Showing results by narrator "Patricia Gallimore" in All Categories

Gina Marconi was a beautiful young barrister with everything to live for - a loving fiancé, a young son and a successful career. So why did she leave her home in the middle of the night and drive her car into a stone wall? Soon afterwards, Patrick Elson, a clever 12-year-old schoolboy, jumps off a bridge on to the A5. The victims are unrelated, but neither suicide makes sense. Then there's a third unexplained death: DI Alex Randall's wife, Erica.

In the peaceful setting of the National Trust near Church Stretton, Tracey Walsh drives herself and her four-year-old daughter, Daisy, up the remote Burway in the early hours of the morning, tragically loses control of her car and crashes into the valley below. Tracey is rushed to hospital, but where is Daisy? She has vanished, provoking an intense police search of the area around the Devil’s Chair – land that is rife with legends and stories of witchcraft, sorcery and unexplained disappearances.

“All eyes and hair” a courtier had said disparagingly of her – and certainly the younger daughter of Tom Boleyn lacked the bounteous charms of most ladies of Court. Black-haired, black eyes, she had a wild-sprite quality that was to prove more effective, more dangerous than conventional feminine appeal. The King first noticed her when she was sixteen – and with imperial greed he smashed her youthful love-affair with Harry Percy and began the process of royal seduction.

Newly retired, ex-chief superintendent Fran Harman and her partner, Mark, have volunteered to assist West Mercia police in reinvestigating an unsolved crime. Twenty years ago a car was found abandoned on an isolated forest road running, its hazard lights still flashing, the passenger door open. In the back were two child seats. One was empty; in the other lay a desperately ill baby. Neither the baby's mother nor the elder child were ever seen again.

It's 1915 when young Bess Ravenhart, recently widowed, leaves her baby son, Frazer, with her mother-in-law, Cora, while she sails from India to Britain to set up a home. But Cora has no intention of returning Frazer to his mother's care. Though Bess makes a new life in Edinburgh and knows the joy - and pain - of motherhood with further children, her heart always aches for the little boy she left behind. When Frazer travels to Scotland 20 years later, it seems Bess' dreams of a reconciliation will come true.

Eva Jackson is Rosemary’s cousin ("umpteen times removed"), and she has moved back to her childhood home in Taviscombe after the untimely death of her beloved husband, Alan. As is the way of the village, Eva has been pounced upon by the local charities, and it is during a coffee morning that she mentions to Sheila Malory that she fears Alan might have died an unnatural death.... Sheila is intrigued and sets out to find out more.

March 1942. As the war continues, wedding bells are ringing for the factory girls. Sarah is happily settling into married life, whilst Fran is busy planning her upcoming wedding. Meanwhile, Beth hasn’t heard from her husband, Bob, since he returned to the navy, and she’s starting to fear the worst. And new friend Viola is still recovering from a nasty accident. Life on the home front can be challenging, but the factory girls can get through anything.

December 1941, North East England. Despite the loss of her father, Sarah is settling into her new role at the munitions factory. Her blossoming romance with pitman Stan is a welcome distraction from the dangerous working conditions. But a shocking revelation puts everything on the line. Meanwhile Fran is missing her sweetheart Davey, who has been conscripted to Bletchley Park. Beth is longing for someone too - and it's not her husband on the front line. As the factory girls face hardship on the home front, they will discover that the heroes they need are already by their side.

Kerensa Trelynne's plans to wed her sweetheart, Clem Trenchard, are ruined when Sir Oliver Pengarron makes her grandfather, and guardian, an offer for Trelynne Cove - the land on which Old Tom's cottage stands. Old Tom is wily, and to ensure a secure and stable future for his precious granddaughter, he makes her part of the price for the Cove: Sir Oliver must marry Kerensa.

1949: one year in the childhood of Candida Lycett Green in the remote village of Farnborough in Berkshire. Here she lives with her father John Betjeman and her mother Penelope Chetwode, in one of the bleakest and highest spots on the windswept downland.Candida runs wild with the 'gang' of...

Currently on leave, Patrick Gillard is considering whether to carry on in his hazardous job as "adviser" to the National Crime Agency when his father, the local rector, asks for his help. A parishioner, Mrs Anne Peters, has paid him a visit, convinced that the wrong body was cremated at her late husband’s recent funeral. Patrick promises to investigate with the help of his wife and working partner, Ingrid Langley.

It was Heather's silver wedding anniversary. But this important milestone did not mark her marriage to Tom, her often-absent airline pilot husband and father of their two teenage children. It was for her first marriage - a wildly romantic, secret affair, when she and Iain - 12 years older than her and the heir to a Scottish baronetcy - had eloped immediately after her final school speech day. She was just 16 at the time.

DCI James Carrick is playing rugby for police team The Ferrets when an injury sends him off the pitch. His substitute is DS Cliff Morley, an undercover policeman investigating a criminal gang. The next day Morley's horribly mutilated body is found dumped in woodland near Bristol, the initials RK carved on his torso.

Something peculiar is going on at the Group Medical Practice in Taviscombe and old Dr MacDonald seems very uneasy. Sheila Malory can’t help but feel that it may have something to do with the unexpected arrival from London of a new GP, Dr Morrison, an arrogant, cold-mannered man, whose alleged misdiagnosis of a local patient has made him the focus of the village rumour mill.

When firemen are called to an intense blaze at the Grange in Melverley, they find the bodies of Christie Barton, her daughter, Adelaide, and father-in-law, William, along with evidence that suggests the fire was started deliberately. Detective Inspector Alex Randall enlists the help of coroner Martha Gunn, but the puzzle deepens with a second house fire - the occupant, retired nurse Monica Deverill, is missing. Where is she, and what links the two fires? The answers lie in a secret buried in the past…

Johnny Harvey is disillusioned and restless – injured in the war, older than the pilots he trained and disturbed at the changing of society, he watches his friends marry as life seems to pass him by. Sixteen-year-old Tess Viant, crippled with polio and abandoned by her heartless family, is befriended by Jill Harvey. Jill is delighted to be pregnant after four years of marriage to Tom – but when complications arise, it’s Tess who has to help

By day she champions women's rights but by night she plots romance! No young lady can be more devoted to the teachings of the infamous blue stocking Mrs Waverley than Felicity, her adopted daughter. Yet Felicity leads a secret life: that of an author of a scandalous new novel - the tale of a...

Modern notions were all well and good – but where did one find a man to share them? Though Frederica chafes at the restricted life she lives as the adopted daughter of an infamous bluestocking, she does agree with the philosophy: until men learn to appreciate women as intellectual equals...

On a bright spring morning, John Hyde opens the gates to the grounds of Moreton Corbet Castle, a local medieval ruin, and discovers the body of a homeless man with his throat slashed. Detective Inspector Alex Randall and his team soon face some disturbing questions: was this a random attack, or does someone have a vendetta against the homeless? For coroner Martha Gunn, establishing the man's identity is essential, but there are no clues.

Dorset, 1917: If it’s not enough that a girl from a good background is forced to work as a maid, Livia Carr is then violated by the master of the house and becomes pregnant. Her only course is to marry the son of the house, Richard Sangster, a World War One hero who has returned home an invalid. He is not expected to live, and he offers Livia and the child legitimacy, as well as his name and estate. Livia grows to love Richard, and his death comes as a great blow to her. Into the breach steps Livia’s frist love, and Richard’s friend, Denton Elliot. But will he desert her when the secret of the child’s parentage is revealed to him?