Showing results by narrator "Charlie Norfolk" in All Categories

Sussex, 1957: When Flora Steele and handsome crime writer Jack Carrington attend the grand re-opening of the Priory Hotel in the beautiful little village of Abbeymead, their day out is cut short when the flame-haired female singer in the band suddenly drops dead before their eyes. Flora is stunned by the unexpected turn of events and immediately deduces foul play. Beverly Russo was a spirited young woman with a big voice, and Flora is determined to get to the bottom of her untimely demise—especially as the detective sergeant leading the investigation is so hopeless. 

When Flora Steele sets off for a peaceful vacation with crime writer Jack Carrington, the last thing she expects to find is a body at their pretty rental cottage! More baffling, they discover Roger Gifford was a man with plenty of friends, and the villagers seem devastated by his sudden death.... So why was he murdered? Who has blood on their hands? His estranged wife, Beatrice, his wayward younger brother, Lionel, or the suspicious newcomer, Mercy Dearlove? Inquisitive, Flora joins forces with handsome Jack to find out how the poor man came to such an untimely end.   

Sussex, 1955: When bookshop owner Flora Steele goes for a walk along the pier she isn’t expecting to spot a young woman’s body in the stormy waters below. And she’s shocked to discover the victim is someone she knows.... Convinced the death was not an accident, Flora persuades attractive local crime writer Jack Carrington to help her find out what really happened to poor Polly Dakers, a popular young woman with a complicated love life, who’d been at the heart of village life in Abbeymead.

The young man with the shock of white-blond hair lay spread-eagled on the floor, surrounded by fallen books. His hand reached out to the scattered pages, as though he was trying to tell her something. But who is he? How did he come to be killed in Flora’s ordinary little bookshop? Flora finds out he was staying at the Priory Hotel, and when the gardener suddenly dies in its beautiful grounds only a few days later, she is certain that something untoward is happening in her quiet village by the sea. 

It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book - she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books - and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation.

Nazi-occupied Vienna, 1940. As bombs fall over Europe, Hannah Stern is a 27-year-old nurse who is just trying to survive. When she takes a position at Vienna’s esteemed psychiatric hospital, Am Steinhof, she thinks it will take her away from the danger. Her estranged half-brother has arranged the job for her on the condition that she must take his son, Willi, there too. He insists it’s a place where Willi will be safe. And Hannah soon forms a close bond with the sweet, fragile child in her care.

Everyone in the village admires Anna because she’s a wonderful mother. Juggling family life with a small sewing business, she’s the one they turn to for a warm hug after a hard day. Her kind, polite daughters are a credit to her - even Bay, her stepdaughter, whom Anna loves as much as her own two girls. But normal family life changes overnight when Anna’s middle daughter’s beauty catches the eye of a stranger in a café. As jealousy erupts between the siblings, Anna’s perfect blended family begins to unravel around her. 

In a childless and unhappy marriage, Clare Royland is rich and beautiful—but lonely. And fueling her feelings of isolation is a strange, growing fascination with an ancestress from the distant past. Troubled by haunting inexplicable dreams that terrify—but also powerfully compel—her, Clare is forced to look back through the centuries for answers. In 1306, Scotland is at war. Isobel, countess of Buchan, faces fear and the prospect of untimely death as the fighting surrounds her. 

When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta. Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime. 

Sophie has always believed her mother abandoned her, and tries not to dwell on memories of laughter and bedtime stories. Arriving at the renowned Ayredale Library deep in the English countryside, Sophie feels strangely at home among her fellow bookbinders and the endless shelves of antique books. But everything changes when a beautiful door – engraved with a leaf matching her mother’s old necklace – swings open at her touch. Sophie gasps at the impossible sight inside: a silver tree growing higher than the library itself. 

Dakota and Corso discover not only that the Shoal are caught in an aeons-long conflict with a rival star-faring species, but that the Bandati have resolved to make an alliance with this race by giving them deadly knowledge acquired from the Magi starship; forging an unholy alliance with the Shoal-member Trader. Dakota is determined to stop them - but the destruction of millions of inhabited worlds appears inevitable.

In the 25th century, only the Shoal possess the secret of faster-than-light travel (FTL), giving them absolute control over all trade and exploration throughout the galaxy. Mankind has operated within their influence for two centuries, establishing a dozen human colony worlds scattered along Shoal trade routes. Dakota Merrick, while serving as a military pilot, has witnessed atrocities for which this alien race is responsible.

A solitary child who only really found solace in nature, Tess Eagle Swan ran away from home aged 16 and, by her late 20s, had already survived violence and drug addiction. In the following decade, life spiralled further out of control, as substance abuse filled the hole meaningful relationships should have occupied. Something had to change. Tess had always loved animals, so when she saw a post on Facebook about the plight of two dogs in Romania, she was moved to take action, helping find homes for both. It was the first step on the road that led her to Kratu.

Ellen May Ngewthu is a soldier and leader of the Cassini Division, the elite defence force of the utopian Solar Union. Here in the twenty-fourth century, the forts of the Division, in orbit around Jupiter, are the front line in humanity's long standoff with the unknowable post-humans godlike beings descended from the men and women who transformed themselves with high technology centuries ago.

My precious daughter. You have no idea how dangerous the world is. No idea of the horrors I’ve shielded you from. The things I’ve endured...our past. We’ve been happy. We’ve been hidden. We’ve been safe. But our perfect life is about to come crashing down. Because they’ve found me. And they’re about to reveal my darkest secret...to you. I’ll do anything to protect you, darling, because if you knew—I’d lose you forever. You can never discover what I’ve done...or what I’m willing to do to keep you safe.

Cumbria, 1967. Grieving the loss of her son, Cordelia Hemlock is in a village graveyard when lightning strikes a tumbledown tomb - and gives her a glimpse of a new corpse that doesn't belong among the crumbling bones. But when the body vanishes, the authorities refuse to believe some hysterical outsider. Cordelia persuades Felicity Goose, the only other person to have seen the corpse, to join her investigation. But the villagers don't take kindly to their interference. There are those who believe the village's secrets should remain buried...whatever the cost.

In the third Shoal book, the nova war has begun to spread as the Emissaries force the Shoal into a desperate retreat. While Dakota goes in search of the entity responsible for creating the Maker caches, Corso, left in charge of a fleet of Magi ships, finds his authority crumbling in the face of politically-motivated sabotage.

London, May 1537. As those closest to the throne are locked in a fierce fight against those desperate to save England's monasteries from destruction, young Joanna Stafford faces a far more personal battle. When Joanna learns her cousin is about to be burned at the stake for rebelling against Henry VIII, she makes a decision that will change not only her life, but quite possibly the fate of a nation. It will mean turning her back on everything she knows, for Joanna is a novice at Dartford Priory - and to save her family, she must break the sacred rule of enclosure.

When her mum is taken into hospital, Pearl goes to live with a foster family. But all Pearl really wants is to be back with her mum on their narrow boat. And when her mum runs away from the hospital, Pearl knows she must go back to the boat to find her.

England, 1538. The nation is reeling after the ruthless dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. Cast out of Dartford Priory, Joanna Stafford - feisty, courageous, but scarred by her recent encounter with rebellion at court - is trying to live a quiet life with her five-year-old charge, Arthur. But family connections draw her dangerously close to a treasonous plot and, repelled by violence and the whispered conspiracies around her, Joanna seeks a life with a man who loves her.