Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Genre Fiction

Following the death of her bullying husband, Etta Bancroft's selfish children move her to a village in the Cotswolds. One night she discovers a filly, left to die in the snow. With the help of friends they rescue the horse and form a syndicate to pay for her upkeep. As the horse recovers she...

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. In Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel explores one of the most mystifying and frightening episodes in English history: the destruction of Anne Boleyn.

Abigail Rosen, nicknamed Appassionata, was the sexiest, most flamboyant violinist in classical music, but she was also the loneliest and the most exploited girl in the world. When a dramatic suicide attempt destroyed her violin career, she set her sights on the male-dominated heights of the conductor's rostrum. Given the chance to take over the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra, Abby is ecstatic, not realising the RSO is composed of the wildest bunch of musicians ever to blow a horn or caress a fiddle. 

No picture ever came more beautiful than Raphael's Pandora. Discovered by a dashing young lieutenant, Raymond Kelvedon, in a Normandy chateau in 1944, she had cast her spell over his family - all artists and dealers - for 50 years. Hanging in a turret of their lovely Cotswold house, Pandora witnessed Raymond's tempestuous wife, Galena, both entertaining a string of lovers and giving birth to her four children: Jupiter, Alizarin, Jonathan and superbrat Sienna. Then an exquisite stranger rolls up, claiming to be a long-lost daughter of the family, setting the three Belvedon brothers at each other's throats. 

The story of a relationship that everyone thought was forever and which is now in danger of being for never, The Break is about getting older and staying in love when life, real life, is trying to pull you apart.

When a young woman makes a distressing middle-of-the-night call to 911, apparently running for her life in a quiet, exclusive beachside neighbourhood, miles from her home, everything suggests a domestic incident. Except no one has seen her since, and something doesn’t sit right with the officers at Hampstead County PD.

They're a glamorous family, the Caseys. Johnny Casey, his two brothers Ed and Liam, their beautiful, talented wives and all their kids spend a lot of time together - birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, weekends away. And they're a happy family. Johnny's wife, Jessie - who has the most money - insists on it. Under the surface, though, conditions are murkier. While some people clash, other people like each other far too much.... Everything stays under control until Ed's wife Cara, gets concussion and can't keep her thoughts to herself.

Ricky France-Lynch had a large crumbling estate, a nine-goal polo handicap, and a beautiful wife who was fair game for anyone with a cheque book. He also had the adoration of fourteen-year-old Perdita MacLeod who couldn’t wait to become a polo player. The polo set were ritzy, and gloriously promiscuous. Perdita was a brat who loved only her horses and Ricky France-Lynch…

In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England's Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap tower blocks. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district's narrative, among its saints, kings, prostitutes and derelicts, a different kind of human time is happening. Through the labyrinthine streets and minutes of Jerusalem tread ghosts that sing of wealth and poverty, of Africa, hymns and our threadbare millennium.

A new edition of the award-winning novel. Spanning forty years, two women's stories of love, loss and betrayal are intertwined in this award-winning novel by Jojo Moyes, internationally bestselling author of Me Before You, After You, and Still Me. When journalist Ellie looks through her...

At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious and fatally attractive headmaster, Hengist Brett-Taylor, hatches a plan to share the facilities of his school with Larkminster Comprehensive - known locally, as 'Larks'. His reasons for doing so are purely financial, but he is encouraged by the opportunities the scheme gives him for frequent meetings with Janna Curtis, the dynamic new head of Larks, who has been drafted in to save what is a fast-sinking school from closure. 

Adrian Mole is 39 and a quarter. Due to his financial situation he has been forced to move next door to his parents. And his numerous nightly visits to the lavatory lead him to suspect prostate trouble. As his worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame ignites powerful memories and makes him wonder - is she the only one who can save him now?

Adrian Mole is 34 and three quarters, almost officially middle-aged, when Mr. Blair tells Parliament that Weapons of Mass Destruction can be deployed in 45 minutes and can reach Cyprus. Adrian is worried that he might not get a refund on his holiday. But that's not all that is bothering him. There's his odd girlfriend Marigold who has become distressingly New Age. And his son Glenn who is in Deepcut Barracks. Would Mr. Blair have been quite so keen if it had been his son manning a roadblock?

‘Let the wind take me and the soft rain settle me into the Irish soil from where I came. And may my sins be forgiven.’ Arethusa Clayton has always been formidable, used to getting her own way. On her death, she leaves unexpected instructions. Instead of being buried in America, on the...

England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events.

Lysander Hawkley combined breathtaking good looks with the kindest of hearts. He couldn't pass a neglected wife without rushing to the rescue, which invariably led to ecstatic bonking, which didn't please their erring husbands one bit. Let loose among the neglected wives of the ritzy county of Rutshire, Lysander causes absolute havoc. But it is only when he meets Rannaldini, Rutshire's King Rat and a temperamental, fiendishly promiscuous international conductor, that the trouble really starts.... 

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith's son from Putney emerges from the spring's bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen. Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. 

West Cork, Ireland, 1900. The year marks the start of a new century, and the birth of three very different women: Kitty Deverill, the flame-haired Anglo-Irish daughter of the castle, Bridie Doyle, the daughter of the Irish cook and Celia Deverill, Kitty's flamboyant English cousin. Together they...

England, 1586. Giordano Bruno returns to England to bring shocking new intelligence to Sir Francis Walsingham. A band of Catholic Englishmen are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth and spring Mary Queen of Scots from prison to take the English throne in her place. Bruno is surprised to find that Walsingham is aware of the plot, led by the young, wealthy noble Anthony Babington and is allowing it to progress. His hope is that Mary will put her support in writing - and condemn herself to a traitor's death.

THE TIMES AUDIOBOOK OF THE WEEK The bodies never stay buried forever . . .' On a freezing winter morning, fishermen pull a body from the sea. It is quickly discovered that the dead man was the prime suspect in a decade-old investigation, when a prominent civil servant disappeared without trace...