Showing results by narrator "Lucy Rayner" in All Categories

I'm Beth. Or I was, until the crash. I'm a woman clinging to the frayed edges of a failing marriage. We've been trying for a baby for ten years now, and the strain of it all is destroying us. My twin sister Cate has everything I've ever wanted—three perfect children, an adoring husband, a beautiful home. The world revolves around her. I'm the paler, watered-down version. Then comes the accident. A twisted wreck on the motorway. A single, devastating moment. And a choice.

Twenty years ago, student Daisy Harrington went out for the evening and never came home. Her body was found a week later. The killer was caught. Case closed. Now, on what would have been her fortieth birthday, her five university housemates are invited to a weekend gathering. None of them want to go. But none of them can refuse—the invitation makes it clear that if they don’t attend, the past they’ve spent two decades hiding will finally come to light.

The remarkable autobiography of a pioneering female aviator who left a privileged life to serve in World War II.   

July 8, 1921. Ireland. A British Officer is shot dead on a remote hillside south of Dublin. November 22, 2015. United Kingdom. Former police detective Jayne Sinclair, now working as a genealogical investigator, receives a phone call from an adopted American billionaire asking her to discover the identity of his real father. How are the two events linked? Jayne Sinclair has only three clues to help her: a photocopied birth certificate, a stolen book, and an old photograph.

The inimitable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her husband Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher seem to get a reprieve from their sleuthing duties when they are invited to the wedding of their friend, Lucy Fotheringay. Lucy's grandfather is hosting the ceremony at his beautiful estate and so it promises to be a typical affair with hordes of gossipy aunts and other colorful, but not necessarily pleasant, relatives. Daisy meets all these characters and observes the ensuing familial fraternization with a certain kind of amusing nonchalance.

In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.

I’m so looking forward to meeting Aunt Maura, my mother’s twin sister who lives on the rugged west coast of Ireland. With my own mother dying so suddenly, and my sweet baby daughter arriving, I need family around me. But instead of arriving at Maura’s house safe and sound, I wake up in hospital, badly injured. Then I remember the crash. Where is my baby?

Belief in ghosts is surprisingly common worldwide. Mysterious glowing orbs, unexplained chills, things that literally go bump in the night: signs of paranormal activity have reportedly surged during the pandemic. As have specialist investigators, organized ghost hunts, eerie podcasts, TV shows and reports of everyday hauntings. Sharing the details of some well-known and particularly mysterious hauntings together with some less-well-known tales and personal stories, Theresa explores these ghostly encounters through four categories of hauntings: residual, poltergeist, inhuman and intelligent.

When FBI-agent-turned-time-traveler Kendra Donovan is asked to investigate the suspicious death of Lady Westford, she finds herself on a harrowing journey through Regency England's most taboo traditions. Every layer she peels back uncovers more puzzles, including Lady Westford's interest in a dead woman who'd been mysteriously drained of all her blood. This isn't the first time Kendra has battled a ruthless madman . . . but one mistake, one misstep, and it may be her last.

Miss Emma Harlow hasn't earned the reputation as a hoyden for nothing, so when the duke of Trent discovers her in his conservatory stealing one of his orchids, he isn't surprised - charmed, delighted and puzzled, yes, but not surprised. It is Emma who is amazed. But her vexation doesn't last long. For Emma is a practical young lady with a mission: to end her dear sister Lavinia's engagement to the villainous (and dreadfully dull!) Sir Waldo Windbourne, and she thinks that the famous libertine is just the man for the job.  

In September 1925, Scotland Yard DCI Alec Fletcher inherits a large house on the outskirts of London from a recently deceased great-uncle. Fortunately so, as he and his wife, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, are the recent proud parents of twins, and their house is practically bursting at the seams. Though in need of a bit of work, this new, larger house seems a godsend - set in a small circle of houses, with Hampstead Heath nearby, the setting is idyllic. Idyllic, that is until a dead body shows up half-hidden under the bushes of the communal garden.

In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions.

In the Spring of 1926, the corpses of three men are found in shallow graves off the beaten path in Epping Forest outside of London - each shot through the heart and bearing no identification. DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, the lead detective, is immediately given two urgent orders by his supervisor at the Yard: solve the murders quickly and keep his wife, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, away from the case! Thankfully, Daisy's off visiting their daughter at school. But when a teacher is found dead, Daisy is once again in the thick of it.

Two young ladies contend with the Royal College of Wizards in Regency London: first in the series filled with "magical twists and turns" (San Diego Union-Tribune). Since they were children, cousins Kate and Cecelia have been inseparable. But in 1817, as they approach adulthood, their families...

Something is rotten in the heart of Alexandria and Julius Strathclyde is in trouble. He appears to have summoned the gods, which is driving his partner, Neith Salah, insane. Not to mention all the other ultra-rational citizens of Alpha earth. It gets worse. The gods set a challenge that can't be refused. The race is on to find the lost blueprints for the Quantum Stepper. Whoever possesses them will be able to unlock the stepper's true potential. The game is afoot and the outcome is terrifying. All of time and space will be under the control of the victors; to protect, or to plunder. 

It followed every major military victory in ancient Rome: the successful general drove through the streets to the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill; behind him streamed his raucous soldiers; in front were his prisoners, as well as the booty he'd captured, from enemy ships and precious statues to plants and animals from the conquered territory. Occasionally there was so much on display that the show lasted two or three days. A radical reexamination of this most extraordinary of ancient ceremonies, this book explores the magnificence of the Roman triumph, but also its darker side.

This collection includes all three audiobooks in Serena Valentino's Villains trilogy. Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen Why exactly is the wicked queen so nasty, particularly to Snow White? Perhaps it has something to do with the creepy-looking man in the magic mirror who's not just...

One morning in April 1924, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher finds herself in a most unenviable position. Despite her best attempts to elude the inevitable, she must face her darkest fears and with all the strength and courage she can muster, must confront the one person she has tried hardest to avoid - the dentist. But upon arriving for her appointment, she finds the waiting room deserted and adjoining examination room locked, with no hint of either Dr. Talmadge or his nurse.

In December 1923, the formidable Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple has decided that for Christmas the family will all gather at Brockdene in Cornwall at the invitation of Lord Westmoor. Her daughter - Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher - is somewhat less than pleased but yields to the demands of her mother, especially as she'll be there just before the holidays working on another article for Town and Country about the estate itself. But the family gathering quickly goes awry.

The sixth and final book in the captivating series which follows the lives of Beth and Alex MacGregor, their family, and friends. Alex, now believing Beth to be alive, leaves Scotland and heads south to keep the promise he made to her at Culloden, determined to be reunited with his wife regardless of the danger to himself. Meanwhile, the Duke of Newcastle has realised that he cannot kill Beth, either publicly or privately, without attracting the enmity of powerful people, including the heir to the throne.