Showing results by narrator "Bea Holland" in All Categories

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

You thought they were just staying for the weekend. They looked harmless enough - with only two suitcases and a cat in a wicker box. But soon things turn very, very dark. It happens slowly, yet so extraordinarily quickly. Now you and your sister must find a way to survive....

Cynthia and Alex have always been like sisters. Living and working for years on Cynthia's mother's sprawling farm, they've raised their families together. It was the perfect life until the fateful night that Alex finds Hannah, one of Cynthia's eighteen-year-old twins, inexplicably murdered in her own home. Soon Alex's life is spiralling out of control as she questions everything she knows and everyone she trusted. And when local detective, Stefani Warner starts investigating Hannah's murder, one prime suspect quickly rises to the fore: Daniel, Alex's nineteen-year-old son.

It is two years before the outbreak of World War 1, and the Oakley family are typical of their time. Andrew has been clerk at a City solicitors for twenty years. Alice, his wife, keeps the home fires burning. Their sons plan on becoming skilled apprentices. And Mabel, their daughter, says she would rather die than go into domestic service like her cousin. She is going to go to train as a secretary. Andrew Oakley little imagines, as he sets off for work one February morning, that their lives are about to change in the most dramatic and tragic fashion.

Anna’s aunt has always warned her of the dangers of magic. Its twists. Its knots. Its deadly consequences. Now Anna counts down the days to the ceremony that will bind her magic forever. Until she meets Effie and Attis. They open her eyes to a London she never knew existed. A shop that sells memories. A secret library where the librarian feeds off words. A club where revellers lose themselves in a haze of spells. But as she is swept deeper into this world, Anna begins to wonder if her aunt was right all along.

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.

When Sally kills her husband with a cast-iron skillet, she’s more fearful of losing her kids than of disposing of a fresh corpse. That just wouldn’t be fair—not after twenty years of marriage to a truly terrible man. But Sally isn’t the only woman in town reaching the brink. Soon, Sally finds herself leading an extremely unusual self-help group, and among them there are four bodies to hide. Can they all figure out the perfect way to bury their husbands . . . and get away with it?

Emma Harte is now 80 years old and ready to hand over the reins of the vast business empire she has created. To her favourite grandchild, Paula McGill Fairley, Emma bequeaths her mighty retailing empire with these heartfelt words: ‘I charge you to hold my dream.’ A towering international success, this is the powerfully moving tale of one woman’s determination to ‘hold the dream’ which was entrusted to her, and in so doing find the happiness and passion which is her legacy.

Foulsham has been destroyed. Darkness lies heavily over the city; the sun has not come up for days. Inside the houses throughout the capital, ordinary objects have begun to move. There are rumours of a terrible contagion. From the richest mansion to the poorest slum, people have disappeared. The police have been instructed to carry arms. Someone has stolen a certain plug. Someone is lighting a certain box of matches. All will come tumbling down. The Iremongers have come to London.

In the aptly named borough of Foulsham, Grandfather Umbitt Iremonger has found a way of making everyday objects assume human shape, and turning real people into objects. Lucy Pennant has been discarded as a clay button, abandoned in the Heaps. Meanwhile, Clod has been turned into a gold coin and is being passed as currency through the town. Everywhere people are searching for Clod, who, it is believed, has the power to bring the mighty Umbitt down.

Exploring the dichotomy between one's inner and outer self is central to Behind Her Eyes. When a vulnerable woman is drawn into the lives of an enigmatic couple, she finds it hard to differentiate between reality and what truly lies beneath a seemingly perfect exterior.

The first book offering support for parents and carers of children and young people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), this guidebook explains the condition as well as the impact that it may have in education settings, family life and socialisation. The guide begins by explaining how and why BDD emerges, before moving onto an exploration of how the mental health condition presents itself emotionally, psychologically, physically and behaviourally.

Parents, friends, teachers, relatives, and even work colleagues - from the people close to us to those we never even meet - other people are constantly shaping who we are. The mirror neuron is a part of the brain that has shaped each and every one of us throughout our lifetimes. It is the very essence of what makes us human, but most of us have never even heard of it. Mirror Thinking explores how the mirror neuron has defined us through the role models we observe and interact with.

Maisie Winters has everything she could ever want. She lives in the idyllic Cornish town of Port Karadow, has a jammy job in her dad's shop, adores her rescue mutt, and has time to take the landscape photos she loves. While her best friend and sister left the town to chase big dreams in London and New York, Maisie stayed – she wouldn't leave her favourite place for anything…or anyone. When her long-time crush, Colm Caffrey, returns from a decade abroad, old feelings start to resurface. Maisie begins to ask herself if there might be one big thing missing after all?

Vicky Lewis is a force to be reckoned with: not yet 30 and already Crew Manager in the London Fire Brigade, she's destined for great things. But when she enters a burning building to save a man's life and leaves it with catastrophic injuries, all that changes. She's shunted over to the Fire Investigation Unit, where she's forced to team up with cantankerous veteran Des Farmer, aka the Grouch.

Paula has had Robert's back since they got together as drama students. She gave up her dreams so he could make it; now he's one of the nation's most popular actors. But Paula's just discovered he's having an affair. Now, she's going to break his heart like he broke hers. It will be her greatest acting role ever. Revenge is sweet.... Isn't it?

Alex Parkinson is in love with his writing tutor, Siobhan. He has never loved anyone like this, but how can he convince Siobhan that they are meant to be together? So Alex stalks her on Facebook and finds out where she lives, buys her presents using her own credit card and sends her messages telling her exactly what he wants to do to her. He breaks into her house, reads her diary and secretly listens to her while she takes a bath. Isn't that what all lovers do?

Set in Yorkshire, Hong Kong and America, this remarkable novel continues the story of an unorthodox and endlessly fascinating family. As the spirit of Emma Harte lives on in her granddaughter, Paula O’Neill, an engrossing drama is played out in the glamorous arena of the wealthy and privileged, underscored by a cutthroat world of jealousy and treachery. Paula must act with daring and courage to preserve her formidable grandmother’s glittering empire from unscrupulous enemies - so that Emma’s precious dream lives on for the next generation.

Getting pregnant as a teenager was never part of Kate's plan, but when it happens she's determined to do right by her daughter, showing her the love she never had as a child. Life as a single mother is hard, sometimes impossible, but it only brings Kate and Becky closer together. By the time Becky is making her own way in the world as a tenacious trainee journalist, Kate couldn't be prouder.

From Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Kernick - the UK's answer to Harlan Coben - come two electrifying novellas and three gripping short stories published in book form for the very first time. Fans of David Baldacci, Stuart MacBride and Peter James will not be disappointed.