Showing results by author "Josephine" in All Categories

Rita Blackthorn’s heart was barren and hard. In all of her life, she had never truly loved. But she had hated. Beneath the loving gaze of her daughter’s soft green eyes, her heart swelled with dark and dangerous emotions. Young Cathy Blackthorn has never experienced any loving response from her mother. It is her beloved Aunt Margaret, with a heart as big and warm as the summer sky, who has been more of a mother than her own could ever be. And when Cathy’s father brings home a London street urchin, Cathy despairs of ever winning her parents’ love.

Robert Sullivan has been left to raise three-year-old Nancy and her seven-year-old brother Jack by himself.Unable to cope, Robert is driven to abandon his children to those he believes can provide them with a better life. However, he quickly has a change of heart and decides to go back for them. But on the way there, he is involved in a horrific accident.

Sonny Fareham's lover – and also her boss – is the charismatic Tony Bridgeman, a successful and ruthless man who usually gets what he wants. But for Sonny, the affair that has promised a future of hope and happiness must end in desperate fear. Late one evening, Sonny overhears a private conversation between Tony Bridgeman and his wife. Only then does she realise she is in great danger.

Vagabonds is the final instalment of Josephine Cox's best-selling Emma Grady trilogy, which finds the heroine content, yet still struggling with the ghosts of her past. 1885. Ex-convict Emma Grady has returned to her hometown of Blackburn and been reunited with her lover Marlow. Now married, with a beautiful home, loving husband and wonderful son, she is still haunted by the past, unable to forget the cruelty of her uncle Caleb Crowther, who ignored her desperate pleas to save her and her tragic first-born.

Louise and Ben Hunter's loving marriage is marred only by their unfulfilled longing for a child. Living and working with Ben's father, Ronnie, they are quietly contented. But when Ronnie dies, their whole world changes. Ben's lazy brother, Jacob, returns, convinced he stands to inherit Ronnie's small fortune. And he means to have his brother's wife; though just as she did years before, Louise warns him off. Jacob, however, is not so easily dismissed. When he realises Ben will inherit everything, Jacob is beside himself with rage, and commits a terrible deed.

Lizzie Miller worries for her family – money is short in their little house, but her beautiful daughter Ruby vows to give them all a better life. Working as a maid for Mr Banks, Ruby befriends his shy and gentle daughter, Cicely. The two girls hatch a mischievous plan to introduce Ruby to society at a party for the ‘gentry’ of Blackburn, where Ruby meets Luke Arnold, the dissolute heir to his father’s fortunes.

Dreamless continues the story of Helen Hamilton, a shy girl living on Nantucket Island whose desire for an ordinary life was thwarted when she discovered she is a Scion, a descendant of a Greek god and a mortal. Each Scion has a power, and Helen's is the ability to travel to Hades. Helen is determined to use her talent to stop a war among the gods and change her destiny, which is to live a life patterned after that of the tragic Helen of Troy. But her quest may cost her Lucas Delios, the boy she loves.

In the summer of 1952 when two lonely people arrive in the seaside hamlet of West Bay. Strangers from very different backgrounds, they are there for the same reason: to find peace and the chance to start a new life. Tom Arnold has left a highly paid job after his family died in a car accident. Kathy Wilson is recovering from a painful divorce. For both Tom and Kathy, it seems there is hope of rebuilding their lives. Yet even now, someone means to wreck both Tom's and Kathy's search for happiness.

Bella can’t wait to be married to her fiancée Sidney, and dreams of the day she will walk up the aisle to be given away by her widowed father, with her bookish sister Alice as her bridesmaid. Their lives are disturbed when they receive a letter from their fourteen-year-old cousin Millie. Taken in by her austere aunt and uncle when her parents were killed in an accident, Millie says she is being badly treated and pleads to be rescued. When the two sisters take a trip to find out the truth, things take a troubling turn.

The pretty Arnold sisters have grown up on their father's farm and yearn for something more out of life than drudgery and toil. Ellen, loyal and honest, is her father's favourite, but Georgina is impulsive and unreliable, and can't please a father who has never shown her love.The big house, Grindle Hall, offers them both a chance of betterment, but while Ellen follows the steady path, Georgina takes a darker road and soon, her actions will have fateful consequences for them all. Only Ellen can help them, but will a sister's love be enough?

Harry always knew he would go back one day ... Eighteen years ago when he was a boy, he had made a decision that drove him from the place he knew and loved. In those early years, between boy and man, he had carved out a life for himself, and somehow, he had found a semblance of peace.Yet through every waking moment during those long aching years, he was haunted by what happened when he was a boy. He had never forgotten that warm, carefree girl with the laughing eyes.

Kelly knew that, although Barney would always love her, his restless soul would never allow him to stay, but she could never have envisaged how his leaving would alter her life. Alone once more, Kelly finds herself remembering the past – in particular, what happened in the autumn of 1877 and how it destroyed her family. Filled with regrets and wishes that life may have been different, Kelly begins to see that she must confront her past – and only then will she finally be free.

Emily’s life changes after a terrible car accident when a magnetic stranger, Jax, steps in to take her hand. Their serendipitous union empowers Emily to finally feel comfortable in her own skin, but when the couple’s relationship veers off course, Emily is drawn into a web of obsession and lies. This audio play features immersive audio techniques; to maximize the listening experience, headphones are recommended (but not required!). Please note this audiobook contains strong language and adult themes. Discretion is advised.

In 1975 Lucinda Marsh throws herself in front of a speeding train leaving her 12-year-old daughter Kitty alone, confused and abandoned – save for a selfish aunt, a violent father and her childhood sweetheart Harry Jenkins. When Kitty is sent to an orphanage after the death of her father, she meets Georgie, a lively cockney girl who, through the following difficult years, becomes her loyal friend. Convinced that her feelings for Harry will ruin the brilliant future that lies ahead of him, Kitty turns her back on his love.

The murder of the young princes in the Tower of London in 1483 is the most notorious crime in English royal history. The prime suspect has long been Richard III, portrayed as a monster by everyone from early propagandists writing immediately after Richard’s death to Shakespeare himself. In this, the book repeatedly voted one of the best mystery novels of all time, queen of Golden Age crime Josephine Tey tackles the question of Richard’s guilt via her own celebrated detective.

A stranger enters the inner sanctum of the Ashby family posing as Patrick Ashby, the heir to the family's sizeable fortune. The stranger, Brat Farrar, has been carefully coached on Patrick's mannerisms, appearance and every significant detail of Patrick's early life, up to his thirteenth year when he disappeared and was thought to have drowned himself. It seems as if Brat is going to pull off this most incredible deception until old secrets emerge that threaten to jeopardise the imposter's plan and his very life.

Diagnosed with ‘overwork’ and in the grip of debilitating claustrophobia, Inspector Alan Grant takes leave from Scotland Yard and heads for the peaceful home of his cousin Laura, who lives with her family in the Scottish Highlands. As the London mail draws into Inverness, he sees the surly sleeping-car attendant trying to rouse an unresponsive young man. He is compelled, firstly, to point out that the passenger is dead, and secondly to pick up the newspaper that has slipped onto the compartment floor.

When the San Angelo drifts into port in the Thames Estuary, telephones begin to ring across the capital and an intricate series of events is set in motion. Beset by dreadful storms in the Bay of Biscay, the ship, along with the 'mixed cargo' it carries, is late. Unaware of the machinations of avaricious importers, wayward captains and unscrupulous traders, Harry Reed and June Harvey are thrust together by a riverside accident, before being swept into the current of a dark plot developing on the dockside.

Powerful, hard-hearted Leonard Mears ruthlessly presides over his wife and children, exiling them from the outside world and brutally punishing any disobedience. But he is also a man with a dark secret – an illegitimate daughter that he forced his sister to bring up. The girl is now a young woman who, unbeknownst to him, is determined to find the father that abandoned her.

From the moment she learns of the stranger's visit, Molly Tattersall is filled with a sense of fear. Then her mother disappears, leaving behind a letter asking Molly to take care of her five brothers and sisters. Molly's wayward father rejects his responsibilities, leaving Molly to choose between the young man she has given her heart to and the family she adores. It is the cruellest decision of her life, with long-reaching and heart-breaking consequences. Only one thing is certain – Molly's life will never be the same again.