Showing results by author "Andrea Hicks" in All Categories

Sixteen-year-old Kate McGuire has a secret; her father, Joe has disappeared, and Kate, her mother Stella, and sister Emma are left to fend for themselves with little income and no one to turn to. For two years, they are heartbroken, wondering why he left, or whether he is still alive. Kate decides she must take on a role she never wanted; as caretaker for her abusive alcoholic mother and guardian of her sister who seems intent on finding the solace she needs her own way - a decision that leaves Kate almost unable to continue because of the hurt she causes.

The war has ended, and Carrie, Pearl, Ida and Dorothy are determined to make the new hotel at 99 Nightingale Lane a success. When a young kitchen maid finds the corpse of a guest in an unexpected area of the hotel, our girls have more than running their new venture to think about. Suddenly they're thrown into a murder investigation, not the best start for the new hotel, and certainly not what they were expecting when they opened the books to take in guests.

Carrie is so grateful that she can call 99 Nightingale Lane home, and Christmas promises are to be one to cherish with her dear friends around her and the first one her son John will remember, but a cloud hangs over her happiness. Arnold Bateman, Carrie's estranged husband is back in Whitechapel. He has made it clear to Carrie that he wants her back, not to be a husband to her, but simply for what she now owns. Unknown to Carrie, he has visited the house on many occasions to persuade her but has received constant rebuttals from Ida Coyle, Carrie's loyal cook.

Nineteen-year-old Carrie Dobbs has a secret tearing her apart. When her parents discover her condition, Carrie's mother, Florrie takes matters into her own hands and arranges a marriage with Arnold Bateman to get Carrie out of Whitechapel and away from the gossips. He is a man Carrie could never love, the opposite of Johan, the young man she adores. Arnold has been posted to India and expects her to go with him and be the wife he needs to further his promotion and position in the army.

England is still in the grip of a war against an enemy which is holding its ground and food shortages are beginning to bite. Carrie's relief that David found his way back to her after being injured almost melts her, but he brings with him a problem she cannot solve. His mind is broken, terrorised by nightmares and memories of the men he feels he should have protected, but instead led to their deaths. Carrie loves David with all her heart, and because of her love for him she know she must make a decision for which she doubts he'll ever forgive her.

Carrie Dobbs and Arnold Bateman have arrived in India. The journey from Bombay to Secunderabad is arduous - hot, uncomfortable, and with little to eat but unfamiliar food. But when she steps over the threshold of the bungalow she and her baby son John are to share with Bateman, she realizes that nothing could have prepared her for the life she is now expected to live.

When Carrie discovers Arnold's secret, she is determined to make a life for herself in Secunderabad. She still pines for home in Whitechapel, even though she isn't sure what would be waiting for her should she ever return. She knows if Arnold has his way, she will be in Secunderabad, as his wife and hostess, a trophy wife, until he has reached the pinnacle of his ambitions.

Tom Alexander has no memory of his life at House in the Hills orphanage at the outskirts of Sarajevo or of his birth parents - the ones whose faces he wants to see but doesn't remember. When he receives a letter from Child Abroad, the agency that arranged his adoption in 1994, he is offered the opportunity to search for the boy he once was - Andreij Kurik - if he returns to Sarajevo. Sulio Divijak uncovers a faded photograph in Andreij’s file of a girl wearing a red scarf. She looks like Ellie, the girl Tom fell in love with at first sight in a café in Regent’s Park.

2030. Nina Gourriel is admitted to hospital after collapsing, but is later held in a secret government facility, where she undergoes continual physical tests with no explanation...until she meets Cain, a scientist, who tells her she's hunted for what she possesses. Nina doesn't know what these clandestine organisations want from her, but as her life begins to unravel she becomes the prey of more than one hunter. Is she a saviour...or the instigator of Armageddon?