Showing results by narrator "Imogen Church" in All Categories

It is the middle of the roaring '20s, and Gittel is living The Hague with her parents, whose blazing rows are the traditional preserve of Sundays and public holidays. What luck, then, that Gittel is Jewish and must submit to 'the double helping of public holidays that is the lot of Jewish families'. After every matrimonial slanging match, Gittel's mother runs off to her parents' home in Antwerp - with her daughter in tow.

Shipwrecks are part of life in the remote village of Porthmorvoren, Cornwall. And as the sea washes the bodies of the drowned onto the beach, it also brings treasures: barrels of liquor, exotic fruit, the chance to lift a fine pair of boots from a corpse, maybe even a jewel or two. When, after a fierce storm, Mary Blight rescues a man half dead from the sea, she ignores the whispers of her neighbours and carries him home to nurse better. Gideon Stone is a Methodist minister from Newlyn, a married man.

It’s no surprise to anyone that Jeffrey Sachs, billionaire CEO of his own hotel chain, has a drop-dead gorgeous Estonian mistress. But stepping down to spend his retirement years with her? No one saw that coming - least of all his wife! So now the prize of becoming Sachs CEO is up for grabs - and Jeffrey’s four children have until the day of his wedding to compete for the job. In a game where the ultimate prize is power beyond your wildest dreams, you should never underestimate your competitors, even if they are family.... And, it turns out, twins can be the most dangerous rivals of all....

Stunning, charismatic Lexy O’Brien is the reigning queen of British reality TV. Her life in front of the camera is planned and manipulated as successfully as any military assault. But success breeds jealousy. When you’re on top, the only way is down, and there’s always someone standing by to give you a shove....

Returning home from a holiday, Tarot reader Dolly Greene learns that much has changed on her street. Squatters have taken over at No.7 Tinderbox Lane, and a mysterious Brazilian woman has moved in next door at No.3. She also finds a surly Russian girl, Marina, waiting outside the house, insisting on a reading. Marina's cards reveal conflict, misery and death and Dolly knows she should feel concerned. But the girl is so disagreeable she's only too relieved when the reading finally comes to an end.

Jilly Cooper has kept a diary about life on Putney Common. Noting the effects of the changing seasons and writing about her encounters with dogs and humans, Cooper creates an affectionate and enthralling portrait of her everyday life. Cooper writes lyrically about the natural world, tellingly about the sorrows and joys of caring for dogs and children and outrageously about the gossip, illicit romances and jealousies of small community life.

Love is Angela Carter's fifth novel and was first published in 1971. With surgical precision it charts the destructive emotional war between a young woman, her husband and his disruptive brother as they move through a labyrinth of betrayal, alienation and lost connections.

The perfect afterlife or a never-ending nightmare? Isobel has it all: a steady relationship, the immaculate home and her dream job. Life, and even death, is completely under her control. For Isobel's generation death no longer means oblivion, thanks to firms like her employer, Oakley Associates. Isobel is their top Heaven Architect, crafting perfect afterlives for her clients: artificial paradises of the mind built from the memories they treasure most. Then Isobel meets handsome client Jarek....

Sophie, Emily, Amy, and Melissa have been best friends since they were girls. They have seen each other through everything - from Sophie's private fear that she doesn't actually want to be a mother despite having two kids, to Amy's perfect-on-the-outside marriage that starts to reveal troubling warning signs, to Melissa's spiraling alcoholism, to questions that are suddenly bubbling up around the paternity of Emily's son. But could a lie that spans just as long as their friendship be the thing that tears them apart?

'Tell Mum I miss her.' Bodyguard Sam Wylde has had her British licence revoked. She is now operating in Europe, running security on a swanky motor yacht during the Historic Grand Prix race. And at the same time she trawls for news of her ex-husband and daughter. In fact, the owner of the boat is bankrupt and the bank wants the multimillion-dollar vessel back. Sam is in the middle of a very dangerous situation that is rapidly escalating out of control.

Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself? Twenty-seven-year-old Lizzie has a great relationship with her teenage stepson, Sam, even though they could pass for brother and sister. When Sam becomes sullen and withdrawn, Lizzie starts to suspect that something sinister is going on at school. But no-one believes her, and then suspicion falls on Lizzie herself....

Could you kill someone? Someone you love? Paris, 1938. This is the story of twin sisters divided by fierce loyalties and by a terrible secret. The drums of war are beating, and France is poised, ready to fall. One sister is an aviatrix, the other is a socialite, and they both have something to prove and something to hide. Discover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage...and betrayal.

Sam Wylde is a Close Protection Officer to the rich and powerful. In a world dominated by men, being a woman has been an advantage. And she is the best in the business at what she does. She takes a job protecting the daughter of the Sharifs - Pakistani textile tycoons - but she realises that there is more to their organisation than meets the eye and suddenly she finds herself in danger.

The women in Lara Williams’ debut story collection, A Selfie as Big as the Ritz, navigate the tumultuous interval between early twenties and middle age. In the title story, a relationship implodes against the romantic backdrop of Paris. In “One of Those Life Things,” a young woman struggles to say the right thing at her best friend’s abortion. In “Penguins,” a girlfriend tries to accept her boyfriend’s bizarre sexual fantasy. In “Treats,” a single woman comes to terms with her loneliness.

Iris Turner, an unworldly young Englishwoman, arrives in the French Riviera to take up a secretarial role for the mysterious Hammond Brooke. Living in a small, exclusive hotel among eccentric and unpredictable aristocrats and struggling to gain her employer's trust, she soon realises that nothing is as it seems. Initiated into the mysterious world of perfume, she finds herself entangled in a web of intrigue and deception.

In the heart of Southwest London, just a short stroll from the Thames, lies a single row of cottages. Residents may come and go, but they all have one thing in common: Tinderbox Lane - small, enclosed, unknown to any iPhone or supermarket delivery van - is the place they call home. Foremost among the residents is Dolly Greene: divorced and permanently broke, she shares her tiny house with her 21-year-old daughter, Pippa, who can't afford to leave. Aside from Pippa the other constant in Dolly's life is her tarot business.

Abby Archer, a smart and savvy woman who refuses to be taken in by celebrity culture, becomes fascinated with it girl and media darling Brooke Simmons after she falls into a coma following a car crash. Her loyal security-guard-turned-lover Nick Lawson is implicated in the accident - someone Abby met just days before. One day Abby begins to feel unwell and is shocked to see the face looking back at her in the mirror is no longer her own but that of Brooke Simmons.

Sea, sky and smugglers coves... paradise for some but despair for beautiful Rebecca. Her father plans to marry her off to a tyrant. Intrigued by a soothsayer's words, she tumbles at the feet of bad boy Jac, an apprentice smuggler, good with women and horses. Desire mounts as powerfully as Rebecca s determination to rewrite her destiny. Is the local witch the answer to her prayers? Mystic Morwenna is Jac s ex-lover. Can she be trusted? The lovers must face greater danger before innocence is traded for passion.

Veronica Cecil was 25 years old when her husband was offered a job at a large multi-national company in the Congo. Filled with enthusiasm for their new life, the couple and their 11-month-old son set off for an African adventure. Very soon, however, Veronica began to realise that life in the Congo was not what she had imagined. Food shortages were an everyday occurrence; she felt like an outsider at the club in Léopoldville, which only the Belgians and other expats frequented; and flickers of violence were starting to erupt everywhere.

With an abandoned degree behind her and a 30th birthday approaching, amateur writer Bonnie Falls moves out of her parents' home into a nearby flat. Her landlady, Sylvia Slythe, takes an interest in Bonnie, encouraging her to finish one of her stories, in which a young woman moves to the seaside, where she comes under strange influences. As summer approaches, Sylvia suggests to Bonnie that, as neither of them has anyone else to go on holiday with, they should go away together - to the seaside, perhaps.