Showing results by narrator "Maggie Mash" in All Categories

How important is it that you're happy? We can't be happy all the time, but happy people get sick less often, have more energy, are better motivated and more creative. They're more fun to be around, too. So why would you not want to let a little more happiness into your life? Liggy Webb is an expert when it comes to understanding what makes people tick; she's worked with huge companies, national bodies, and the United Nations, helping people to develop their confidence, appreciation, resilience, and communication so that they're happier, healthier, and more effective.

From Sunday Times best-selling author Santa Montefiore comes a novel about losing yourself, but finding your future.… Ellen Trawton is running away from it all - literally. She’s getting married to a man she doesn't love, her job is depressing, and her mother is getting on her nerves. So she escapes to the one place she knows her mother won't follow her - her aunt's house in rural Ireland. Once there, she uncovers a dark family secret - and a future she never knew she might have.

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessive colleague in a hotel in South Kensington. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising, but that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. She was one of Britain’s most daring and highly decorated secret agents, and the intelligence she gathered was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort.

Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from beloved historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.

Whatever happened to Oskar and Eli? And what became of the beleaguered families in Handling the Undead? Find out in Let the Old Dreams Die. In other tales from this collection, a woman finds a dead body and decides to keep it for herself, a customs officer has a mysterious gift that enables her to see what others hide, and a man believes he knows how to deceive death. These are the stories of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s rich imagination. They are about love and death, and what we do when the two collide and the monsters emerge.

The Checquy: a centuries-old covert organisation that protects the nation from supernatural threat. The Grafters: a centuries-old supernatural threat. After centuries of rivalry and bloodshed The Checquy and The Grafters are on the verge of joining forces and only one person has the supernatural skills to get the job done - Myfanwy Thomas. But as a wave of gruesome atrocities sweep London, old hatreds ignite and negotiations grind to a halt....

Nancy de Freitas is the glue that holds her family together. Caught between her ageing, ailing mother, Frances, and her struggling daughter, Louise, a frequent user of Nancy's babysitting services, it seems Nancy's fate is to quietly go on shouldering the burden of responsibility for all four generations. Her divorce four years ago put paid to any thoughts of a partner to share her later years with. Now it looks like her family is all she has. Then she meets Jim.

Zannah and Adrian are planning a May wedding. But before that they must endure the one thing that happens before all weddings—the meeting of the families. Will the gathering go smoothly? Will they like each other—the slightly bohemian Gratrixes from Cheshire and the wealthy Ashtons from the Home Counties? The meeting will take place on neutral territory, at a lunch party in the home of Zannah's great-aunt Charlotte in London. A mood of festivity and celebration prevails. Then Adrian's stepfather arrives and Zannah's mother turns frighteningly pale and hurries away from the party.

Lizzie Martin, lady's companion, has been sent from London to the New Forest to comfort a young woman whose baby has tragically died. A sad enough task, but things take an even darker turn when a rat-catcher is found murdered, and the young woman is discovered beside the body, crying and covered in blood. Not knowing where else to turn, Lizzie calls upon her friend Inspector Ben Ross to solve the horrific crime.

As a young child, Lydia and her sister were sent to live with grandparents they'd never even met. It's a cruel and loveless new world for them and it teaches Lydia to grow up fast. She learns to keep secrets and to trust sparingly. And through it all she suppresses her grief and guilt, believing she is to blame for her mother's death.

New Year's Day, 2000. Hunters stumble upon a half-circle of dead bodies lying in the snow near a holiday chalet. The judge and commissaire in charge of the investigation have encountered this suicide sect before. In the chalet they find a leather-bound book. The book of The Faith leads them to the composer, Friedrich Grosz, who is connected to every one of the dead. Surely he must be implicated?

It is 1864 when Lizzie Martin takes up the post of companion to a wealthy widow who is also a slum landlord. Lizzie is intrigued to learn that her predecessor disappeared, supposedly having run off with an unknown man. But when the girl's body is found in the rubble of one of the recently demolished slums around the prestigious new railway station at St Pancras, Lizzie begins to wonder exactly what has been going on.

When orphan Theodosia’s only remaining family lock her out of their seasonal celebrations, she thinks she’ll be spending Christmas alone in her bedsit - until she meets physician Hugo Bentinck. But Hugo may be waiting a while for Theodosia to admit her love for him, as she mistakes his sister for his intended wife, and an interfering aunt and nosy landlady all play a part in holding up their happy ever after!

January 1945, West London: Sylvia Simpson has become an invaluable member of the Marigold's crew - but as the V-I and V-2 rockets draw closer, someone from her past is about to rock the boat. Now Sylvia must choose between keeping the promises she has made and remaining loyal to the people she loves the most. Polly and Verity are waiting for their sweethearts' safe return and have their own battles to fight on the home front. It will take all their resolve to keep their heads above water, but as long as they stick together there will always be hope.

1960. Having been friends ever since they met in a Blackpool boardinghouse five years before, Val, Cissie and Janice are all now happily married, preoccupied with their growing families. But the new decade will bring change for all. Val and Sam's son's behaviour is causing concern, and Val finds it hard at times to love him as she should. Running a thriving café in Harrogate, Janice and her husband, Phil, decide to expand into the restaurant business: have they bitten off more than they can chew? Meanwhile Cissie's life is thrown into jeopardy when she encounters an old flame....

March 1944, West London: It's been five months since Verity Clement fled home for a life on Britain's canals. Hauling cargo between London and Birmingham is tough but easier to face than the turbulence she's left behind. When Verity's sweetheart returns unexpectedly from the front line, she dreams of a brighter future. But life aboard the Marigold is never smooth sailing. New recruit Sylvia is struggling with demons from her past while crewmate Polly receives devastating news. Verity does her best to help, but a shocking discovery is about to turn her life upside down....

Victoria was a very pretty girl, but with three sisters even prettier than she, Victoria had developed a bit of a complex about her looks. So when attractive Alexander van Schuylen made it clear he liked her, she really didn’t expect much more from him. How could she, when he was so impressed with her sisters’ beauty? But if his feelings for Victoria actually did run deep, she could be in danger of losing him - entirely through her own fault.

London, 1926. Two baby girls are born just hours and miles apart. One you know as the Queen of England, but what of the other girl - the daughter of an undertaker named in her honour? Betsy Sunshine grows up surrounded by death in war-torn London, watching her community grieve for their loved ones whilst dealing with her own teenage troubles...namely her promiscuous sister Margie. As Betsy grows older we see how the country changes through her eyes, and along the way we discover the birth of a secret that threatens to tear her family apart.

July 1942, and 23-year-old nightclub singer Kate Watson has made a home for herself in bomb-blitzed London. A motley crew of friends has replaced the family she's not spoken to in years. Until Kate's sister Sarah walks back into her life, asking her to return home to Dorset for one month to look after her daughter, Lizzie. Reluctantly Kate agrees, though it means facing the troubled past she hoped she'd escaped.

An elite surgeon with a brilliant but philandering husband, Flora Macintyre has always defined herself by her success in juggling her career and her marriage. Until she finds herself with neither. Retired and widowed in the space of a few months, she suddenly decides to run away to France. But back home, her two daughters are struggling. Lou is balancing pregnancy with a crumbling relationship while her younger sister, Kitty, may have to choose between love and her growing passion for music. As the family try to pull together, one dark secret could still tear them all apart....