Morrow is a rookie New York City reporter intent on making his name with an exposé of the crazy cult in the woods.

When Sandra Ashville is found murdered in a sleepy town near Oakhurst, Detective Jo Fournier is first at the scene. Jo is shaken by the similarities between herself and the dead assistant district attorney, a dedicated woman with a heart for justice. And as she examines Sandra’s body, Jo discovers something that chills her to the bone: The bullet hole is covered by an intact blindfold. Why was Sandra only blindfolded after her death?

From the beginning of World War II through the early days of Vietnam, groundbreaking female photojournalist and war correspondent Dickey Chapelle chased dangerous assignments her male colleagues wouldn’t touch, pioneering a radical style of reporting that focused on the humanity of the oppressed. She documented conditions across Eastern Europe in the wake of the second world war. She marched down the Ho Chi Minh Trail with the South Vietnamese Army and across the Sierra Maestra Mountains with Castro.

Meet the Troutmans. Hattie is living in Paris, city of romance, but has just been dumped by her boyfriend. Min, her sister back in Canada, is going through a particularly dark period. And Min's two kids, Logan and Thebes, are not talking and talking way too much, respectively. When Hattie receives a phone call from eleven-year-old Thebes, begging her to return to Canada, she arrives home to find Min on her way to a psychiatric ward, and becomes responsible for her niece and nephew. Realizing that she is way out of her league, Hattie hatches a plan to find the kids' long-lost father.

Everline Blackthorn has devoted her life to the wardens - warriors who guard against monsters known as the vespertine. When a series of strange omens occur, Everline disobeys orders to investigate and uncovers a startling truth in the form of Ravel Severin: a rogue vespertine who reveals the monsters have secrets of their own. Ravel promises the help she needs - for a price. Vespertine magic requires blood, but it's a sin for a warden to feed a vespertine - let alone fall in love with one.

Emma and I were inseparable. Growing up, we did everything together. Until the unspeakable night that everything changed. So I ran away—from my mom, my sister, everything I knew, and Emma and I haven’t spoken since. My sister, Lily, was at the beach that night too. She hasn’t been able to utter a single word since. That was 10 years ago. Now, Mom and Lily need my help, and I realize I can’t run from the past forever. I’m ready to talk to Emma, ready to try to move on.

October 2016: In America, the election is a few weeks away. Journalist Grace Elliot has just landed a scoop that she believes will make her career. A porn star is willing to talk about her affair with the man some hope and many fear will become the next president of the United Stares. But no one will touch it. Instead, Grace is sent to Europe, where she discovers a story so big, so explosive that it could decide the American election and launch a new Cold War.

Emma thought she had the perfect life: a beautiful home, a loving husband, and a gorgeous son. She was wrong. When she wakes up to find herself in hospital, Emma has no memory of how she got there or why her husband and son won’t come to see her. What happened to Emma’s family? Emma is desperate to find out what happened - and that her loved ones are safe - but remembering the truth could be the most dangerous thing of all....

Shirley Jackson skewered the trials of domestic life in 1950s America with wry wit and uncanny precision. In this sequel to Life Among the Savages, her four offspring have now grown into fully fledged demons. As their house starts to burst at the seams, the Jackson clan somehow manage (without really planning it) to move into a larger home, only to take the chaos - absent furniture, vanishing children, misbehaving refrigerators, an avalanche of books - right along with them.

Ros's former partner, Lukas, the father of her eleven-year-old son, is accused of a sexual assault. The accusation brings new details of an old story to light, forcing Ros to revisit a dark moment from her past. Ros must take a hard look not only at the father of her child, but also at her own mistakes, her own trauma, and at the supposedly liberal period she grew up in.

Three generations. One summer that will change everything. Jenna has returned to the sunny shores of Lake Summers, tucked under the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, with her daughter Sophie to care for her aging mother, Sweet. Recently divorced, Jenna finds comfort in lazy afternoons along the water and long nights watching Sweet tell Sophie stories about her long-lost loves. When she meets Sweet’s new next-door neighbor, Troy, she recognizes him instantly as the boy with whom she shared her first kiss.

It's a brutal winter in Des Moines, Iowa, and the city is gripped by fear. A serial attacker known as the Sin Eater is stalking women and has just struck again. It's a tough time and a tough place for Riley Fisher, a former small-town sergeant, to be reporting for duty as an FBI agent on her first assignment. Teamed with a man she's not sure she can trust and struggling to prove herself - while fighting the pull of her old life and family dramas - Riley is tasked with investigating a vicious death threat against the newly elected female state governor.

New York, 1882. Amy Eaton is a bestselling authoress and celebrity figure, much to the embarrassment of her aristocratic family, who deem her professionalism as a lowering in their social standing. Despite her family’s undisguised disdain of her, Amy is bound by a promise she made to her dying mother: to look after her two sisters and father in her mother’s absence. Eight years have passed since Amy gave up the love of her life, after being persuaded not to marry him by her mother’s best friend. But now Wareham is back, a rich, self-made man in search of a wife.

When you're embarrassed to step out your own front door, is happiness even possible? Jennifer's life is falling to pieces. She's out of work. Her brother's in a coma. Her mom just died. And despite stellar qualifications, every job interview ends in rejection. Also, she's heavier than she's ever been.

On the rural coast of Puglia, Italy, Becca and Ric run the Bastion, offering solace and a home for lost souls. Each year they welcome new members to join the Open Feast, where they teach them to release their burdens and create a better world, in a journey of self-discovery and spiritual teachings. But the Bastion has secrets. The Bastion has a destiny. Deep in the Inner Pinewood, a place of real magic and beauty, they are all that stands against the dark forces that would tear the sky wide open.

Let me set the scene for you.... It was my first day working out. Ever. My idea of cardio is lifting Dunkin’ Donuts, but as if exercising wasn’t bad enough, listen to what happened next. In the space of minutes, my boyfriend dumped me over the phone and my boss fired me. Cue a code-red panic attack. Now, no matter how hard I try, I physically can’t walk out of the door, back into the hot mess of my life.

You only let her go for a second… Now she’s gone. Erika Rice is in an elevator with her four-year-old daughter Alice when all the lights go out. It jerks to a stop on a deserted floor of apartments and the little girl runs out into the corridor. But before Erika can follow her the doors slam shut again. Now her daughter is nowhere to be seen. Erika was about to take Alice away for a fresh start, far from her troubled past, when the child vanished. How could a four-year-old disappear into thin air? And with no one to help her, will Erika ever find her daughter?

This is the second collection of short stories relating to the fictional sea-sprayed Canadian village of Avonlea. Anne Shirley appears in a few, but most concern other characters from the Anne Shirley series, including Diana Barry and members of the Meredith and Blair families. Published in 1920, these tales of hidden hopes and cherished dreams are sure to enchant fans of Anne of Green Gables.