Showing results by narrator "Emma Powell" in All Categories

1968, Sicily. Just months after an earthquake has destroyed the mountain town of Gibellina, Enzo and his wife Irene Borgata are making their way back to the family home, Villa Alba. When their car breaks down, Enzo leaves his young wife to go and get help, but when he returns there is no trace of Irene. 2003. TV showman and true crime aficionado Milo Conti is Italy’s darling, uncovering and solving historic crimes. When he turns his attention to the story of the missing Irene Borgata, accusing her husband of her murder, Enzo’s daughter asks her friend for help to prove her father’s innocence.

Before Ellen, things were easier and less complicated. They were either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, and I understood the difference. Since Ellen, everything has been coloured in shades of grey. From the author of The Secrets Between Us, part of the 2012 Richard and Judy Summer Reads, comes this dark, thrilling novel that is perfect for your book group. It's set 20 years ago against a backdrop of dreamy Cornish summers, a place where childhood friendship becomes young love, where love becomes obsession, and where obsession ultimately ends in betrayal and a tragic death.

The Parish Priest must solve the mystery of a young boy's deathly fall from the Ludlow Castle ruins, and discovers a hidden obsession with the afterlife amongst the ancient streets. In the affluent, historic town of Ludlow, a teenage boy dies in a fall from the castle ruins. Accident or suicide? No great mystery - so why does the boy's uncle, retired detective Andy Mumford, turn to Diocesan Exorcist Merrily Watkins? More people will die before Merrily uncovers a dangerous obsession with suicide, death and the afterlife hidden within these shadowed medieval streets.

Dartmoor, 1914. Grace Dannings is a farmer’s daughter, but she dreams of making her mark as a London Suffragette. Too bad she’s stuck in Walkhampton, the sleepy village where she was born. As a child, she could escape to the wheelwright’s mill. Spellbound, she’d watch labourers hammer iron and timber into wheels. Now she’s a woman and nothing about the village feels like home. The men are brutish, the women afraid of change. Perhaps she could have married Martin, the mill owner’s son. But society says she’s not good enough.

Childhood friends and cousins Leo and Alice had imagined their whole lives playing out on their beloved Devon beach. But one night when they are teens, sitting on the sand beneath the stars, Alice tells Leo a secret that must never be shared with anybody else...then packs her bag and flees. Leo is left to build his own life - without Alice. He surrounds himself with other family and friends and on the whole is content and fulfilled. But he is left with a sense of what - or who - is missing.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. But for single mum and busy midwife Nadia, it’s quickly turning into her worst Christmas ever. Her marriage is over, and whilst her husband has moved on, Nadia finds herself back home, squashed into her mum’s spare room with her two small children. They might not be a perfect family anymore, but Nadia is determined to make this Christmas special for them. Dr Hamish Spencer totally understands Nadia’s pain. As a fellow single parent, he’s struggling to cope with a rebellious teen daughter and a precocious six-year-old!

Summer, 1945. The nation rejoices as the Second World War comes to an end, but Banbury Street matriarch Eva Parke foresees trouble ahead. Her daughter, Mildred, awaits the return of her fiancé from overseas duty, and doubts begin to seep into her mind about how little she knows of the man she has promised to marry. Meanwhile new neighbour, dancer Cissie Cresswell, hides a terrible secret. Can the two young women unite to face the doubt and uncertainty of the future?

As war rages, Barbara Sinclair is desperate to escape her unhappy home life. And with the threat of German bombs ever present, Barbara reluctantly agrees to marry John, her childhood friend, who is leaving to join the RAF. But an encounter with Alex Everton, a dashing Spitfire pilot, complicates matters for Barbara. With emotions running high, she begins to question whether she has made a terrible mistake. With the constant threat of death all around her, Barbara must try to find a way to deal with the complexities of her difficult home life and her emotional relationships, too.

1941. Maisie yearns for a family of her own. Raised as a charity orphan in a Catholic convent in Ireland, she believed she was all alone in the world. But when she is twelve, her world is turned upside down by a shocking revelation. She is uprooted from the only life she has ever known, and transplanted against her will to Plymouth, England. Family might not be all it's cracked up to be. But Maisie is resilient. She surrounds herself with a family of her own making. Then war breaks out across Europe and a horrific tragedy occurs during one of the worst nights of the Plymouth Blitz.

After the death of her father, El moves into his home just outside Tavistock in Devon. Fresh out of university and dangling on the precipice of adulthood, she questions what it is she really wants from life. Although her childhood friend, Will, is there to help her through her grief she soon realises there were things her father was hiding from her.

At the end of the 18th century, the poet William Wordsworth rambled, in a strange visionary haze, from Salisbury Plain up into the Wye Valley. The epic walk changed his life. More than 200 years later, Oxford student David Vaynor followed the same secluded route and still can't explain what happened to him there. Now he's back, as a police detective investigating a suspicious death, and finds that, in this place of cliffs and chasms, it's far from easy to escape the past.

Birdie Greenwing has been at a loose end ever since her beloved twin sister and husband passed away. Too proud and stubborn to admit she is lonely, Birdie's world has shrunk. But then some new neighbours move in to the house next door. Jane has come to Brighton for a fresh start, away from her ferociously protective mother Min. While Jane finds it hard to stand up for herself, her daughter Frankie has no problem telling people what she does and doesn't want. Ada Kowalski has come to England to follow her dreams, but her new life is harder than she expected.

In January 2015 renowned neuroscientist Barbara Lipska's melanoma spread to her brain. It was, in effect, a death sentence. She had surgery, radiation treatments and entered an immunotherapy clinical trial. And then her brain started to play tricks on her. The expert on mental illness - who had spent a career trying to work out how the brain operates and what happens when it fails - experienced what it is like to go mad.

December, and the river is rising. The village of Ledwardine has never been flooded in living memory. Within days it will be an island. There's no electricity. The church is serving as a temporary mortuary for two people who drowned. Only one man feels safer. An aggressively-atheist author has been moved, for his own safety, Rushdie-style, into a secluded house just outside the village. Fundamentalist Christians have hated him for years. Now he's offended the Muslims. Bad move.

For successful estate agent Freya Henderson, life is all work and no play. But, when she crosses paths with carefree young surfer, Luke Stevenson, there's no denying the attraction between them. When Luke invites her to join him on a working holiday in France, it's a real dilemma. Is it time to throw caution to the wind? Perhaps an enchanting summer fling with no strings attached would be a great way to de-stress and finally allow herself some fun.

Bess, the highway pony, is very good at robbing the carriages and loves life just the way it is. Can Olivia and Eliza help break the spell that is making Bess so naughty, and prove that crime really doesn’t pay?

When Abigail and Edward became co-owners of historic Winfield Hall in the beautiful Sussex countryside, they had little idea what the future held. But, as the days of summer lengthen, their feelings towards one another grow and love begins to blossom. Harry and Aura have been a couple for a year now and, with the summer solstice approaching, Harry hatches a very special plan. He just hopes that the sun, moon and the stars are all in alignment. But not everything is going to plan.

Having done her duty as an ATS girl, Lance Corporal Ruth Cox is moving on to new challenges and has signed up to work as a gunner girl, helping to keep the skies clear of enemy planes and safe for our brave boys in blue. But on the way to her new barracks, Ruth meets handsome Sargeant Sam Johnson. Ruth isn’t looking for romance, and she knows she has a dangerous job ahead, but there is a connection between her and Sam that she can’t deny.

Welcome to your new cottage in the country - complete with grumpy vet, village gossip and a very muddy dog.... City girl Ella wants to take refuge in the country, lick her wounds and work out what she's going to do with the rest of her life. She certainly doesn't want to have a four-legged houseguest or anything to do with village life. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Wilsgrave have other ideas.

Three years on from her fairy-tale country wedding to the deliciously handsome Charlie Wellbeloved, Bella's life is far from the 'happily ever after' she dreamed of. Now, heading for the big three-oh at horrifying speed she has gained a couple of stone from boredom and comfort eating, her fledgling interior design business is succumbing to infant mortality, she talks to her black Labrador Dolly more than she does her own husband, and now her close friend Maddy has announced that she's expecting a baby. How can Bella be happy for them when she pines for a family of her own?