Résultats lu par "Patience Tomlinson" dans Toutes les catégories

Bea Abbott runs a domestic agency which does not “do” murder. But the disappearance of Tomi, the star of an award-winning short film, is a different matter, especially when the charming Chris bribes Bea with a bouquet of flowers. Can Bea find time to help him, when some well-meant advice she’s given to her daughter-in-law has led to a breakdown in family relationships? Bea discovers that Tomi’s circle contains a secret so deadly that they are dying one by one, even though none of them will go to the police.

There’s nothing sinister about Zander’s request for Bea Abbott to accompany him on an errand to a grieving widow, but it’s an awkward situation. Zander exposed a scam that his boss Denzil had been running on the Tudor Housing Trust…after which Denzil had, unexpectedly, died. His widow wants to sue the Trust, while the paperwork that could have proved her husband’s guilt has gone missing. Oliver, Bea’s computer geek of an assistant, is delighted to delve into the mysteries left on Denzil’s computer.

The fake diamond in Dilys Holland's engagement ring implies that all is not well with her marriage. And Bea Abbot has already clashed with Dilys's husband, the bullying Benton, when she refuses to help him rescue his ailing company. But matters are about to turn a great deal worse when Dilys tries to commit suicide. Or does she?

March 1915. Caroline Lilley's fiancé, Reggie, is away at the front, and Caroline gives up her job and returns home at his request. Frustrated in her desire to help the war effort, she throws herself into saving the harvest by organising the village women - and runs up against Reggie's mother, the formidable Lady Hunney. Caroline's sister, Felicia, departs to become an ambulance driver on the Western Front, and Phoebe and George eagerly await their chance to leave the village.

While Bea Abbot worries that she’s lost control of her domestic agency, she’s asked to find some domestic help for an eccentric little musician falsely accused of murder. She doesn’t realize how dangerous this might be until Jeremy - fleeing from attempts on his life - lands up on her doorstep. Researching the gang who’d used an attractive girl to entrap Jeremy, Bea finds traces of them throughout high society. Can Bea keep Jeremy - and herself - alive, while all he thinks about is composing a song for pretty, dead Josie?

Following a skiing accident, journalist Sally Proctor is recuperating at her parents' rural Somerset home when she hears about a local man, Brian Jennings, who's been jailed for arson. His sister, convinced of his innocence, is campaigning for his release - and Sally decides to help her by conducting her own enquiries. As she starts to uncover serious discrepancies in the original investigation, Sally and her family are threatened by a series of increasingly menacing incidents. It soon becomes clear that someone will go to any lengths to stop her finding out the truth.

Everyone knows three things about the Women’s Institute: that they spent the war making jam; the sensational Calendar Girls were WI; and, more recently, that slow-handclapping of Tony Blair. About 215,000 women in the UK belong to the WI. Their membership crosses class and has recently begun to recruit huge numbers of young women.

An unidentified woman’s body is found in a remote garden in Kent. With the owners not in residence, the only people with legitimate access are the caretaker, Johnny, and landscape gardeners Adam Sarjeant and his employer, Mog. Afraid of her son falling under suspicion, Libby Sarjeant, with her friend Fran, are determined to find the murderer, with or without the assistance of the police in the person of Chief Detective Inspector Ian Connell.

For the Spender family, the ancient, beautifully kept house had seemed a godsend, an incredible bargain, almost a gift from its owner - a kindly man who merely wanted someone to protect the family homestead, to make Gad’s come alive again. And it did. Soon a strong-willed, sensible woman would be overtaken by irrational feelings she could not control, all because of the unspeakable secret kept by the women who had lived at Gad’s Hall more than a century ago.…

I used to love the rattle and whoosh of my grandma's buttons as they scattered from their Quality Street tin. An inlaid wooden chest the size of a shoe box holds Lynn Knight's button collection. A collection that has been passed down through three generations of women: a chunky '60s-era toggle from a favourite coat, three tiny pearl buttons from her mother's first dress after she was adopted as a baby, a jet button from a time of Victorian mourning. Each button tells a story.

1787, West Africa: All her life, Grace Winslow, the daughter of an English sea captain and an African princess, has been sheltered from the truth about the family business - the capture and trade of slaves. Desperate to avoid marriage to an odious suitor, Grace escapes the family compound only to be caught up in a slave revolt at the fortress of Zulina. Soon, she begins to grasp the brutality and ferocity of the family business.

Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep. There is nothing more powerful than a mother's love. Five years ago Molly Gabriel lost her twenty-year-old son, Joey, to a terrible sailing accident. His empty boat was washed ashore on the rocks, but his body was never found. Now Molly has returned to the sands of Cornwall, haunted by his disappearance, unable to accept he is gone. Joey was an experienced sailor and died on a calm sea--things just don't add up, and Molly cannot let it go.

Sarah and Larch join together to discover the killer of harmless old Miss Bates. Then a gypsy girl is strangled in the woods: are the two murders connected? There are several suspects, and further attacks reveal some unsavoury goings-on and unveil further potential murderers. Ex-Scotland Yard detective Ben Marshall investigates, but Sarah continues her own research into an old scandal which finally leads to the truth. Or does it?

Christmas 1917, and as the Lilley family gathers at the Rectory in the Sussex village of Ashden, the mood is far from festive. But while the sisters face heartache and the new year brings fresh tragedy, the Rectory opens its doors to a new world, its inhabitants strengthened by the grief and happiness shared during the long years of war.

Bea Abbot is asked to find the man or woman who laid a booby trap for Sir Lucas Ossett, the powerful head of an international company. She finds Sir Lucas’ wife in a state of fear, while gossipy elderly ladies cast doubt on their neighbours; these include a "therapist", an ex-employee of Sir Lucas’, and a cross-section of yuppies and oddballs. Call-girl cards have been left in tenants’ letterboxes, a cat has met an untimely end, and snow is forecast.

Published in time for Remembrance Day 2008, the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, We Will Remember Them commemorates the veterans who are no longer among us. With an introduction by Henry Allingham, 110, only survivor of the Battle of the Somme and Britain's oldest living man, Max Arthur's new book expands the circle of contributors by interviewing the families of First World War veterans.

For Elaine, her first lvoe was all consuming, but when Chris, the love of her life, inherited a large sum of money everything changed. With the help of her friend, Mary, Elaine slowly began to forge a new life and fell in love again, with Ian. When an expected face from the past returns to haunt her she is forced to question the future for which she has worked so hard. Can life ever be the same again for Elaine and the people she loves? And, more importantly, has she ever really known the true meaning of love?

1835, England. Serafina Finn is conceived as the result of a love affair between a sea captain and a married woman, who dies giving birth to the child. Abandoned to an orphanage, Serafina grows up never quite knowing who she is. Eighteen years after her birth, and having heard rumours that his lost daughter is still alive, her father instigates a search. He hires Adam Chapman to track Serafina down. Adam falls in love with Serafina but must find evidence to prove her identity.

By the summer of 1916, there is still no end to the war in sight and in the Sussex village of Ashden, optimism has given way to stoicism. While George Lilley leaves the Rectory to join the Royal Flying Corps, each of his four sisters finds her own way of contributing to the war effort. Gradually coming to terms with her broken engagement, Caroline Lilley numbly continues with her agricultural work at home, until tragedy forces her into leaving Ashden.

Bea Abbot's friend, Leon Holland, has asked for her help in establishing an alibi. But why would he need one? First, he tells her, he had a narrow escape from being run down in the road, and then he was lured to a car park to meet someone who didn't turn up. Matters escalate when two bodies are found in the car park stabbed to death. Then everything is thrown into chaos as a devastating virus infects the agency's systems. A hidden camera. Hate mail. A nasty practical joke.