Showing results by narrator "Laura Kirman" in All Categories

Registrar Maddie Winter has overseen enough weddings to know that marriage is not just for Christmas (or Valentine’s Day) – it’s for life, and regardless of whether the ceremony involves specially trained owls, dinosaurs or the police, it should be only the beginning of a story that will end in happily-ever-after. Saying that, Maddie’s own married life is far from perfect – her husband, David, is more interested in his phone than in her, and when he suddenly walks out, Maddie’s long-held beliefs are put to the test.

When Alec asks Jess out, she knows it won't work. He may be charming and handsome, but Jess has rules. And the first? Don't fall in love. Jess has inherited Huntington's disease from the mother that she cares for. Falling in love would just mean condemning someone to the heartbreak that she feels every day, as she watches the woman she knew and loved slip further and further away. Jess has learnt to keep everyone and everything at arm's length, but Alec is determined to break down her barriers.

When Willow Lake asks her daughters for help renovating the family home, each has a reason to hesitate about returning to Maplewood. For quiet and bookish Emmy, going back to the town that ridiculed her fills her with dread. The youngest, Noelle, is perfectly comfortable in herself now but once wanted to fit in so badly that she walked away from her first love. A first love who still lives in Maplewood. And outspoken Rae is painfully aware of how much the townspeople hurt her little sisters growing up.

With her rakish husband Wickham now dead, Lydia remains subdued and consumed by delayed guilt for the selfish behaviour that almost cost her family its respectability. Hoping to ease her sister’s anguish, Lizzy Darcy encourages Lydia to record her earliest memories of life with Wickham…but Lydia can only recall acts of rebellion and scandal and falls into an even deeper slump. But when a new neighbour arrives to Pemberley, Lydia finds herself roused from her gloom – especially when Mr Patrick Shannon has a mystery to solve!

Maid of honor Emily Applegate is on the warpath. Her best friend’s dream wedding venue has been cancelled at the last minute and now everything has been thrown into chaos. With guests arriving from all over the world, food being prepared and the flowers being arranged, Emily decides to take charge and save the big day! First stop, the thoughtless owner who cancelled - surely she can make him change his mind? But Emily doesn’t expect Theo Berkey to be quite so attractive and irresistible…and distracting. Or to be blindsided with an offer impossible to refuse.

Hidden treasure and betrayal mingle with unexpected love within the walls of Avonthorpe Hall. After studying art under Miss Drake, a renowned painter, Phoebe Radcliff is certain she can finally move beyond the childish mistake that’s kept her away from home. She is thrilled when Miss Drake...

Wallis Simpson is known as the woman at the center of the most scandalous love affair of the 20th century, but in this “unputdownable…lively and detailed” (The Times, London) biography, discover a woman wronged by history with new information revealed by the latest research and those who...

It was supposed to be the perfect getaway: Kate and her three best friends, spending a week with their families in a luxurious villa in the south of France. Through the decades they’ve stayed closer than ever, and seven days of drinking crisp French wine and laying out under the dazzling Mediterranean sun is the perfect celebration of their friendship. But soon after arriving, Kate discovers an incriminating text on her husband’s cell phone. A text revealing that he’s having an affair. And that the other woman is one of her best friends. But which one?

Three journeys. Three thousand years. One destination. The Devil’s Highway is a thrilling, epic and timely tale of love, loss, fanaticism, heroism and sacrifice. ‘Brilliant … a powerful meditation on the damages – and the good – we have wrought, and will wreak, on the living world’...

When Joanne Lefson took on a piglet at her animal shelter, the young sow proceeded to eat everything in her stable but a paint brush. In a flash of inspiration, Joanne attempted to introduce the pig to the art of painting - and thus Pigcasso was born. Starting out with a humble canvas on the sanctuary wall, Pigcasso's paintings are now owned by the likes of George Clooney, she has a Swatch watch design partnership, a wine label, and has eclipsed the previous world record holder for animal art.

Can a little Cornish village panto convince a troubled Hollywood heart throb to act again? Oh no it won't! At least that's what Zach Broussard initially thinks when the eccentric Anna Teague tries to railroad him into helping out with her community pantomime production in the run-up to Christmas. Zach has his reasons for leaving Hollywood behind, and his retreat to the remote village of Polcarne in Cornwall signals the start of a new acting free life for him.

I was winning until I met your gaze... Gambling at the roulette tables of the Kursaal, Gwendolen Harleth glances up to meet Daniel Deronda's arresting stare. Striking, selfish and wilful, she is at that moment the mistress of her destiny. Thirty years on, the flawed heroine and true protagonist of Eliot's last great novel writes her confessional to the man whose ever-imagined gaze has prevailed throughout her life.

Olivia has never experienced a snow-covered, 'traditional' Christmas before. Having grown up in a family that chose winter sun over decking the halls, she’s not sure what all the fuss is about. So when she and her colleagues are stranded in New York after a work trip, Olivia is happy spending the holiday season in the Big Apple. Jon, on the other hand, is desperate to get home in time. But, he sets out to show Olivia how enchanting Christmas can be. And when handsome New Yorker Elijah is added to the mix, could the magic of the season finally be working its charm on Olivia?

Ruby Brooks is a little sceptical when her horoscope say she’s going to have a fabulous year – especially when she loses a boyfriend and a job in quick succession. So, Ruby takes luck and fate into her own hands with an unusual resolution – she’ll enter 10 competitions a day, whether they’re for her dream Japanese holiday or a year’s supply of dog food (she doesn’t have a dog), and win her way to happiness. But when a Valentine’s Day prize from a local restaurant results in chef Adam Finder (and his dog, Brutus) appearing in her life, is that luck or fate?

Former Olympic skating champion Katie Saunders is well known for her ‘ice queen’ persona in the press. Perhaps Katie should have forgiven her former skating partner and ex-boyfriend, Alex Michaelson, for the accident that shattered both her ankle and their Olympic dreams - but she just can’t seem to let it go. Desperate for cash, Katie, reluctantly agrees to take part in a new TV skating show, but not only is she partnered up with an infamous love-rat rugby player, but one of the judges is none other than Alex Michaelson himself.

Return to the cozy and delightful town of Winsome, where two people discover the grace of letting go and the joy found in unexpected change. "A touching, multilayered, yet totally cozy story" (Lauren K. Denton), Of Literature and Lattes is the heartwarming follow-up to The Printed Letter...

Matt Westbrook only turned his back for a moment. But when he looks around, his car - with his three young children inside - has vanished. Panicked, Matt assumes a car thief has got more than he bargained for, but then he starts to receive text messages: This is a kidnap. If you want to see your children again, you will exchange them for your wife. Matt and his wife, Annabelle, are horrified....

On a snowy December evening, Sam Jermyn steps into the life of bespoke hat maker Ava. Sparks fly, and not necessarily the good ones. Times are tough for Ava - she’s struggling to make ends meet, her ex-boyfriend is a bully and, worst of all, it’s nearly Christmas. So when Sam commissions Ava to make a hat for someone special, she makes a promise that will change her life. She just doesn’t know it yet....

In seven days, Maggie’s son, Max, turns three. But she’s not planning a party or buying presents or updating his baby book. She’s dreading it. Because in her world, third birthdays are the days on which the unthinkable happens...she loses her child. For the last 12 years Maggie has been imprisoned in a basement. Abducted aged 15, she gave birth to two sons before Max, and on their third birthdays her captor came and took them from her. She cannot let it happen again. But she has no idea how to stop it. And the clock is ticking....

When Nina discovers her boyfriend in bed with another woman, she decides it's finally time to channel the spirit of her idol, Nora Ephron. Her sequel to the most beloved romcom of all time – If Harry Met Sally – has been gathering dust for years, but her best friend Astrid convinces her that this is the perfect moment to finish her script and make it as the Hollywood screenwriter she always wanted to be.