Showing results by narrator "Catrin Walker Booth" in All Categories

It’s Christmas Day at Wilder House, and three magical winter weddings are set to begin. But as the tables are arranged, and the food is prepared, a perfect storm hits, cutting every guest from the rest of the world. Most little girls dream of the perfect wedding. But this bride stumbles alone into the snow, her silk train dragging through dirt, her hands bloody from the murder she just committed. Now there is at least one killer roaming the unforgiving landscape surrounding Wilder House. Who else will die on Christmas Day?

My name is Rachael, and I’m on a solo Antarctic expedition. But a month ago I lost contact with basecamp. No radio. No sat phones. Just static. Only one thing has reached me: a BBC World Service broadcast, reporting a nuclear strike on the UK. I’m safe for fourteen more days in my little hut at the bottom of the world. But I can’t stay here forever, I have to find out what’s happened. Even if there’s no one left to tell.

Evelyn Seaton’s life is ruined when her father squanders her family’s fortune. Secretly answering an advertisement for an assistant at the dusty and forgotten Lamplighter’s Bookshop in York, Evelyn meets the enigmatic and prickly William Morton, an aspiring writer hiding secrets of his own. But when her predicament is intensified by the spiteful Lady Violet, who is determined to twist the knife on Evelyn’s misfortune, she has nowhere to turn. Evelyn and William are too scared to trust each other — can they turn the page on their story and find the courage to write the next chapter?

How do we give a voice to those who so often remain unheard? Will You Read This, Please is a frank and impactful collection of twelve stories as told to our best British writers, based on the lived experience of people who have faced mental illness in the UK. Edited by Joanna Cannon, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, Three Things About Elsie and A Tidy Ending, the stories told here are powerful, resonant and heart-breaking. This is a ground-breaking and unforgettable collection, shining a light on the stigma and isolation of living with mental illness.

Christy Ward is the lead producer of Hindsight, a true crime podcast, and she has stumbled across an unresolved triple murder case that will make the perfect next feature. Sixteen years ago, the police were convinced that they had found their killer. But the case was unexpectedly shut down, it never went to trial and their main suspect walked free. Will Christy and her team be able to solve the case, or will they be silenced too....

Meet Ivy. She's not just a hot mess, she's a walking disaster. The only man in her life is the pizza delivery driver and she puts more effort into binge-watching Netflix than her dead-end job. But that was the old Ivy. Because last night she switched her phone off, peeled the salami from last night's drunken takeaway off the carpet and made a list. A list that changed everything.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake by an angry mob, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor. Though they have nothing in common, these two unlikely companions must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Temperance's family, Jenny's lake, and possibly the very soul of Britain.

This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca's shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women—and their goddesses—that will change the course of the world.

All Essie ever wanted was to have a normal life but in the end she found herself drawn back to Beldam House because she just can’t stop her witchiness (although the ability to instantly chill wine is pretty awesome, even she has to admit). Into this coven of chaos stumbles gorgeous, clueless Josh, their new landlord—and he’s just discovered his tenants haven’t paid rent since the 1700s! As Josh is drawn further into the lives of the inhabitants of Beldam House, Essie is determined to keep him at broomstick’s length.

Love comes when you least expect it... Tressa Buckland likes her quiet life in Port Lowdy, with its cobbled streets and colourful terraced houses overlooking the sea. Her job at the local paper allows her to pursue her art in her free time, with no one but her tabby cat Ginger Pickles to mind her in Mermaid Terrace. But then the owner of the paper is called away on an emergency, and it's up to Tressa to run the paper for six months. Her first task: find a new part-time journalist.

Claudine Rafferty is rich, reckless and beautiful. So when she throws herself into an arranged marriage with the eminently eligible but notorious François de Lorvoire, everyone in Paris is amazed. Determined to cope with François' cruelty and indifference, Claudine soon finds herself driven to find love in the arms of Armand St Jacques, one of her husband's vignerons. But all is not what it seems in the de Lorvoire family. As Claudine learns more of Francois' sinister past, she also inherits some of his most dangerous enemies.

Atia is an immortal who feeds on fear and nightmare. As the last of her kind, she hides in the shadows of the world to escape the wrath of the vengeful Gods. Silas is a Herald, carrying messages and ferrying the dead, as punishment for a past he can't remember. Atia would never dream of allying with someone like him, but when she breaks a sacred law and the gods send monsters to hunt her, Silas offers an irresistible deal: he'll help her take on the Gods and get vengeance for her family. But in return, she must help him break the curse that binds him and restore his humanity.

Many years ago, Odysseus sailed to war and never returned. For twenty years his wife Penelope and the women of Ithaca have guarded the isle against suitors and rival kings. But peace cannot be kept forever, and the balance of power is about to break . . . A beggar has arrived at the Palace. Salt-crusted and ocean-battered, he is scorned by the suitors - but Penelope recognises in him something terrible: her husband, Odysseus, returned at last. Yet this Odysseus is no hero.

When a barrow-wight shows up on Greta and Varney's doorstep one night with an 11-year-old girl who's been newly - and forcefully - bitten and turned, it's up to Greta and her vampiric friends to find out who did this to her, and why.

For several years, a prolific predator haunted Bristol. Avon and Somerset Police had tried all their usual tactics to catch the ‘Clifton Rapist’, and public pressure was mounting. In 1979, a daring new plan was introduced. A small group of young female officers – some aged just 18 – put their lives on the line, walking the quiet residential roads late at night, acting as bait. Drawing on in-depth research and first-hand interviews with the women at the heart of the operation, Decoy is a dramatic retelling of one of the most groundbreaking agent provocateur stings in British history.

Marisa Rosso is struggling. Since the death of her beloved grandfather back home in Italy, she can't seem to find a way out of her grief. She's a registrar and knows losing grandparents is a natural part of life, so why does she feel so lost? When she hears a hospital is recruiting in Mount Polbearne, a tiny and remote tidal island off the Cornish coast, Marisa thinks she has found the perfect retreat. Perhaps some solitude is just what she needs to combat her homesickness and rediscover her equilibrium. But Mount Polbearne is a far cry from the sleepy little place she was imagining.

Amanda Cox is living in New York with a non-committal boyfriend and a student loan that threatens to crush her. That is, until she enters a raffle for a manor house in the British countryside of Northumberland–and wins...

Hedoné House, a luxurious sanatorium for the creative elite dedicated to the groundbreaking treatment of tuberculosis. As the doctor’s new wife, Agnes Templeton has pledged her life to a house of fever. Her husband’s methods are unusual. There are whisperings about past patients and even a cure. Hedoné’s secrets draw Agnes in, revealing truths she could never anticipate, and soon she is caught between a past she is desperate to escape and a future she may forever regret.

Sid Jones loves hanging out in the graveyard with her best friend Zen—they are desperate to see a real-life ghost! But when Sid accidentally summons a 300-year-old pirate from the dead, it opens the door to the HALFWAY HOUSE—a magical inn FULL of lost souls from across the ages, all trapped there by a sinister landlord. There are more ghosts that Sid could ever have imagined—and they’re all sure Sid is there to save them! (Sid’s sure there’s been some kind of mistake.)

Edgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their time. Caught up in the uncertain world that has emerged since the outbreak of peace, the Rector and Mrs Grantly are bewildered by the challenges facing their eldest children: Eleanor, longing for more excitement than can be found in the Red Cross Library; and Tom, struggling to readjust to student life at Oxford after his military service.