Showing results by publisher "Oakhill Publishing" in Literature & Fiction

January 1945, West London: Sylvia Simpson has become an invaluable member of the Marigold's crew - but as the V-I and V-2 rockets draw closer, someone from her past is about to rock the boat. Now Sylvia must choose between keeping the promises she has made and remaining loyal to the people she loves the most. Polly and Verity are waiting for their sweethearts' safe return and have their own battles to fight on the home front. It will take all their resolve to keep their heads above water, but as long as they stick together there will always be hope.

1603. Former ship's surgeon Gabriel Taverner is attempting to re-establish himself as a physician in rural Devon but it's not easy to gain the locals' trust and a series of disturbing incidents convinces him that at least one person does not welcome his presence. Called out to examine a partially decomposed body found beside the river, Gabriel discovers he has a personal connection to the dead man.

London, 1882. Alec Lonsdale, a young reporter on the Pall Mall Gazette, is working on a story about a fatal house fire. But the postmortem on the victim produces shocking results: Patrick Donovan's death was no accident. But why would someone murder a humble shop assistant and steal part of his brain? When a second body is discovered, its throat cut, and then a third, Lonsdale and his spirited female colleague, Hulda Friederichs, begin to uncover evidence of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest echelons of Victorian society.

October 1943. Nineteen-year-old Polly Holmes is leaving poor bombed London behind to join the war effort on Britain's canals. Stepping aboard the Marigold amid pouring rain, there's lots for Polly to get to grips with. Not least her fellow crew: strong and impetuous Verity, whose bark is worse than her bite, and seasoned skipper Bet. With her sweetheart away fighting in the RAF and her beloved brother killed in action, there's plenty of heartache to be healed on the waterway.

December 1882. Attending the opening of the new Natural History Museum, reporter Alec Lonsdale and his colleague Hulda Friederichs are shocked to discover a body in the basement, hacked to death. Suspicion falls on three cannibals, brought from the Congo as museum exhibits, who have disappeared. But Alec discovers that three other men have been similarly murdered, and when he and Hulda discover a letter in the victim's home warning of a catastrophic event planned for Christmas Eve, they find themselves in a race against time.

March 1944, West London: It's been five months since Verity Clement fled home for a life on Britain's canals. Hauling cargo between London and Birmingham is tough but easier to face than the turbulence she's left behind. When Verity's sweetheart returns unexpectedly from the front line, she dreams of a brighter future. But life aboard the Marigold is never smooth sailing. New recruit Sylvia is struggling with demons from her past while crewmate Polly receives devastating news. Verity does her best to help, but a shocking discovery is about to turn her life upside down....

August 1941: As war sweeps across Britain and millions of men enlist, women must fight the battle on the home front. Fran always thought she would marry her childhood sweetheart and live in Massingham, the beloved pit village she has always called home. But the opening of a munitions factory in the north-east of England presents a new opportunity. Against her father's wishes and with best friends Sarah and Beth by her side, Fran signs up to join the ranks of women at the factory. It's dangerous work, but the friends discover that their lives are only just beginning.

Bremen, 1951. An MI6 officer, haunted by an SS atrocity, kills a Nazi war criminal in the ruins of a U-boat bunker. The German turns out to be a CIA asset being rat-lined to South America. Britain, 1947. A young cabinet minister negotiates a deal with Moscow trading Rolls-Royce jet engines for cattle fodder and wood. The fates of the two men become entwined as one rises through MI6 and the other to Downing Street where, in the mid-1970s, a secret plot unfolds on both sides of the Atlantic to overthrow the prime minister. Can MI6 officers Catesby and Bone prevent it?

London, 1880. When accounts clerk Ernest Stibbins approaches the World's End investigation bureau with wild claims that his wife Albertina has been warned by her spirit guides that someone is out to harm her, the bureau's owner Lily Raynor and her new employee Felix Wilbraham are sceptical. How are the two private enquiry agents supposed to investigate threats from beyond the grave? But after she attends a seance at the Stibbins family home, Lily comes to realize that Albertina is in terrible danger. And soon, so is Lily herself....

The UK referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU was a political showdown the British PM, Jeremy Hartley, thought he couldn’t lose. But the next morning both he and the rest of the country woke in a state of shock. America meanwhile has its own unlikely presidential candidate, the brash showman Ronald Craig, a man that nobody thought could gain office. Throw into the mix the cunning Russian President Igor Popov, with his plans to destabilise the West, and you have a brilliant alternative account of the events of 2016 that led to Brexit and America welcoming its own new leader.

As a secret agent for the British government, Anthony Brooke wants to expose a gang responsible for blackmailing innocent people and gruesome murders. But when they plot a kidnap, Anthony must race to reach the little girl before they do. Milly will not be easy to retrieve, for she is in a Belgian convent, in German-occupied territory. To rescue her, Anthony must go behind enemy lines, crawl under the wire, face ruthless guards and break into the convent.

December 1941, North East England. Despite the loss of her father, Sarah is settling into her new role at the munitions factory. Her blossoming romance with pitman Stan is a welcome distraction from the dangerous working conditions. But a shocking revelation puts everything on the line. Meanwhile Fran is missing her sweetheart Davey, who has been conscripted to Bletchley Park. Beth is longing for someone too - and it's not her husband on the front line. As the factory girls face hardship on the home front, they will discover that the heroes they need are already by their side.

When Harry Whittaker, much loved star of stage and screen, dies suddenly of a heart attack, he finds himself still in this world. Trapped in a bizarre afterlife, he struggles to free himself. Meanwhile, his estranged son Richard is also trying to escape - from his failing cafe, his dotty mother and the wrong girlfriend. Perhaps what they all need is a guardian angel....

Who wanted him? What for? Why was Roger Farrar (if that was his name) on the run in Dublin? Was he a traitor and deserted? The innocent target of a kidnap plot? Or a lonely persecuted paranoiac? One thing is certain: he is likely to suffer a fate worse than death if he is caught by the gross villain who specialises in brain-washing.

The Chasebridge Killer is out, racial tension is rising and the mutilated body of a young Muslim man is found in the stairwell of a tower block in Doncaster. As he gets drawn into the case, Sean Denton's family life and his police job become dangerously entwined. Meanwhile a young woman is trying to piece her life back together, but someone is out there - someone who will never let her forget what she's done.

Nobody likes the North Edinburgh Health Enforcement Team, least of all the people who work for it. An uneasy mix of police and health service staff, Mona, Bernard and their colleagues stem the spread of the Virus, a mutant strain of influenza, by tracking down people who have missed their monthly health check. Now two young female students are missing. Why were they drinking in a bikers' bar? Who are the mysterious Children of Camus cult? And why is the German government interfering in the investigation?

June 1604. When the emaciated body of a vagrant is found on the edge of the moor, physician Gabriel Taverner's verdict is death from natural causes. But is all as it seems? Who was the dead man, and why had he come to the small West Country village of Tavy St Luke's to die cold, sick and alone? Then a discovery found buried in a nearby field throws a strange new light on the case...and as they search for answers, Gabriel Taverner and Coroner Theophilus Davey unearth a series of shocking secrets stretching back more than 14 years.

Catesby is a spy with an antiestablishment chip on his shoulder. Loathed by the Americans and trusted by the Russians, he is sent to Havana and Washington to make clandestine contacts. London has authorised Catesby to offer Moscow a secret deal to break the Cuban Missile Crisis deadlock. But then Catesby meets the Midnight Swimmer, who has a chilling message for Washington.... Merging fact and fiction, sleaze and high politics, this white-knuckle thriller sees a superpower standoff played out against a backdrop of honey-trap blackmail, Mafia contracts, assassination and Vatican scandal.

London, 1956. A generation of British Spies are haunted by the ghost of friends turned traitors. Henry Bone, a Mandarin spymaster, is convinced that a man code-named Butterfly is an aristocratic pervert whose political tastes are as ugly as his sexual preferences. Worst of all, Butterfly has the ability to identify each traitor!

1842. Stranded on Deception Island in the South Atlantic, her whaling captain husband lost at sea, Karina is destitute and desperate. Disguised as a cabin boy, she stows away on a British ship. But Karina is about to get a nasty surprise. As she grows closer to ship's surgeon Joseph Hooker, Karina and the rest of the crew find themselves pushed to the limits both physically and emotionally as conditions worsen on board.