Showing results by narrator "Jane Collingwood" in All Categories

The Aventine is full of fracturing families. Wives plot to leave their husbands, husbands plot to spend more time with their mistresses. Masters must endure slaves taking obscene liberties, while aggressive slaves are learning to ape dangerous masters. But no one wants to hire an investigator during the holiday. Albia is lumped with her own domestic stress: overexcited children and bilious guests, too many practical jokes and her magistrate husband Tiberius preoccupied with local strife.

My best friend was now my deadliest enemy, the one person I'd hate beyond all measure for the rest of my life…Franny Barker's best friend, Alice, is the worst girlfriend in the world according to the many boys of Merrycliffe-on-Sea. She toys with them, then dumps them. But she'll never dump fashion-obsessed Franny. Nothing and no one can come between them. Until Alice, jealous of Franny's new college friends, sets her sights on Louis.

Mustique is in a state of breathless calm as tropical storm Cristobal edges towards it across the Atlantic. Most villa owners have escaped the island but a few young socialites remain, unwilling to let summer's partying end. American heiress Amanda Fortini is one such thrill-seeker - until she heads out for a morning swim and doesn't return.

It is Autumn in Linköping and the heavens have opened, but not even these biblical rains can wash away the blood of crimes, past and present. Then the brutally-stabbed body of self-made Internet billionaire Jerry Petersson is discovered floating face down in the moat surrounding his home, the imposing Skogså Castle. Malin Fors, the brilliant but flawed star of the Linköping police force, is already struggling to keep her life together following the recent murder attempt on her teenage daughter, Tove.

In the glitteringly ruthless diamond business, Scarlett Drummond Murray is a force to be reckoned with. As stunningly beautiful as the diamonds she works with, Scarlett is determined to make her mark on the industry with her fabulous jewellery creations. But to do so she must battle through a world that is steeped in greed and corruption.

Endsleigh House stands, crumbling and gracious, on the south-west coast of England, its rooms shut up and dusty. But what secrets do they hold? Cate, an exile from New York, is sent to help value the contents of the once-grand Georgian house. Cataloguing its' contents with Jack - a man with his own dark past, she comes across a hidden shoebox containing an exquisite pair of dancing shoes from the 1930s, along with a mysterious collection of objects: a photograph, a dance card and a Tiffany bracelet.

A modern re-imagining of the Gothic Classic Northanger Abbey by the bestselling crime author Val McDermid. The second book in The Austen Project. Seventeen-year-old Catherine ‘Cat' Morland has led a sheltered existence in rural Dorset, a life entirely bereft of the romance and excitement for which she yearns. So when Cat's wealthy neighbours, the Allens, invite her to Edinburgh Festival, she is sure adventure beckons.

Ten years ago when Lily was just sixteen, she fell in love with someone she really shouldn't have fallen in love with. Now, living in Sydney and engaged to another man, she can't forget the one that got away. Then her past comes back to haunt her, and she has to make a decision that will break her heart - and the heart of at least one of the men who love her.

Once a celebrated author of short stories now in his twilight years, Anthony Peardew has spent half his life collecting lost objects, trying to atone for a promise broken many years before. Realising he is running out of time, he leaves his house and all its lost treasures to his assistant Laura, the one person he can trust to fulfil his legacy and reunite the thousands of objects with their rightful owners. But the final wishes of the 'Keeper of Lost Things' have unforeseen repercussions which trigger a most serendipitous series of encounters....

Decades earlier Appius Tranquillus Surus wrote his will: it freed his slaves and bequeathed his businesses to them. He left an orchard to the Prisci, a family he was friendly with, on the condition that his freedmen could still take its harvest. The convoluted arrangement has led to a feud between the two families, each of which has its own internal strife. Endless claims and counterclaims lead to violence and even death. Lawyers have given up in exasperation as the case limps on. The original will has disappeared, along with a falsified codicil - and might there be another one?

Rome, the very end of December. The Field of Mars is packed with monuments, none more beautiful than Domitian's new Odeon and Stadium. But the area has been overtaken by ugly events: elaborately staged murders. Someone bears a spectacular grudge against the theatrical community and intends to get revenge in the most spectacular way possible. The killer's method is to re-enact bloody scenes from the gruesome side of popular theatre, where characters in plays really die on stage.

DS Rowan Hunter is on the case of a lifetime. Tasked with investigating a series of perplexing deaths, the only lead she has is that each appears to be based on a different classic fairy tale. Far from the stuff of bedtime stories, the press is having a field day with what they have named the Grimm Ripper Murders. But Rowan is about to make an astonishing discovery. One that will turn her whole world on its head. Because she herself is actually a story – a tale being told by a kidnapped writer, who is feeding her clues as the sentences unfurl.

While the war rages on across the galaxy, for many on the Throneworld of Terra it exists only in hearsay. But in the course of her daily duties, humble adept Katanoh Tallery discovers evidence of a conspiracy within the monolithic Administratum - surely, this can only be the precursor to a traitor attack on the Solar System itself? Fleeing into the shadows, she soon finds herself at the mercy of the mysterious Knight Errant Nathaniel Garro. Will this stalwart defender of mankind be her saviour, or her executioner?

City dweller Gwen feels like she’s living a secondhand life. She’s thirty-eight, perpetually single, and in dire need of a dentist’s appointment. Her friends are busy procreating in the country, and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around hedge borders and the trash pickup schedule. Above all she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone? Then she’s let go from a job she drifted into a decade ago and never left, and Gwen realizes it’s time to make a change, starting with cleaning out her apartment.

The Stromark system has fallen into rebellion, and the Sons of Sanguinius have been sent to end the conflict and return the system to the Emperor's light. On Stromark Prime, the Flesh Tearers descend with their most feared warriors – the bloodthirsty Death Company – to tear the heart from the rebellion. But as the murderous Space Marines rampage through Stromark Prime's palace, the world's governor may hold their fates in her hands. Meanwhile on Stromark Secundus, the Angels Encarmine send down a force of veterans to despatch any remaining resistance.

Evie Flynn has always been the black sheep of her family - a dreamer and a drifter, unlike her over-achieving elder sisters. She's tried making a name for herself as an actress, a photographer and a singer, but nothing has ever worked out. Now she's stuck in temp hell, with a sensible, pension-planning boyfriend. Somehow life seems to be passing her by. Then her beloved aunt Jo dies suddenly in a car crash, leaving Evie an unusual legacy - her precious beach cafe in Cornwall.

What would you do if the man you love was accused of murder? Bad things never happen to Charlotte. She's living the life she's always wanted and about to marry wealthy banker, Dan. But Dan's been hiding a secret, and the pressure is pushing him over the edge. After he's arrested for the vicious killing of a nightclub owner, Charlotte's future is shattered.

A fugitive stalks the shadows of the Petitioner's City. Though his fellow Outcast Dead are no more, the lone wolf Severian still intends to escape from Terra by any means possible - but the enigmatic hunter Yasu Nagasena is in pursuit. As news of the massacre on Isstvan V continues to spread and Severian's trail doubles back to the place where it all began, both he and Nagasena must face some uncomfortable truths - and an even more uncertain future.

Life has its ups and downs. From the author of The Universe Versus Alex Woods comes a dark, painful, and witty novel about a woman whose life is spiralling out of control. You're going to find some of my actions frustrating. I'm hard to live with, maddening, uneven - I get that. But I can't stand around listing my faults, or we'll be here for ever. All I ask right now is that you indulge me. For as long as it lasts, this is going to be one hell of a ride.

The service of Britannia is not for the faint of heart - or conscience...Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime in service to Queen Victrix, has a mission: To find the doctor who has created a powerful new weapon. Her friend, the mentath Archibald Clare, is only too happy to help. It will distract him from pursuing his nemesis, and besides, Clare is not as young as he used to be. A spot of Miss Bannon's excellent hospitality and her diverting company may be just what he needs.