Résultats lu par "Julia Franklin" dans Toutes les catégories

Aunt Maud's cruel words shock Rosie Quest. But they also explain the atmosphere of hostility that surrounds her on the run-down Wirral farm: no wonder her aunt resents having had to take in an illegitimate child, born in the workhouse. It's quite a relief to escape every day to her job as a machinist in Sheraing's garment factory, even though Beatrice Shearing is a demanding employer. But when Rosie catches the eye of Ben Shearing, Beatrice is having none of it.

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, Persimmon "Simmy" Brown's flower shop near Lake Windermere receives a string of anonymous delivery orders. But each one causes their recipient great distress, and Simmy suspects that the messages they contain mask a sinister intent. Then one of the recipients disappears…. As if that isn't enough, Simmy's friend Kathy turns up, on the trail of her wayward daughter Joanna, who has grown unhealthily close to her university tutor.

It’s with mixed motives that Karen Slocombe’s cousin Penn pays her a visit. Not only does Penn want to renew contact with a relative, but she is also looking for help with the disappearance of Justine, another cousin. Drew Slocombe’s reputation for unraveling mysteries is widespread and Penn hopes he and Karen can be of assistance. Justine’s mother, Roma Millan, claims to be unconcerned at her daughter’s disappearance. Roma’s husband, Laurie, however, believes otherwise.

Poor Viv has begun to look like the sofa she sits on most of the time.... This is a debut novel from actress and audiobook reader Julia Franklin. ‘I’ve read somewhere between 300 and 400 novels as audio books over the last 25 years,’ she says, ‘so I thought it was time to have a go at a novel of my own.’ The result is Turn Up for the Book, a romantic comedy that begins with the breakup, one Christmas, of a marriage.

While the celebrated opera singer Terri Ivory is in hospital, facing what could be the end of her career, her daughter Julie stumbles upon a long-buried secret that forces her to question her past and her place in her mother’s affection. In their empty house that no longer seems like a home, mother and daughter try to keep their closeness to each other and to the men they love.

It is almost a year since Sean and Thea met, and it's been a roller-coaster ride: they're getting married on Christmas Day! Neither Thea nor Sean wants a big fuss - a simple wedding, with Christmas lights and just a few sprigs of mistletoe for decoration is all they need. But before they know it, things begin to get complicated.

The year is 1947. Kindly, unassuming widow Dorrie Resterick continually finds herself confidante to others' troubles. She would prefer to keep in the background, but life throws her many a mystery, and once she even found a scrap of evidence in a dreadful local crime - the double murder of two villagers. While the police decided the scrap of paper Dorrie brought to them solved the case, Dorrie was never sure - and when new tenants arrive at the creepy cottage of Merrivale their actions plunge the whole village into danger.

Biographer Rona Parish has a new project - contributing a series for the local glossy magazine, Chiltern Life, documenting life-changing experiences from those who have lived through them. When her father suggests she speaks to his friend, Frank Hathaway, who was in Iraq during the invasion of Kuwait, Rona decides to pay him a visit. But Frank was also badly injured in a failed rescue attempt following a car crash the previous year and has been tormented by flashbacks ever since.

Grandmother Ruth Sutton writes to the man she hates more than anyone else on the planet: the man who she believes killed her daughter Lizzie in a brutal attack four years earlier. In writing to him Ruth hopes to exorcise the corrosive emotions that are destroying her life, to find the truth and with it release and a way forward. Whether she can ever truly forgive him is another matter - but the letters are her last, best hope.

The Dangerous Lord Darrington is not a man to be welcomed into a house of unprotected women! He may be an earl, but even in the wilds of Yorkshire, Beth Forrester has heard tales of the incorrigible rake that make her toes curl…Unexpectedly hosting such a scandalous celebrity is only the first of Beth's problems. Now the wicked Lord Darrington has found out about the dark secret she will do anything to protect. How to buy a rake's silence? There is only one way - with her body!

Fancy Jones, best-selling crime writer, discovers that someone is trying to kill her. When she is invited to lecture at a writers’ conference in the Derbyshire Dales, she leaps at the chance to leave London and hopefully escape the threat of her assassin. Events turn sour when a body is found floating in a lake at the conference venue, and bizarre things start happening to Fancy. Suspicion falls on the other delegates but has her stalker followed her?

Like a princess in a fairytale, Grace Hamilton has been showered with blessings: professional success, a happy marriage, and she even lives in a beautiful castle. But the only thing she really wants – her heart’s desire – is the one thing she can never have. Her sister, the beautiful Susannah, has made a mess of her life. Like a reverse Midas, everything she touches turns sour. But fate puts Grace’s future in Susannah’s hands, changing the balance of power between the sisters forever.

An abandoned infant on her doorstep is the last thing Manchester private eye Sal Kilkenny needs as she faces the challenge of her current case. Sal’s client Libby Hill is trying to put her life back together after the brutal killing of her love and the conviction of petty criminal Damien Beswick who confessed to the murder. But now Beswick has retracted his confession – exactly what game is he playing? The evidence against him seems damning, but is there more to this case than meets the eye?

Just back from honeymoon, the last thing Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy wants to deal with is nuisance calls from an old lady ringing the police incessantly to report seemingly trivial incidents. The woman in question is Timony Weeks, a sixties’ child star in the once-popular soap Butterfield Farm, who lives in an isolated farmhouse. Is she putting on an act and wasting police time, or is someone really trying to frighten her?

This wonderful short story collection was first released in print in 2009 by Salt publishing. Robert’s stories are a close, intimate look at friendship, marriage, relationships and the problems and joys that come with the territory. They look at men and women in and out of love and the way we yearn for what was and can never be.

Infamous playboy Tristan Romero meets ordinary Lily at a lavish ball and arrogantly predicts that she will wake up the following morning between his designer silk sheets! Powerless to resist this wicked billionaire, Lily knows Tristan is only offering one night. But then she discovers she's pregnant, and Tristan's aristocratic duty demands he take Lily as his bride. Lily's shame over accepting a loveless proposal is heightened when she realises that, as the Spaniard's wife, she'll be expected to fulfil his every need.

Cassie Smith has been out of work for a while but she has an idea. Drawing on her love of Christmas, she begins charging for small things: wrapping presents; writing cards; tree-decorating. She's soon in huge demand and Cassie's business, Calling Mrs Christmas, is born. Carter Randall wants to make Christmas special for his children, so he enlists Cassie's help, and his lavish requests start taking up all her time. Thank goodness she can rely on her loving partner Jim to handle the rest of her clients.

Two lives. Two families. One tragedy.Lauren Scott is bright, talented and beautiful. At eighteen, she is the most precious gift in the world to her mother, and has a dazzling career ahead of her. Oliver Lomax is a young man full of promise, despite the shadow his own, deeply troubled, mother casts over him. Then one fateful night, Oliver makes a decision that tears their worlds apart.

On midsummer's day, Phoebe Bowler - star-sign demon - should have returned home a happy new bride. Instead, she's been jilted at the altar. In need of sympathy, she could turn to her neighbour, Rocky Lancaster, but with problems of his own he's turned into Mr Grumpy. That is until Essie Rivers arrives on the scene, and then Phoebe and Rocky's paths seem destined to collide with a very big bump. Essie knows far more about astrology, personology, numerology - any "ology" you care to mention - than Phoebe.

Ataxerxes, king of Persia, needed a wife. This powerful warrior lord picked the one girl who would have given anything to have been passed over - a Jewish scholar, Esther, from the back streets of his capital, Shushan. To a king bored by the chattering of women wreathed in musky scents, this changeling was a breath of fresh air. But the new queen of Persia was lost in a world of protocol and soon lost her husband;s favour.