Showing results by narrator "Gemma Lawrence" in All Categories

1950, Stretton Village, Cambridgeshire. Emily's troubles continue as she tries to manage the Vanbrough estate, which has been left in trust for her son. Is there hope she can find new love and happiness? Frances has survived a fate worse than death but can she find a new life in Cornwall? Daniel is home with his family. Can he make a go of things and what will happen when the past comes back to haunt him? Connor is all grown up. A chance meeting could lead to love, fame and fortune. But opportunities don’t come without peril…

When a large diamond goes missing from Silvershell Manor, who better to get to the bottom of the mystery than detective Violet Veil and her dog Bones. But nothing is quite as it seems when it comes to the missing heirloom and when a trail of origami birds leads them to Elizabelle Crane, a young casino owner and debt collector, Violet realises that it’s all just turned into a game of high stakes . . .

Fall in love with a Brand New heartbreaking listen from Emma Cooper

Lily Baker wants more from life. Working at the local cinema, she saves her pennies so she can have a chance to get ahead. After she’s attacked one night while locking up the cinema, she loses her heart to her dashing rescuer…But this lovely man is as different from her as can be. When the town is divided, pitting the wealthy elite against the poor working class folk like Lily, she finds her allegiance is torn.

It is spring in Baker Street, and London is preparing itself for the wedding of the year. It will be an international spectacle in which the young and popular Count Rudolph Absberg, a political exile from his native land, will take the hand of the beautiful and accomplished Princess Sophia Kubinova. A lot depends on the marriage, for it is hoped that the union will ensure the security and independence of their homeland. When the princess subsequently disappears in dramatic circumstances, members of the British establishment are quick to call on Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

At sixteen, newly orphaned Lucy LeVine feels lost in war-torn Britain. Living under her stern grandmother's roof, she longs for escape—and a chance to strike back at the enemy who killed her parents in France. So when a mysterious man offers to smuggle her into occupied territory in exchange for her help, Lucy grasps the dangerous opportunity. Once behind enemy lines, Lucy is placed with French-Canadian resistance fighter Guy Napolin and his determined band of operatives. But nothing in occupied France is simple.

Chuck and Joey meet in a bar. He's in his mid-thirties; she's twelve years younger. He's long abandoned his ambition of being a novelist and works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. Joey's living paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. Soon, Joey's imagining a future between them and Chuck's moving on from a major change in his recent past. Funny, excruciating, and true, I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but trying.

Sunday morning, and the body of Reverend Villiers has been found propped up on the vigil seat in the church's lychgate. It appears that he has been poisoned. When amateur sleuth and regular churchgoer Amy Rowlings arrives she finds DI Bodkin already at the scene. Bodkin tells her about a cryptic scripture reference that has been scrawled in chalk on the stone slabs beneath the body. What the citation hints at, shocks everyone.

It's summer in London, and things are quiet. But while Holmes and Watson chafe at their inactivity, a train, carrying a vital encoded communication, is entering a tunnel in an obscure region of the Balkans – never to be seen again. The case of the disappearing train is only the beginning of the nation's difficulties. The missing message must be found and decoded, and a diplomat's wife must be rescued from the clutches of a pernicious blackmailer.

A man is accidentally knocked down outside 221B Baker Street by a carriage. His dying words are he has seen a man rise from the grave. At the same time a visitor arrives with a mystery of unparalleled international importance. The Viscount Wrexham is missing, presumed dead, in strange circumstances. In the North, rumours stir of a dead man haunting the moors. Broomheath Hall is beset by ghostly lights and spectres. What does it all mean? Can arcane knowledge bring people back from the dead?

Nancy has spent her whole life on the vibrant and gritty streets of Victorian London, first as one of Fagin's child pickpockets and now on the arm of violent and mercurial Bill Sikes. Nancy does what she must to get by. She's attuned to the harsh realities of life, but also knows how to find moments of beauty amid the grime, even if it is only the scent and taste of an orange - its miraculous colour and form. When she embarks on a relationship with enigmatic gentleman Mr Rufus, it awakens emotions she's never felt before, and makes a better life feel possible for the first time.

When a sudden reassignment gives Lily Baker only three days to report to mysterious Bletchley Park, she’s confused but excitedly answers duty’s call. Learning the reputed madhouse is actually the clandestine home of Allied codebreakers, Lily walks a fine line between guarding British secrets and protecting her heart. But when she overhears that a spy could be hidden among the eclectic mix of codebreakers, she is determined to uncover which of her new friends is the traitor.

I would. And I did. Because living without Gregory Ryans is unthinkable. I'm ready to put my faith in the law, but he's doing what he does best: buying a contingency plan. He tells me I'm his light, his one bright spot in all the darkness that surrounds him. But his past is creeping forward from the shadows, and the secrets he's guarded with his life are destroying him.

He was everything I wanted, but I should have known better. After all we've been through, he still didn't trust me with the truth. Now he's offering me the deal of a lifetime: his heart. All his secrets. Him. Forever. But at what cost? His enemies are still coming for us, and this time, we'll have to fight together. To save what we've built. To show that love like ours can't be destroyed.

A determined girl gives up on kissing a frog. A fearless heroine comes face-to-face with a not-so Big Bad Wolf. A monstrous princess, held captive on a deserted island, yearns to break free. Within this book are seven famous fairy tales turned into enchanting, inspiring and sometimes hair-raising stories for today's world, about girls with their own dreams and desires. These are no damsels in distress, but real young women of flesh and blood — who certainly don't need rescuing.

London, 1941. The war has robbed eight-year-old orphan Elsie of everything except her older brother Jack. Evacuated together, they escaped a cruel farming family only to find their home destroyed, their mother gone. Elsie hasn’t spoken since. Wandering under the falling ash, their stomachs twist with hunger and Jack knows he cannot protect Elsie alone. But everything changes when they join a rag-tag band of orphans, runaway evacuees who’ve returned to the city just like them.

An evil stalks London, blown in from the tropics. A group of merchants are dying one by one. The elementary choice to investigate these mysterious deaths is, of course, the team of Holmes and Dr. Watson. But the unique gifts of their housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, and her orphaned assistant Flotsam, will also be needed to solve the case.

There's good and bad in everyone. Except Tom. Tom used to think his life was pretty ordinary. Just another orphan, sleeping in the cellar of his uncle's pub with plenty of mice to chase. But then things started to change, both in the land of Boden-Rine and in young Tom's heart, after a stranger from a far-off land spun him a story of deadly adventure and world-ending peril.

For the courageous Bletchley Park girls, the fourth Christmas of the war is approaching fast. It should be a happy time, yet life throws them challenges they could never have imagined. Lily's heart is torn in two when her boyfriend, Grant, is badly injured in an air raid. As he spirals into despair, she must find a way to give him hope again. Bronwyn has a new romance on the horizon. But will the widower's young daughter accept her, or will she jeopardise Bronwyn's hopes for love?

Brought to you by Penguin. A brand new saga from the author of A Christmas Miracle on Sanctuary Lane! Richmond, Surrey, 1940. Overhead, the Battle of Britain rages. Below, at the Poppy Factory, disabled WWI veterans assemble remembrance wreaths while working on a secret wartime project...