Showing results by narrator "Louise Smith" in All Categories

I Stayed is a poetry collection about what it means to endure when leaving feels impossible. Written from the perspective of a single parent navigating betrayal, abandonment, and survival, these poems trace the quiet work of holding a family together while everything else falls apart. They explore rage and grief, identity and sacrifice, and the invisible labor of staying for a child, for love, for life itself.

Mariana Andros is a psychologist struggling to make sense of life after the death of her husband. So when her niece, Zoe, calls - traumatised by the murder of her best friend - Mariana rushes to be with her and away from her own grief. St. Christopher's College, Cambridge, is a closed world to most - but it's where Mariana and her late husband met as students. Days which seem long buried rise to the surface, as memory and mystery entangle Mariana in the secretive society of campus.

Mariana Andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on The Maidens when one member, a friend of Mariana’s niece Zoe, is found murdered in Cambridge. Mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinister. And she becomes convinced that, despite his alibi, Edward Fosca is guilty of the murder. But why would the professor target one of his students?

Carol, Sarah, Samira and Mac were best friends at university. They were the bright young things who had the world on a string and shining futures ahead. Now, as they find themselves tipping into their 30-something lives of work, relationships and responsibilities, they meet up for a big reunion night out, ready to recapture their shared past.