Showing results by narrator "Charlotte Worthing" in All Categories

As if my mum breaking her hip and being rushed to hospital isn’t shocking enough for one day, now in her post-operative delirium, she’s just told me I’m not her daughter. That she has never been able to have children. The nurse reassures me that people are often confused after a trauma. But I know this woman so well and I can tell there’s a grain of truth in what she says. Which begs the questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? When I dig into the truth, I suddenly stir up a hornet’s nest of secrets, lies – and possibly a crime so unfathomable – that stretches back decades.

July knows 18 things about her mother. But not the truth. Summer, 1995. On her tenth birthday, July's teacher sets the class a project to find out about a relation they don't know. It's easy for July to choose her subject. She doesn't remember her mother, who died when she was small, and her father refuses to talk about her. Ever. The only memories she has of her are flashbacks from the accident that claimed her mother's life. But then she receives the note: 'She didn't die in a car accident.'

Brought to you by Penguin. At Ravendale Castle, nestled in the snowy heart of the Lake District, Lara is busy preparing for the Winter Spectacular — a glittering light trail that will fill the grounds with the magic of Christmas. It’s the perfect distraction from her recent heartbreak until...

Meet Jenny Starling: travelling cook and reluctant amateur detective. Jenny Starling is catering the 21st birthday party of upper-class twins Alicia and Justin. She arrives at their parents' country house and is immediately met by the police. A young man has drowned in the pond. Was it an accident or murder? But the birthday party goes ahead. Then, just after midnight, everyone gathers for a champagne toast...and one of the guests falls down dead. The police are baffled, and there is a whole party full of suspects.

Brought to you by Penguin. From the moment Lily Harper arrives at a remote retreat on the breath-taking Scilly Isles, she is itching to get back to civilisation - and her business. Slowing down simply isn't in her vocabulary, and so she quickly clashes with the gorgeous but dour Sam who runs the...

Seeing ghosts has always been part of Melody Bittersweet’s life – a quirky inconvenience at the best of times. But on her 27th birthday, she decides to finally make a career out of it by setting up her very own ghostbusting business. Her first case brings Melody to a house haunted by three brothers with a heap of unfinished business. To complicate matters, her fame-hungry ex, Leo Dark, and sceptical yet maddeningly gorgeous reporter, Fletcher Gunn, are also on the case.

Meet Jenny Starling: travelling cook and reluctant amateur detective. Jenny Starling is working at The Spindlewood Inn for the weekend. It’s hosting a Regency Extravaganza, involving historical costume, amateur dramatics and food. Leading actress of the amateur dramatic society and reputed man-eater Rachel Norman portrays a doomed noblewoman. But when she turns up actually drowned in the pond, there’s suddenly a murder to investigate. There’s been plenty of trouble at the idyllic country inn.

Christmas has never been Katie Seddon’s favourite time of year. Whilst everyone else shares memories of families coming together and festive number ones, the soundtrack to Katie’s childhood wasn’t quite so merry. But since she moved to the village of Budbury on the gorgeous Dorset coast, Katie and her baby son have found a new family. A family who have been brought together by life’s unexpected roads and the healing magic of a slice of cake and a cupful of kindess at the Comfort Food Café.

Brought to you by Penguin. After the storm it's time for a fresh start . . . The powerful and heart-stirring new novel by the Sunday Times bestselling author of Unexpected Lessons in Love. First, the clouds... Tara Hunter is a therapist on a mission to restore Longhampton's community spirit...

It was an ordinary school day, the day I lost my little brother. One moment he was on the roundabout and then was gone. Gone. Missing. They all blamed me. I was in charge. Even though I was only ten years old. They sent me away. The hurt, the shame, the questions. The not knowing. I tried to move on. It’s been nineteen years in exile and now somebody wants me back. Someone with a dark secret.

Something happened to me when I was nine. My childhood memories before that fateful day are gone. Extinguished. The aftermath has become a living nightmare with a guilt that runs so deep that I’m not sure I can ever tell anyone. I fear I've left it too late. The burden of my secret and the hurt and pain that silence cost each and every member of my family is too overwhelming. But you can't avoid fate and now I have the opportunity to right the wrongs inflicted on us. There was no justice. Not then. Not now. But I can change that.

Meet Jenny Starling: travelling cook and reluctant amateur detective. Please note this book was first published as Just Not Cricket under Faith Martin’s pen name Joyce Cato. Jenny Starling is doing the catering for the village cricket match. But she’s not expecting one of the players to turn up dead. Everyone from the village has turned out to watch the match, and with this being the club’s centenary, Jenny Starling has been hired specially to provide her stunning food for the event.

My name is Lucy Townsend. I was born on Friday the 13th, and I was the 13th girl living in the big house. Unlucky for some. But I was the fortunate one. I escaped. The only one who made it out alive. And now, 20 years after that fateful night, the secrets of the past and what happened in that house are pulling me back. I might not be so lucky this time.

Jenny Starling has her dream job cooking for Lord and Lady Avonsleigh in a genuine castle. Then one of the castle’s treasures, a fabulously jewelled dagger, is used to murder a staff member. The victim is found stabbed through the heart in the conservatory. Lady Avonsleigh insists that Jenny help the police find the murderer. But how can Jenny solve this case when the murder was committed in front of several reliable witnesses, none of whom saw a thing?

John and Laura have come to Venice to try and escape the pain of their young daughter's death. But when they encounter two old women who claim to have second sight, they find that instead of laying their ghosts to rest, they become caught up in a train of increasingly strange and violent events.

Beth Belmont runs every day, hard and fast on the trail near home. She knows every turn, every bump in the road. So when she spots something out of place - a slip of white paper at the base of a tree - she's drawn to it. On the paper are five names. The third is her own. Beth can't shake off the unease the list brings. Why is she on it? And what ties her to the other four strangers? Then she discovers that the first two are dead. Is she next?

Maple Tree Lodge has been the home of the Jackson family for over a century. But the hotel has never been a success and, following the sudden loss of his father, architect Ben Jackson soon discovers the hotel is close to financial ruin. Ben has to make some tough decisions if the hotel is to survive and his family are to keep a roof over their heads.

The fourteen haunting stories in this collection span the whole of Daphne du Maurier's writing career and explore every human emotion: an apparently happily married woman commits suicide; a steamer in wartime is rescued by a mysterious sailing-ship; a dull husband breaks loose in a surprising fashion; a con woman plays her game once too often; and a famous novelist looks for romance, only to meet with bitter disappointment.

Darkness lives within . . . Now a major Netflix film, No One Gets Out Alive is the ultimate haunted house thriller from horror writer Adam Nevill. Winner of the August Derleth Award. ‘Fast becoming Britain's answer to Stephen King’ – The Guardian Cash-strapped, working for agencies and...

When war breaks out, Rose Flaherty is eager to do her bit. Swapping city life in Birmingham for the fields of Somerset, she joins the Land Army to help keep Britain fed. But life on the farm is tough, the work backbreaking – and the farmer’s son, Jimmy, isn’t exactly welcoming. An accident in the orchard brings Rose into the path of nurse Daisy and ATS clerk Elsie, and soon the three girls form an unbreakable bond. But even their quiet corner of the countryside can’t escape the shadow of war.