Showing results by narrator "Lucy Paterson" in All Categories

It seemed, at times, an act of profound selfishness, to have a child so that I might become a parent; but selfish, too, to have a child and stay the same, or not to have one - unless the only honest choice would have been to try to become this kinder version of myself without the need to bring another into it.

On a cold evening, Zeb, a single mum in her thirties, is found wandering aimlessly on a remote road. She is dazed, confused, and bloodied. She doesn't know where she is or how she got there. She has travelled far from home and someone has attacked her. Memory loss means she can trust no one, and, with her assailant unidentified, Zeb is desperate to be reunited with her son and to ensure his safety. But what will her search for the truth uncover? Will it bring answers or more questions? And what if the person she can rely on the least is herself?

Out for a bicycle ride in the hills beyond Inversgail, Janet Marsh discovers the body of Dr. Malcolm Murray. The elderly Murray and his own bicycle went off the road and down a steep slope - he’s sprawled in the burn at the bottom, his damaged bike in a patch of thistles on the bank. Tire tracks at the side of the narrow road suggest a vehicle might have been involved. But who would want the well-loved retired doctor dead?

"I don’t exactly know how to tell you this, but you're not the only one who is single again." Single together for the first time, 34-year-old Meg and her warm-hearted mother Sally decide to cancel Christmas, and run away to a tiny cottage on the Cornish coast. For Meg, it is the perfect place to heal, while for her mother it has a special, and secret, place in her heart. Meg and Sally find that they’re not only getting to know themselves, but also each other. However, unable to resist getting involved in the village Christmas celebrations.

This sweeping account confronts and upends old fantasies, revealing the far more startling reality of our world's largest hot desert. Drawing on decades of research, and years spent living in the region, anthropologist Judith Scheele takes us from Libya to Mali, Algeria to Chad, from the ancient Roman Empire to the bloody colonial era to contemporary regional battles and fraught international diplomacy, questioning every easy cliché and exposing fascinating truths along the way.

After ninety-three well-lived years, Violet MacAskill is ready to simplify her life. Her eccentric solution? She’ll throw a decanting and decluttering party at her family home—a Scottish Baronial manor near the seaside town of Inversgail. She sets aside everything she wants or needs, then she invites her many friends in to sip sherry and help themselves to whatever they want from all that’s left. Janet Marsh and Christine Robertson, two of the women who own Yon Bonnie Books in Inversgail, enjoy themselves at the party. Not everyone who attends has a good time, though.

True-crime writer Heather Kilbride arrives in the seacoast town of Inversgail, Scotland, to research a recent murder for her new book. But if that’s true, why does she seem more interested in William Clark, a shadowy lawyer with no connection to the murder? Her nosy questions arouse the suspicions of Constable Hobbs, the members of a local writers’ group, and Janet Marsh and her crew of amateur sleuths at Yon Bonnie Books. Then Heather is found dead - twice....

The divorce went surprisingly smoothly. Pedantic lawyer Max and impulsive painter Lola just weren't a good match, that is one thing they agree on. But the ink on the divorce papers has barely dried, when circumstances force them to move back in together. They soon find out that living with your ex isn't exactly great for your dating life...

Nina Findlay, always the heroine of her own life, has found an irresistible safety in being adored by two men. But when her sister-in-law becomes gravely ill, the triangle that Nina's depended on becomes unstable. The life she's known begins to unravel, and odd things begin to happen which those around her insist are all in her mind. Can Nina be sure of the truth?

1921. Families are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many survivors of the Great War have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. He is considered ‘missing in action’, but when Edie receives a mysterious photograph taken by Francis in the post, hope flares. And so she begins to search.

In today's connection economy, the most successful leaders inspire their people with purpose and meaning. Powerful corporate storytelling can mobilise people around an organisational objective in a way that a focus on market share never will. Be it a digital transformation or a diversity and inclusion initiative, corporate change needs the support of the people in that organisation in order to stick. Yet, while all stories can move people to take action, storytelling isn't a one size fits all.