Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

Jackie Moggridge was just nineteen when World War Two broke out. Determined to do her bit, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. Ferrying aircraft from factory to frontline was dangerous work, but there was also fun, friendship and even love in the air. At last the world was opening up to women... or at least it seemed to be.

Jason Warwycke, Marquess of Wyckeham, has vowed never to wed again after his disastrous first marriage, which left him with nothing but a tarnished reputation. That is, until he sets eyes on Ianthe Templeton... But can Wyckeham and Ianthe overcome the malicious schemes of spiteful siblings and evil stepmothers to find wedded bliss? Or will Wyckeham discover that the past has come back to bite him for a second time?

Victoria James is at home awaiting a call from Downing Street, desperate for the telephone to ring but mindful of the impact a promotion could have on her husband and daughter. When she receives the summons, high office does indeed await her, and life will never be the same again. As a young, attractive female Minister, Victoria will be living in the public eye, challenged in her views at every turn. But nothing prepares her for what ultimately throws her off-balance: a love affair with a married man.

Tom doesn’t know he is a demisprite - the child of a fairy and a human - until he meets his three fairy godmothers. They’ve been summoned to protect him, but they can’t stop bickering and two of them are hardened criminals. Tom must survive their botched magic spells, learn to fly, and enter the dangerous Fairy Realm to save his parents.

In a remote, crumbling house in the Fens live four sisters - Agatha, Milly, and Ellen and Esther - identical twins so closely linked as to be almost one person. They have lived there all their lives, trapped still by the fear of their dead father, who governs his daughters' lives from beyond the grave. And then there is George, another inhabitant, imprisoned in the cellar. Little by little, macabre events come to light: events that transform an idyllic country childhood into a world of eccentric isolation.

Two years ago, Miff Ferguson chose to opt out of the rat race. Since then he's been living rough and happily so. That is until now. For, as the first signs of winter approach, everything changes. While looking for shelter, Miff stumbles across the dead body of a young woman inside a dilapidated warehouse. Quickly realising he's not alone, and what's worse he's been spotted, Miff becomes embroiled in a game of cat and mouse with a killer that forces him to abandon his life on the streets and take refuge with his aunt and uncle in the village of Weston St Ambrose.

Sebastian, Duke of Hasford, has a title, wealth, privilege, and plenty of rakish charm. Until he discovers the only thing that truly belongs to him is his charm. An accident of birth has turned him into plain Mr. de Silva. Now, Sebastian is flummoxed as to what to do with his life - until he stumbles into a gambling den owned by Miss Ivy, a most fascinating young lady, who hires him on the spot. Working with a boss has never seemed so enticing.

Caro Swanson has taken a job in a remote part of Scotland. She’s answered an ad in The Lady: being a companion to an elderly gentleman who lives in a country estate could be perfect! Surely it is time to make a change and do something different for a while? The fact that she may also see Alec, the young man whom she met some years previously and whom she has always thought of as her ‘one who got away’, is of course purely incidental. Soon Caro is falling in love - not only with Alec but with the stunning house and grounds she is now living in.

Indulge in this lovely, cake-filled novel of romance and friendship. Christmas Cakes and Mistletoe Nights is Carole Matthews at her heart-warming best! Fay and Danny are madly in love, and it's all Fay's ever dreamed of. But she left everything - including the delightful cake shop she used to run - to be with Danny on his cosy canal boat, The Dreamcatcher. And as she soon finds out, making delicious cakes on the water isn't always smooth sailing!

In 1904, when she was six, Polly Flint went to live with her two holy aunts at the yellow house by the marsh - so close to the sea that it seemed to toss like a ship, so isolated that she might have been marooned on an island. And there she stayed for 81 years, while the century raged around her, while lamplight and Victorian order became chaos and nuclear dread. Crusoe's Daughter, ambitious, moving and wholly original, is her story.

Emily is happy with her life just as it is. She has a career as a midwife that she loves . She enjoys living on her own as a single woman. But she also feels it's time for a change and a spot of some sea air. So when her best friend, Rebecca, asks whether she'd like to spend the summer cooking on a 'puffer' boat just off the Scottish coast, she jumps at the chance. But she barely has time to get to grips with the galley before she finds herself with a lot on her plate.

A mysterious and frightening metamorphosis has befallen Ida MacLaird – she is slowly turning into glass, from the feet up. She returns to St Hauda’s Land, where she believes the glass first took hold, in the vain hope of finding the one man who might just be able to cure her… Midas Crook is a young loner, who has lived on the islands his entire life. When he meets Ida, something about her sad, defiant spirit pierces his emotional defences.

Alice and Belinda are identical twins, and have grown up sharing everything: toys, rooms, and friends. But as they begin their careers as detectives - a job they have each wanted for as long as they can remember - a computer error sees them accidentally starting at the same North London police station. Work gives them enough mysteries to be investigating as they attempt to make themselves known and respected in their new roles, but when Belinda is sexually harassed by a colleague, her twin Alice realizes she can use her identical appearance to fight back when her sister no longer can...

Rina accepts an invite to Aikensthorpe, a country-house hotel with a sinister past. Her fellow guests are an eccentric bunch of magicians and scholars who want to re-enact a séance. Back in 1872, it left one man dead and another mad. But Rina won’t be drawn into all of that. She's relieved when Detective MacGregor comes to her rescue. But then a blizzard sets in...leaving them trapped in the house, cut off from civilization. And then the first of the bodies is found—a distinguished scholar, smothered in his sleep. Who will be next to die on this dark and stormy night?

When a body washes up on the rocks below, everyone assumes it must be brutish Edward Parker. Weeks ago, he slipped over the cliff’s edge, never to be seen again. But on closer inspection, it’s not him. The dead man is Pat Duggan, son of a wealthy nightclub owner, and it’s not the sea that killed him—it’s a gunshot wound.

Each month best friends Claudia, Sal, Ella and Laura meet for drinks, celebrating 45 years of friendship. Sal had spent a lifetime building her career, but she hadn't banked on the one thing over which she had no control. Claudia loved her urban existence. But, as many women will know, other people's needs always seem to come first. Ella is ready to try something different. But she hadn't bargained on quite such a radical change. And Laura succumbed to the oldest cliché in the book.

In the shadow of Lewes castle lies buried an ancient tablet. Hours after discovering it, dashing local archaeologist Gideon Rivers is dead. Writer Virginia Woolf and her artist sister, Vanessa, both know firsthand that it doesn't take much to cause a stir in town. And when Gideon returned home from a dig in Syria with a glamourous Parisian heiress on his arm, all eyes were on him. But who would have conspired to murder such a charming young man? There are more suspects in his circle than it first seems: an ambitious fiancée, a jealous best friend, and a string of scorned former lovers.

This family secret means the end of everything they've ever known. But could it also be the chance for a new beginning? Verity seems to have it all. A beautiful home, two grown-up sons and a husband who has always been her rock. But one day, the doorbell rings. And it changes Verity's life forever. Saskia has nowhere else to go. Before she died, her mother left her with her father's name and nothing else. The only way for Saskia to take care of herself – and her unborn baby – is to find the father she never knew. And the family that didn't know she existed.

As children, Gareth and Helen went ignored and utterly unsupervised in their isolated English farmhouse while their mother obsessively tended to her beloved, exquisite garden. When they were little, Gareth would occupy himself by trapping insects under glass and Helen would find ways to entertain herself - but the older they grew, the more sinister their lives became, with no attentive parent to shield them from the predators of the world. Decades later, Helen is in the same crumbling house, unhappily married and looking after their bedridden mother, and Gareth finally returns home.

After years working all hours as a senior practice nurse, Joy has taken a well-earned retirement. She'd been looking forward to it, to leisure and time and no alarms, but now that it's happened, she's not sure what to do with herself. Her husband Terry is buried in his business, and seems to be talking to her less and less - at home she feels, increasingly, rather in the way. But when a new neighbour, Sara, and her small son move into their remote Devon village, Joy befriends her, and inspired by Sara starts to look into the history of their beautiful Angel cove.