Showing results by narrator "Fiona McNeill" in All Categories

For 46 years, Carol Minto has quietly gone about her life, carrying with her the most extraordinary and heartbreaking secrets. In The Asylum, Carol tells the full story of how she overcame unimaginable suffering, to find the happiness and solace she has today as a mother and grandmother. 

Stories tucked away on every floor. No. 10 Luckenbooth Close is an archetypal Edinburgh tenement. The devil’s daughter rows to the shores of Leith in a coffin. The year is 1910, and she has been sent to a tenement building in Edinburgh by her recently deceased father to bear a child for a wealthy man and his fiancée. The harrowing events that follow lead to a curse on the building and its residents - a curse that will last for the rest of the century.

When Cassie and James find each other on a home swap website, it feels meant to be. City hotshot James needs a bolthole after a relationship goes sour, and Cassie needs to leave the comfort of her little island to research her new book. Soon, James is living in Cassie’s cute but ramshackle beachside cottage, and Cassie’s living in James’ London apartment. It’s the perfect solution. Except James didn’t imagine he’d be sharing his home with 11 chickens and three alpacas. And Cassie is less than impressed when James’ ex-girlfriend turns up at his door.

Scotland, 1949: Caroline Gillan and her new husband, Alasdair, have moved back to Kelly Castle, his dilapidated family estate in the middle of nowhere. Stuck caring for their tiny baby, and trying to find her way with an opinionated mother-in-law, Caroline feels adrift, alone and unwelcome. But when she is tasked with sorting out the family archives, Caroline discovers a century-old mystery that sparks her back to life. 

The endless rotstorm rages over the ruins of the Ferron Empire. Floré would never let the slavers of the empire rise again. As a warrior of the Stormguard Commandos, she wrought horrors in the rotstorm to protect her people. She did her duty and left the bloodshed behind. Floré’s peace is shattered when blazing orbs of light cut through the night sky and descend on her village. Her daughter is abducted, and Floré is forced into a chase across a land of twisted monsters and ancient gods.

1927: when Fred Lawson takes a summer job on St Kilda, little does he realise that he has joined the last community to ever live on that beautiful, isolated island. Only three years later, St Kilda will be evacuated, the islanders near-dead from starvation. But for Fred, that summer - and the island woman, Chrissie, whom he falls in love with - becomes the very thing that sustains him in the years ahead.

Anna hasn’t set foot in Glasgow for 10 years, for very good reason. When Anna, a criminology lecturer, does return to Glasgow from Rome, during the coldest winter in memory, tragedy strikes. While out with her best friend from school, Anna has a chance encounter with a former flame, Andrew, whom she later discovers dying on a blanket of snow. She finds herself at the centre of the investigation as the star witness and embarks on her own investigation of the case. But Anna doesn’t realise the danger she is in and soon finds herself in trouble.

As children on the island of Phetray, Minn Macfee, a cottar's daughter, and Ewan Mackinnon, the Minister's son, are bound together by the accidental drowning of Ewan's sister. Ewan is blamed and Minn shunned. As the two children grow, they must go their separate ways grieving. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War Ewan returns to Phetray, now a handsome sailor. He falls in love with Minn's fragile beauty and enchanting singing voice. But they are separated again when Ewan joins the Special Boat Squadron and embarks for France.

Software engineer Isobel needs to eat like everyone, and that’s how she fell into the job that leads her to the most northerly place on our planet. As part of a weathered crew of sailors, scientists and corporate officers, she sails into the ice where their advanced software Proteus will map everything there is to know. A great icebreaker leads their way into the brutal environment, and the days grow longer, time ever more detached, as they pass through the endless white expanse of the ice. But they are not alone.