Showing results by narrator "Karen Bartke" in All Categories

Cheryl Davidson was happy with husband Leo, watching her beloved son, Dean, grow into a handsome young man, dreaming of the paths his life would take. Until the day that Dean was murdered, his body dumped in an isolated scrapyard with a bullet in his head, and Cheryl's world exploded. Discovering that Dean had been mixed up in the Glasgow underworld, and worst of all, that Leo had brought him in, means that Cheryl's sanity is hanging by a thread. Overwhelmed by grief and with no one left to trust, Cheryl plans to take deadly retribution on the family that caused her son to be killed.

Control of Glasgow’s infamous Haghill estate has been fought over for decades. But thanks to an uneasy truce between notorious local families - the Alexanders, the Tallans, and the ruthless Savages - for now the streets are peaceful. For Carly Savage this means she can think the unthinkable, and contemplate a future with her family’s sworn enemy, Jack Alexander, ignoring warnings that he can’t be trusted. But when crime boss, Rod Tallan, takes a romantic interest in her too, Carly feels like a pawn in some very dangerous men’s game.

Vowing once again to remove herself from society, Annie is once more living alone in her little cottage by the shores of a loch. But when an old enemy – now locked up in a high-security hospital – comes calling, begging her to find the son that she was forced to give up at the age of 17, Annie is tempted out of seclusion. Annie and Lewis begin an investigation that takes them back to the past, a time etched in Scottish folklore, a period of history that may just be repeating itself.

 It’s 1964, and 22-year-old Trisha moves into a West Hampstead bedsitter to escape her controlling suburban parents and her boring fiancé, Keith. She’s determined to make it as a swinging, get-ahead girl-about-town, but finds herself struggling with homesickness, loneliness and the challenges of cooking a decent meal on a single gas ring. Then she rescues a grotty wardrobe from her landlady’s attic, and it yields a surprising treasure – a copy of Cooking in a Bedsitter, which becomes her bible.

Four full-cast dramatisations of classic Gothic novels, plus documentaries exploring the genre’s rise and enduring appeal Dark deeds, dastardly villains, innocent victims and supernatural happenings – these are the terrifying tropes that make up Gothic fiction, a genre that has captured our...

On the first morning of her new job at Heartfield House, a care home for the elderly, Annie Jackson wakens from a terrifying dream. And when she arrives at the home, she knows that the first old man she meets is going to die. How she knows this is a terrifying mystery, but it is the start of horrifying premonitions...a rekindling of the curse that has trickled through generations of women in her family - a wicked gift known only as 'the murmurs'... With its reappearance comes an old, forgotten fear that is about to grip Annie Jackson.

Hiding from the world in her little white cottage on the shores of a loch, Annie Jackson is fighting to come to terms with the world of the murmurs, a curse that has haunted female members of her family for centuries. While she is within the ancient, heavy stone of the old dwelling, the voices merely buzz, but the moment she steps outside the door they clamour to torment her all over again, bringing with them shocking visions of imminent deaths. Into this oasis comes her adoptive mother, Mandy McEvoy, begging for Annie's help. Mandy's nephew Damien has gone missing.

Like half of all the young women living in the Scottish town Clydebankin early 1911, Ellen works at the sewing machine factory. So does her big sister, Bridget, Bridget's fiancé Malcolm, and her new friend Sadie, who has come to work at the factory after the death of her father. For Sadie, the factory is a way to make ends meet, but Ellen has sewing in her veins. She is even making Bridget's wedding dress on her beloved sewing machine. But after the excitement of the wedding dies down, everything changes.

After a string of failed relationships - romantic and platonic - Lea's had enough of watching life happen without her. When she bumps into Shep, a comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in need of accommodation, it feels like destiny. And voila - Lea now has a lodger and some company. The two get on like a flat on fire, and Lea can't resist falling for outgoing Shep. But she knows it's a mistake that will cost her heart - he's just another guy passing through, after all. And with Shep's stand-up routine edging him closer to his big break, there's no way he'll stick around.

As the fragile negotiations of the international Peace Conference get underway, typist Stella Rutherford throws herself into her work and the mixture of glamour and devastation the City of Light reveals. Anything to escape the grief coming in waves for her beloved brother Jack. Her sister Corran is about to put her academic career to use among the troops in France, a chance to see what the experience was like for countless men, including her fiancé Rob.

'Inspiring, uplifting and full of heart' - Annie Lyons 1916, Scotland. Five years after leading a strike at the sewing factory, newly pregnant Ellen is rushed off her feet at the Clydebank Clothing Exchange, the heart of the community. Ellen is missing her husband James who is away with the...

Forty years ago, the name Rachel McMahon was synonymous with evil. After killing four men in the most brutal of ways, the world rejoiced as she was locked up. Now Rachel has done her time, repented for her crimes, and is ready to live a quiet life back in Scotland under a new name.

This year's London Marathon is my last chance to win the final place on the Olympic team. The months of rehabilitation after my injury will feel worth it to cross that line. But I wasn't expecting the man who's been making my life a living hell to be there. Last I knew, my stalker was behind bars, but he says he's going to be at the race watching. I have 26 miles to figure out whether it's him, and what he wants, or I could lose more than just the race.

Elena changed everything about the way Meg saw the world and her place in it. By effecting an elaborate escape from Russia to to meet Meg in Ukraine, Elena loosed a bloody vendetta against them. Their only hope was an underground, planet crossing escape, entirely on their own and unsupported, to Meg’s home in British Columbia, Canada. They made it out alive and together by refusing to put their fate in the hands of others and learning to trust, not only each other, but their own hearts.