Showing results by narrator "Susan Duerden" in All Categories

Maggie Hope has come a long way since serving as a typist for Winston Churchill. Now she's working undercover for the Special Operations Executive in the elegant but eerily silent city of Paris, where SS officers prowl the streets in their Mercedes and the Ritz is draped with swastika banners. Walking among the enemy is tense and terrifying, and even though she's disguised in chic Chanel, Maggie can't help longing for home.

On some level deep inside, Laura Bateman knows something is wrong. That her relationship with her son is not what it should be. That it is based on lies. But bad things have happened to Laura. Things that change a person. Forever.

In a near-future London, Millie Dack places her hand on her belly to feel her baby kick, resolute in her decision to be a single parent. Across town, her closest friend - a hungover Toni Munroe - steps into the shower and places her hand on a medic console. The diagnosis is devastating. In this stunning, bittersweet family saga, Millie and Toni experience the aftershocks of human progress as their children and grandchildren embrace new ways of making babies.

The Jacobs family has lived at Orley Court for generations. But when Vanessa Jacobs is widowed and left to manage the property, she finds costs spiralling out of control. In order to stay in their beloved home, she and her daughters will have to sell part of it off - a decision that drives a wedge between Vanessa and her mother-in-law. The new owners of the north wing are Laurence Sturridge and his father, Marcus. Both of them long for an escape: Laurence from the monotony of his City career; Marcus from the grief of losing his wife.

The Christmas season brings strange guests to the medieval nunnery of St. Frideswide's. They bear with them the badly mangled body of a villager, swearing they found the drunken fool lying in a ditch. But Meg, the victim's wife and a scullery maid of the cloister, thinks there are far fouler deeds afoot. As the players rehearse for the nativity, ancient scandals lick at their heels and dark desperation haunts Meg's steps as she finds cruel feudal laws threatening to strip away the lands that would support both her and her sons in the wake of her husband's death.

London, December 1943. As the Russian army repels German forces from Stalingrad, Maggie Hope takes a much-needed break from spying to defuse bombs in London. But Maggie herself is an explosion waiting to happen. Traumatized by her past, she finds herself living dangerously - taking huge risks, smoking, drinking, and speeding through the city streets on a motorbike. The last thing she wants is to get entangled in another crime.

When the villagers of Godestone report a series of bizarre and troubling events, Sir Hugo, his heavily pregnant wife, Lady Alice, and her distant kinsman Father Gilbert are honor bound to investigate, for they are “born to the Fang,” shape-shifters dedicated to fighting evil in secret. And the events are worrying indeed - stolen farm implements, a mutilated goat, and now a missing child. Their investigation is further complicated by the arrival of Robert Fynch, who was drawn to the scene by the tales of mysterious happenings in the village.

Big business is booming and state institutions are thriving thanks to advances in genetic engineering, which have produced a compliant population free from addictions. Violent crime is now a rarity. Mayhew McCline, a major corporation that analyzes global trends, has hired a genius: Jayna. A brilliant mathematical modeler, she has the ability to produce accurate predictions that are both good for the world and good for the bottom line. Her latest coup: finding a link between northeasterly winds and violent crime.

On the eve of Princess Sophia’s wedding, the Scandinavian city of Skyggehavn prepares to fete the occasion with a sumptuous display of riches. Yet beneath the veneer of celebration, a shiver of darkness creeps through the palace halls. A mysterious illness plagues the royal family, threatening the lives of the throne’s heirs, and a courtier’s wolfish hunger for the king’s favors sets a devious plot in motion.

Coworkers Ruby and Harry are in love - but they're married to other people. They decide to tell their spouses that their marriages are over and to start a new life together. Ruby has wanted to leave her controlling husband for a while, so she tells him she's leaving and waits at the hotel where she and Harry are to meet. But Harry never shows up.

Maggie Hope has come a long way since she was Mr. Churchill’s secretary. In the face of tremendous danger, she’s learned espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance. But things are different now that she has so much to lose, including the possibility of a family with John Sterling, the man who’s long held her heart.

Chef Charlie Hunter's arrival in the beautiful Chilterns is the fulfillment of a long-held dream: to open her own restaurant in an idyllic countryside location. The Old Forge sits on the village green (complete with duck pond and flint-faced houses) and seems just the place for the high-quality cooking she wants to be known for. But instead of rural peace and a chance to lick her wounds, Charlie finds something ugly stirring under the chocolate box perfection. When a prominent local builder is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Charlie the outsider becomes a suspect.

Persephone Honeyfield is witty, intelligent, and very aware that the only way to escape the monotony of the life she shares with her father and sister in the English countryside—and the wagging, ever-critical tongues of the people around her—is through marriage. She also knows the likelihood of it being a love match is nearly zero.

When Major Jack Washburn receives a letter telling him that the wife he thought was dead is still alive, he moves heaven and earth to find her. But the woman he finds has drastically changed from the woman he loved and lost. Annalise Washburn has gone through hell since she was kidnapped and left for dead. Now she must choose between a whole new life and the life of addiction she's not sure she can give up. If she can only convince herself that she's worth being loved by the man who possesses her heart.

When Captain Theodore Dunworthy goes on a dangerous assignment for the Crown, the last person he expects to meet is the women he loved and lost. But seeing her again reminds him of how desperately he loved her, and still does. Olivia Matthews has a secret Theo can never discover, the son he doesn't know she had. Even though her heart longs for him, she knows she can't trust that he won't leave her again. With this second chance at happiness, will choosing love mean betraying their country?

A built-in family is not what Lady Cassandra Worth intended to take on, especially after having sworn never to marry again. But that is what the reckless, destitute special agent for the crown Colonel Quinten Beckham offers. When he inherited the title Earl of Rosemont, he was left not only a rundown estate and a mountain of debts, but his brother's two young children. Now he must find a way to raise his two nieces, keep his estate afloat, and continue his dangerous undercover work.

Nell is 26 and has never been to Paris. She's never even been on a romantic weekend away - to anywhere - before. Traveling abroad isn't really her thing. But when Nell's boyfriend fails to show up for their mini vacation, she has the opportunity to prove everyone - including herself - wrong. Alone in Paris, Nell finds a version of herself she never knew existed: independent and intrepid. Could this turn out to be the most adventurous weekend of her life?

Lady Sarah Hampton would rather sew up a wound than tend to her own heart. Or matrimonial prospects. When the small hospital she's been volunteering at faces financial peril, she seeks to save them the best way she knows how—one dare, one wager, and one foolish rake at a time. No matter the risk to herself. If her friend's irritatingly handsome and brutish brother doesn't stand in her way.

Lady Edith knows the sting of unrequited love, and now she wants only one thing—to marry a man who desires her or to never marry. But at the season's end, her father threatens to provide a husband if she cannot secure one herself. When a family friend saves her from the unwanted advances of one of their suitors, she falls a little bit in love. With his auburn hair and radical ideas about women, Griffin Paxton, the Earl of Eastern, is perfect. Except he doesn't want her back.

Responsible for the care of an opium-addicted uncle, George's life poses dangers to a bride that he'll never risk. It's why he avoided the independent and kind Lady Jane last year, despite her brother's request he protect her during her season. His neglect no doubt led to Jane's tattered reputation. In reparation, he's sent preapproved suitors to the house party to ensure she marries well, not to a man whose life is a nightmare.