Showing results by narrator "Clare Wille" in All Categories

The first chapter of a manuscript arrives on Publisher Marina’s desk. She assumes it’s just another novel by another aspiring writer. As the chapters arrive one by one, Marina is convinced they are about her past. There’s only one person who can know everything about the scandal, the trial, and the trauma that nearly broke her. This is one story that should never be told, and Marina is so desperate she will do anything to stop it getting out.

In the quiet world of rural English clergy, lives are full of challenges, conflicts, desires and expectations. George Eliot’s first published work of fiction (1857) comprises three separate stories and has the hallmarks of her famous later works–her gentle wit and clever satire, her psychological insight, and her keen observation of human nature and frailty. These are beautifully written and poignant tales, set in and around the fictional Midlands town of Milby.

December, 1925. A dark, smog-filled London doesn’t seem very Christmassy or exciting, but then Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, receives an urgent call from one of her oldest friends: Rufus, Earl of Cardigeon. Summoned to The Mermaid, an ancient hotel in Rye on the Sussex Coast, in the heart of smuggling country, Posie, together with her husband Richard, finds her friend in a real state. As the snow falls and Christmas lights go up, secrets are revealed, and Posie becomes involved in perhaps her most personal case so far.

Posie Parker has been called to her most baffling case yet. Amyas Lyle, London’s top young lawyer, has been found with his head in a box of poisoned saltwater. It’s the perfect murder. But who hated him enough to do such a thing? Following a trail of strange notes, all of which speak of the sea and saltwater, Posie travels from London to the seaside resort of Whitley Bay, looking for answers. But nothing can prepare her for what she finds there.

First appearing in 1782, Dangerous Liaisons is one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The plot unfolds through a series of letters as the two main protagonists, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, attempt to bring about the seduction of a young woman. The epistolary nature of the novel gives a multi-faceted perspective of the action, which places the book firmly in the tradition of libertine literature.

In the bitter winter of 2009, following the death of their grandmother, Erica Calcott and her sister Beth return to Storton Manor, a grand and imposing Wiltshire house where they spent their summer holidays as children. When Erica begins to sort through her grandmother's belongings, she is flooded with memories of her childhood - and of her cousin, Henry, whose disappearance from the manor tore the family apart. Erica sets out to discover what happened to Henry.

Invited aboard the glamourous Night Train to Paris and tasked with investigating the disappearance of her best friend, Dolly Cardigeon, Posie Parker suddenly finds herself right in the middle of a murder!

Russia, 1854: the Crimean War grinds on, and as the bitter winter draws near, the battlefield hospitals fill with dying men. In defiance of Florence Nightingale, Rosa Barr - young, headstrong and beautiful - travels to Balaklava, determined to save as many of the wounded as she can.

Posie Parker, London’s premier female Private Detective, is only just back in town when she receives an unexpected visitor. The mysterious magician, Count Olli Onneri, pupil of the legendary American magician Harry Houdini, invites Posie to take part in the opening night of his show at the nearby Holborn Empire. She will be helping him with a "magic mirror" trick, the like of which has never been seen before.

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than 30 years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society’s finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world, but beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in a class-obsessed and male-dominated world. And - as Susannah Stapleton reveals - she was a most unreliable witness to her own life. Who was Maud? And what was the reality of being a female private detective in the Golden Age of Crime?

The date is Saturday 6th December, 1924. It’s snowing heavily outside, but in the little white Swiss Church in London, packed to the rafters with beautifully-dressed guests, everything is just right. All going to plan. Or is it? Where is the normal vicar? Who has changed all the flowers? And where the blazes is Posie’s beloved groom? Don’t miss this short story. Goes perfectly with a glass of something sparkling!

Two 19th century stage illusionists, the aristocratic Rupert Angier and the working-class Alfred Borden, engage in a bitter and deadly feud; the effects are still being felt by their respective families a hundred years later.

Katy Pope was 17 when she was brutally murdered on a family holiday in Majorca. Despite her mother’s high rank in the Met and the joint major investigation between the British and Spanish police, Katy’s killer was never caught. Ten years later, Katy’s family return to the Spanish island to launch a fresh appeal for information, taking with them the now skeletal team of investigating Met detectives and newly seconded Maggie as the family liaison officer.

The Serpent of Division features murder and mystery, a charming pirate, Oxford colleges and libraries, a buxom bookseller reminiscent of the Wife of Bath and a Persian physician with a fondness for Rumi. All have a part to play, as the granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer fights for survival against her ruthless neighbour Sir Robert Harcourt and the machinations of Elizabeth Wydeville, descendant of the serpent fairy Melusine and queen of Edward IV. It is set during the politically rocky final years of the Wars of the Roses.

From sickly child to pioneering Victorian explorer, Isabella Bird defied convention. After back surgery in 1850 and the recommendation of life in the open air, she finally looked her malaise and her pain in the eye and set off across the world completely alone. In Colorado she covered 800 miles on horseback, climbing mountains, wrangling cattle, sleeping in snow and finding herself drawn to a violent, one-eyed outlaw with a soft spot for poetry, known as ‘Mountain Jim’.

As a family liaison offer, DC Maggie Neville has seen parents crumble under the weight of their child’s death. Imogen Tyler is no different. Her son’s fall was witnessed by the school caretaker, and another pupil is under suspicion/being questioned, but Imogen is paralysed by questions. Why was he at the school so early? Why was he with a girl who wasn’t a friend?

They were identical in every way. Until the unthinkable tore them apart. Isolte and Viola are twins. Inseparable as children, they've grown into very different adults: Isolte, a successful features writer for a fashion magazine with a photographer boyfriend and a flat in London, and Viola, desperately unhappy and struggling with a lifelong eating disorder. What happened all those years ago to set the twins on such different paths to adulthood? As both women start to unravel the escalating tragedies of a half-remembered summer, terrifying secrets from the past come rushing back - and threaten to overwhelm their adult lives....

Alentejo Blue is the story of the Portuguese village of Mamarrosa told through the lives of those who live there and those who are passing through: men and women, children and old people, locals, tourists, and expatriates. An old man reflects on his long and troubled life in this beautiful and seemingly tranquil setting, and anticipates the return of Marco Afonso Rodrigues, the prodigal son of the village and a symbol of this now fast-changing world.

When Margaret Hale moves with her father from the comfort of the south of England to the industrial north, she is at first repulsed by what she sees; and then when she discovers the conditions under which the workers are forced to live, she is outraged. But this throws her into direct conflict with the powerful young mill-owner, John Thornton. Using personal passions to explore deep social divisions, North and South is a great romance and one of Elizabeth Gaskell's finest works.

The award-winning Music & Silence is one of Tremain's most popular works. Set in the court of ChristianÿIV of Denmark during the 17th century, it is a beautiful and enduring tale of love, intrigue and betrayal. Part history, part imagination, Music & Silence lyrically evokes the rich tapestry of court life.