Showing results by narrator "Bea Holland" in All Categories

London. Early morning, June 2019: on the foreshore of the river Thames, a bag of bones is discovered. Human bones. DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene and quickly sends the bag for forensic examination. The bones are those of a young woman, killed by a blow to the head many years ago. Also inside the bag is a trail of clues, in particular the seeds of a rare tree which lead DCI Owusu back to a mansion in Chelsea where three people lay dead in a kitchen. Four deaths. An unsolved mystery. A family whose secrets can't stay buried for ever.

You thought they were just staying for the weekend. They looked harmless enough - with only two suitcases and a cat in a wicker box. But soon things turn very, very dark. It happens slowly, yet so extraordinarily quickly. Now you and your sister must find a way to survive....

Ollie Spencer has started a new life in the idyllic Cornish seaside town of Port Karadow. Throwing herself into her job at the town’s bookshop, A New Chapter, is one way to make friends. The shop is glitzing up for first Christmas and Ollie hopes her inspired ideas will give the shop the edge it needs to dazzle the town. But far from being the Sugar Plum fairy the place needs, Ollie is fast becoming its Christmas pudding. With the bookshop’s success at stake, Ollie turns to twinkly-eyed café owner Max for help.

The great-granddaughters of Emma Harte, the heroine of A Woman of Substance and Emma's Secret, follow in her legendary footsteps.... Evan Hughes, Emma's American great-granddaughter, is trying to integrate into the powerful Harte family. She is caught between her estranged parents, her new family, and new love. Meanwhile a dangerous enemy hovers in the background.

All is not well at Castle's Café. Since the fatal shooting, customers have been staying away, and now Nellie finds herself in debt to the sinister Terence Carter. But when a deadly attack strikes close to home, these troubles pale into insignificance. Meanwhile, Jimmy Castle's relationship with family friend Reenie Turner has deepened, and in the aftermath of the attack that could so easily have killed them, they decide to get married. But the return of an old friend threatens to expose a long-held secret, leaving the wedding teetering on the brink of disaster.

Emma Harte is now 80 years old and ready to hand over the reins of the vast business empire she has created. To her favourite grandchild, Paula McGill Fairley, Emma bequeaths her mighty retailing empire with these heartfelt words: ‘I charge you to hold my dream.’ A towering international success, this is the powerfully moving tale of one woman’s determination to ‘hold the dream’ which was entrusted to her, and in so doing find the happiness and passion which is her legacy.

Linnet O’Neill, great-granddaughter of Emma Harte, finds herself following in the footsteps of the original woman of substance as she battles to save the family business. She and Emma’s other great-granddaughters are tested to the limit as the final chapter in the extraordinary story of the Harte family draws to a dramatic close....

The gripping multimillion-copy best seller charting the rags to riches story of Emma Harte. In 1905 a young kitchen maid leaves Fairley Hall. Emma Harte is 16, single and pregnant. By 1968 she is one of the richest women in the world, ruler of a business empire stretching from Yorkshire to the glittering cities of America and the rugged vastness of Australia. But what is the price she has paid?

Charlie has a new helper on her bus, her free-spirited and loveable cousin Delilah, who’s paid a visit to the charming Cornish village of Porthgolow and is helping out on Charlie’s adorable cream tea bus. When the Director of a new TV series filming further along the coast tells Delilah that the bus would be the perfect addition to their onsite catering, she takes him a bit too literally. Charlie and Delilah find themselves caught up in the filming of a lavish period drama, and it isn’t long before Delilah finds herself drawn to the handsome male lead.

Louise has had to watch her husband, Andrew, start a new family in the four years since he left her. The ‘other woman’ is now his wife - but Louise isn’t ready to let Caz enjoy the life that was once hers or to let go of the man she still loves. As Louise starts to dig into Caz’s past, the two women’s pretence of civility starts to slip. But in trying to undermine each other, they discover more about the man they both married. And when Andrew is murdered at a family party, both women are found standing over the body. It’s always the wife. But which one?

Hannah Swan is looking forward to Christmas for the first time in years. Her new job as an eco-consultant is taking her - and her geeky colleague, Noah - to the beautiful Cornish village of Porthgolow for the first time. They’re are helping the Crystal Waters Hotel to ramp up its green credentials, though after a bumpy journey, Hannah can’t shake off the feeling that Porthgolow is strangely familiar. Never able to resist a mystery, her interest is piqued when the hotel’s staff and customers report odd noises and sightings, believing the hotel to be haunted.

Paula has had Robert's back since they got together as drama students. She gave up her dreams so he could make it; now he's one of the nation's most popular actors. But Paula's just discovered he's having an affair. Now, she's going to break his heart like he broke hers. It will be her greatest acting role ever. Revenge is sweet.... Isn't it?

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

It is 1951, and at number six Sycamore Street fifteen-year-old Edie Green is lonely. Living alone with her eccentric mother - who conducts seances for the local Ludthorpe community - she is desperate for something to shake her from her dull, isolated life. When the popular, pretty Lucy Theddle befriends Edie, she thinks all her troubles are over. But Lucy has a secret, one Edie is not certain she should keep. Then Lucy goes missing.

Set in Yorkshire, Hong Kong and America, this remarkable novel continues the story of an unorthodox and endlessly fascinating family. As the spirit of Emma Harte lives on in her granddaughter, Paula O’Neill, an engrossing drama is played out in the glamorous arena of the wealthy and privileged, underscored by a cutthroat world of jealousy and treachery. Paula must act with daring and courage to preserve her formidable grandmother’s glittering empire from unscrupulous enemies - so that Emma’s precious dream lives on for the next generation.

It is two years before the outbreak of World War 1, and the Oakley family are typical of their time. Andrew has been clerk at a City solicitors for twenty years. Alice, his wife, keeps the home fires burning. Their sons plan on becoming skilled apprentices. And Mabel, their daughter, says she would rather die than go into domestic service like her cousin. She is going to go to train as a secretary. Andrew Oakley little imagines, as he sets off for work one February morning, that their lives are about to change in the most dramatic and tragic fashion.

The legendary Emma Harte, heroine of A Woman of Substance, returns.... At the centre of this sweeping saga stands Paula O'Neill, beloved granddaughter of Emma and the guardian of her vast business empire. Paula believes that all that Emma left to the family is secure. However, beneath the surface sibling rivalry and discontent are beginning to flare.

Cynthia and Alex have always been like sisters. Living and working for years on Cynthia's mother's sprawling farm, they've raised their families together. It was the perfect life until the fateful night that Alex finds Hannah, one of Cynthia's eighteen-year-old twins, inexplicably murdered in her own home. Soon Alex's life is spiralling out of control as she questions everything she knows and everyone she trusted. And when local detective, Stefani Warner starts investigating Hannah's murder, one prime suspect quickly rises to the fore: Daniel, Alex's nineteen-year-old son.

As the Battle of Britain rages, the Castle family are standing their ground at the heart of the community, running Castle's Café. German guns shell Dover and danger lurks around every corner, but despite this, Lily Castle is excited to be starting her nursing career at last. Lily is enjoying her life. She's a good nurse, has a group of friends at the hospital and there is romance on the horizon. That is until her world comes crashing down around her. When she tries to help an injured prisoner of war at the hospital, she ends up implicated in a crime.

Two years ago, Ben Fenton went camping for the night with his brother Leo. When Ben woke up, he was covered in blood, and his brother had gone. Days later, Ben was facing a charge of murder. Ben's girlfriend Ana has always sworn he was innocent. And now, on the hottest day of a sweltering heat wave, a body has been unearthed in Ana's village. A body that might be connected to what really happened between Ben and Leo that fateful night.