Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Ness" in All Categories

It was just an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime when Detective Martha Munro's life changed forever. Her sergeant is speaking, but she barely hears what he's telling her. Your mother has been shot dead. Your four-year-old daughter has been taken. There are no leads. Who would want to hurt her family? Martha realizes it's time to ask herself some hard questions about her late father. He led the anti-corruption squad at Scotland Yard. It's rumored he kept a list of everyone who worked for him, from coppers to criminals. And just being on the list was a sure-fire way to lower your life expectancy.

The sisters at a lonely Cornish convent share a chilling secret they cannot confess...Sister Sophia is dead. Another disappears. And a mysterious last letter from a dying nun is sent to the prioress. Sister Joan has faced her own demons. Now she is sent to the convent to investigate, as well as teach the local children. There are whispers of virgin sacrifice and suicide, and the mother prioress certainly wears pink nail varnish. And who is the young man hiding in the bracken?

It has always been Maddie Willand's dream to take over her father's plant nursery. But after his sudden death, she is devastated to discover that she might lose The Potting Shed forever. Maddie's bossy older sister, Sabi, is joint owner of the nursery, and she's convinced that the best thing for both of them would be to sell up. Determined to keep the business going, Maddie can't afford any distractions, but staying focused might be harder than she thinks when her search for legal advice throws her into the path of attractive lawyer Ed...

Welcome back to The Potting Shed! Join Maddie and Sabi as they re-open the doors of their family-run garden center. Autumn is falling, business is thriving, and rival garden center BIG has been held at bay once more. Maddie and Sabi have decided it's time to give back to the community that has kept The Potting Shed afloat, by opening a dementia cafe called the Forget-Me-Not Café.

Spring has arrived at The Potting Shed and things seem to finally be going Maddie's way. Her relationship with lovable lawyer Ed is going well and the business is thriving with the help of her new friend Jo and his bright orange coffee van. But troubles are just around the corner... the upgrade of The Potting Shed from a nursery to a garden centre is at a critical point, turning part of Maddie's business into a building site. And just as she has to temporarily move out of her home, a major garden centre announces its grand opening only twenty miles away.

After the worst year of her life, Martha Munro is looking forward to getting back to the job she loves. She's one of the best and brightest young detectives in the Met, but she's immediately put on a seemingly pointless case . . . Martha is ordered to investigate a spate of cat abductions in leafy south London. Each time, the missing moggy turns up unharmed days later. But then one family receives a terrifying message: Next time it's the kids.

From the first time Vanessa Martin sets foot inside the world's most renowned children's hospital, she knows that she will never have another dull moment. In this heartwarming memoir of a passionate, determined young woman trying to help as many children as she can, Vanessa pulls back the curtain on the bustling world of 60s London, and tells the remarkable story of finding her place within it. Nostalgic, charming and full of heart, The Great Ormond Street Nurse is the heroic tale of a woman who has dedicated over 40 years to the NHS.

A new lay sister joins the nuns at the convent, but is there another new arrival? A sinister figure has been skulking around, and a bloody axe appears on the altar of the chapel. When the housekeeper at the local rectory is found dead, it’s assumed she committed suicide. But Sister Joan, surreptitiously investigating along with Detective Sergeant Mill, is not so sure. Then the discovery of the mutilated corpse of an unidentified young man, followed quickly by two more unexpected deaths, leads Sister Joan to another crime from 20 ago....

There is clearly something weird going on in their quiet corner of Cornwall. There's been some obscene vandalism in the kitchen. A dog is kidnapped. And when a cat is killed, Joan knows there's evil afoot. Then Sister Joan goes to visit Mrs. Pearson. She's met with a horrifying scene. Are these crimes just practical jokes gone horribly wrong? Or does someone have a dangerous obsession with the occult? Sister Joan teams up with Detective Sergeant Mill to get to the bottom of things. But can they stop anyone else getting hurt?

While out riding one day Sister Joan stumbles across an old, ruined chapel in a lonely area of the moors. It looks abandoned, but it’s not empty. On one of the pews lies a man. From the smell, Joan guesses he’s been dead for some time. With Detective Alan Mill away, Joan goes to his deputy, but the police seem strangely reluctant to help. Meanwhile, a young woman turns up and begs Sister Joan to help find her missing sister. But the police are not interested in the missing woman either.

How well do you know your neighbours? When residents of a North London cul-de-sac enrol in a seemingly innocent social network, they soon find themselves embroiled in a murky web of sinister manipulation and murder. From the outside, Caroline and Jason Swinton have an idyllic life. But when the cracks start to appear, the residents of Riverside Close are drawn into a dangerous game. When Jason’s body is discovered in a house on the close, everyone becomes a suspect.

Sixteen-year-old Valerie vanishes from home in the small hours clad only in her robe and slippers. Three days later, Sister Joan finds her body abandoned in the convent's little Moor Schoolhouse. The dead girl is dressed in wedding white. A garland of leaves encircles her head, and a thin red line runs round her neck. Valerie has been strangled. Then a second young Catholic girl, also dressed in white, turns up dead. Sister Joan is once again torn between her religious duties and helping Detective Sergeant Mill’s inquiries...but time is running out.

I'll never forget that day. The horror, fear and the uncertainty of what was to come are still etched on my memory. But I didn't know that in that moment, somewhere off the M1 in a place that seemed as unnerving as it was eerie, I would find something so precious that would change my life forever. That was the day I discovered my Buddy, abandoned in a crate, unable to move and so frail that he only had moments to live. He stopped me in my tracks, and without pausing to think I scooped him up and quickly ran from the scene. This was no place for people or animals.

“We have a secret the Devil and I.” These are the chilling words on the back of an old photograph that Sister Joan uncovers while cleaning out the attic storerooms. What she discovers among the dusty antiques leads to her most dangerous case yet. Joan has the strangest feeling that she's being followed. But the person she thinks she saw died over a year ago . . . Or did he? Then a young secretary turns up dead. She's been strangled. Another body is found and Sister Joan must get to the bottom of things before the murderer strikes again.

On Good Friday, the verger of St Albans cathedral was supposed to be preparing the Easter service. Instead he discovers a man lying dead, fallen from the famous 50-foot-high spire. Did he jump, or was he pushed? For DCI Maarten Jansen, it's a simple case of suspected suicide. Until a stranger, Willow, who witnessed the jump, prompts a deeper investigation into a long-buried past, involving a mental hospital, a pregnant woman and 50 years of silence. As Willow's own family history entwines with the case, Jansen starts to wonder how everything is connected.

The exhilarating third installment in the Detective Martha Munro series.

Karen has packed up her life and is making the Move. She’s on her way to the idyllic country cottage which her husband has painstakingly renovated for her. But something is awry. The landscape, breathtaking by day, is eerie by night. The longed-for peace and solitude is stifling. And the house, so artfully put together by her husband, has a strange vibe. Now that Karen is cut off from her old friends and family, she can’t help wondering if her husband has plans of his own, and that history might be repeating itself.

A body has been uncovered in a mudslide just outside the village of Andwiston. In the pub they talk of murder, but Dan - sometime mechanic, constant drunk - is finding it hard to sift through his jumbled memories. Watching him from the dark is Lorna, a lost soul living in the woods, haunted by ghosts and a vision from her childhood: a cold boy standing alone in Gallinger's field.