Showing results by narrator "Tamsin Kennard" in All Categories

Juliet and Chrissy were best friends until one fateful summer forced them apart. Now, nearly twenty years later, Juliet wants to be back in Chrissy’s life. But Chrissy doesn’t want Juliet anywhere near her, or her teenage daughter Eloise. After all, Juliet is the only person who knows what happened that night – and her return threatens to destroy the life that Chrissy has so carefully built. Because when the past is reawakened, it can prove difficult to bury. And soon all three of them will realize how dangerous it can get once the truth is out there.

As a volunteer for the ambulance service, Ruby has the dangerous task of driving along pitch-dark roads during the blackout. With each survivor she pulls from the rubble, she is helping to fight back against the enemy bombers, who leave nothing but destruction in their wake. Assigned to her crew is Joseph, who is unable to fight but will stop at nothing to save innocent lives. Because he is not in uniform, people treat him with suspicion, and Ruby becomes determined to protect this brave, compassionate man who has rescued so many, and captured her heart. 

When Sophie’s life falls apart, she accepts an invitation from a childhood friend, Caroline, to visit her family’s beautiful beach house, miles from the nearest town. The silence is broken only by the rhythmic crash of the waves against the jagged black rocks below. But when Sophie arrives, she finds her friend much changed. Caroline - who used to be so warm and confident - is secretive and on-edge, spending long, unexplained hours away from her family. And then there’s Caroline’s little daughter Lucy - who stopped speaking soon after they moved in.

The woman falls. Her body begins to shake. Her brown eyes turn upwards, showing a mix of panic and desperate hope. She takes a deep breath and says one word: Blake. Then her eyes close, her face pales, and she goes still forever… The victim: Shannon, a woman who went out of her way to help the lost and hopeless, left abandoned to die by the side of the road. Where was she in those last few days before her death, and why was she so frightened?

Sparky Christina and her saintly adopted sister Pam couldn't be more different. And when they meet similarly mismatched friends Jago and Peter, the four embark on a dazzling series of pairings and partings, outrageous coincidences and 11th-hour entrances interrupted one disastrous Halloween when schoolboy revelry turns horribly wrong. Three years on, as Christina analyses the wit, cruelty and crossed genders of Shakespearean comedy, the cast of her own life reunites and the curtain falls on some gloriously unexpected partnerships.

I sent 19-year-old Phyllis, my youngest recruit, into a city crawling with enemy soldiers. And this beautiful house on a tree-lined street, the headquarters of cold-hearted German soldiers, was the last place she was seen. I trail my fingers along the gilded furniture and see the light dance off the glittering chandeliers. On the top floor, I find the dates inscribed by beaten prisoners, and I know my girl was shown no mercy.

London, 1915. As German bombs rain down on the East End of London and hungry children queue for rations in the blistering cold, 15-year-old Florrie is forced to grow up fast. With her father fighting in the muddy trenches, Florrie turns to her older sister Edith for comfort. But the war has changed Edith. She has grown quiet, with dark shadows under her eyes, and has started leaving the house at night in secret. When Florrie follows her sister through the dark and winding streets of London, she is shocked by what she discovers.

Chrissy was an attractive, recently divorced 40-year-old, living with her three children in their family home in Cheltenham, when in 2003, she met 44-year-old ‘Alex’ in a local coffee shop. He claimed to be an international financier, Alexander Marc d’Ariken de Rothschild-Hatton, the illegitimate son of multi-millionaire heir, Edmund de Rothschild. Charming and smooth-talking, it wasn’t long before he gained Chrissy’s love and trust, with marriage on the cards and a new baby on the way.

In Clerkswell, the great and the good assemble for a Samhain party. In Manchester, mages prepare for the Warden Hustings. But on a tree in the Furness Peninsula hangs the body of a man. Someone thinks they have settled a score, but all they’ve done is start a feud. A storm is brewing, and Conrad has to stop it turning into all-out war. Fate has dealt him a difficult hand—another new partner, the implacable opposition of the Lakeland Mages, and having to shield the members of his non-magickal team. So Conrad does what he does best: grits his teeth and rides into the storm.

The last time Conrad was unemployed, he got a visit from the Allfather. Look where that got him.... And now the Gnomes of Lakeland want him to be the new Commissioner. A simple job: Sort out the Assessors and put the Grand Union on a stable footing. They’re even willing to pay for an assistant to help him with the difficult magick stuff. What could possibly go wrong?

Mariyah enjoys a simple life in Vylari, a land magically sealed off from the outside world, where fear and hatred are all but unknown. There, she's a renowned wine maker, and her betrothed, Lem, is a musician of rare talent. Their destiny has never been in question. Whatever life brings, they will face it together. Then, a stranger crosses the wards into Vylari for the first time in centuries, bringing a dark prophecy that forces Lem and Mariyah down separate paths. How far will they have to go to stop a rising darkness and save their home?

Claire has everything she’s always wanted. A newborn baby. A doting husband by her side. A picturesque home in the countryside. But behind closed doors, Claire’s life is falling apart. Her husband is barely ever home, she’s struggling to bond with her baby girl, and she swears that she is being watched in the remote, lonely cottage. And when a threatening note is posted through her letterbox, saying she doesn’t deserve her daughter, it’s clear that someone knows about the terrible mistake that Claire made.

Everyone’s invited. Someone will never leave. In a grand townhouse rented specially for the evening, Hannah beams at her guests under the sparkling chandelier. Her sisters, her mother and aunt, her best friends...although she’ll miss them all so much when she moves away, tonight is about celebrating the happy times and raising a toast to the future. But the next morning, one of the guests is found cold and lifeless in their pristine white bed. Hannah is desperate to call the police. After all, it must have been an accident.

A perfect mother. A loving daughter. A secret that could destroy them both. When I walk into my small family home after a long day at work, I find my mother in the living room, playing happily with my precious baby son, and my heart begins to race.

Have you ever wanted to reinvent yourself? Have you ever lied about who you are to get more likes? Have you ever followed someone online who you think is perfect? Meet Holly. Social media sensation. The face of clean eating. Everyone loves her. Everyone wants to be her. But when Holly is attacked by a man she's only just met, her life starts to spiral out of control. He seemed to know her - but she doesn't know him. What if Holly isn't who she seems to be? What if Holly's living a lie?

Conrad has a lot on his plate, and recovering from a punctured kidney is only the start. Top of his to-do list is a trip to Cornwall for an interview with Morwenna Mowbray, vessel and victim of Fae magick. Before he can go, Tom Morton has news on the missing book, the Codex Defanatus. And soon it becomes clear that all roads lead across the Irish Sea, to a country where Conrad has no jurisdiction, no allies, and where his enemies are not one, but two Fae queens.

Holly Wakefield works for the NHS as a criminal psychologist specialising in serial killers. She has particular reason to be good at her job - but she keeps that to herself. When DI Bishop from the Met Police approaches Holly to investigate a recent killing, Holly is horrified by the dismembered bodies and the way they have been theatrically positioned. More shocking still is when the pathologist reveals this is not the first time she has seen these mutilations. It means a serial killer is out there, and they're going to kill again - soon.

On the night of Samhain, the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, and ancient magic runs wild in Old London. When Lady Bergamon is attacked in her Ivy Street garden, Yannia Wilde is asked to investigate. Who has enough power to harm Lady Bergamon in her own domain? While Yannia searches for the answer, nature herself appears to be killing beings in Old London. Yannia and her sidekick Karrion join forces with New Scotland Yard to solve the baffling deaths. But wherever they turn, all the clues point back towards Ivy Street.

Find out what Conrad (and especially Vicky) get up to when they’re not cracking the big cases in this collection of novellas from Mark Hayden’s King’s Watch universe: Byways, the less travelled roads of magick.

I didn’t turn up uninvited. He asked me to come. He didn’t need to ask twice. He knew I’d agree. Kind Laura. Obedient Laura. Laura the soft-spoken schoolteacher with the faded cardigans and flat shoes. Nobody ever suspected someone like me would appeal to handsome, charismatic, happily married Ralph. I think even he was surprised by his choice. But I’m used to people underestimating me. But then maybe I underestimated Ralph, too. Because I never thought he’d be capable of doing what he did. It wasn’t only dangerous, it was very, very wrong.