Showing results by narrator "Rachael Beresford" in All Categories

It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in–she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this? Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret–and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.

Oliver Foxley is an acclaimed movie star. But under the glare of the spotlight his 'perfect' life - and marriage - is starting to crumble. Cara Penhaligon is a struggling young Cornish artist and widowed mother of two children. Life has been harsh to Cara, but meeting Oliver might just give her a second chance at the happiness she deserves. As each begins to heal the other, the pieces of Oliver's frustrating jigsaw puzzle effortlessly fall into place. But as the Cornish summer draws to a close, Oliver faces the toughest of choices, and no one emerges quite as they were at the start.

Edgar Award winner Otto Penzler returns with a new anthology of exhilarating mysteries, assembling Victorian society's lords and ladies and most miserable miscreants. Behind the velvet curtains of horse-drawn carriages and amid the soft glow of the gaslights are the detectives and bobbies sniffing out the safecrackers and petty purloiners who plague everything from the soot-covered side streets of London to the opulent manors of the countryside. Brush off your dinner jackets and straighten out your ball gowns for these exciting, glitzy mysteries.

Violet never wanted to move to Perfect. Who wants to live in a town where everyone has to wear glasses to stop them going blind? And who wants to be tidy and perfectly behaved all the time? Violet quickly discovers there's something weird going on - her mam is acting strange, and her dad has disappeared. When she meets Boy she realises that her dad is not the only person to have vanished...and that the mysterious Watchers are guarding a creepy secret!

Miss Alice Bursnell is determined to wreak revenge on Nathaniel Eastwood, Viscount Abingdon, for the seduction, ruin, and death of her beloved twin sister. But how to expose a seducer without falling prey herself? As she gets closer to Nathaniel, she finds she is in serious danger of following in her sister's much-too-tempted footsteps.

Griff Knighton's found the perfect way to avoid being trapped into marriage with one of the Earl of Swanlea's daughters: He'll swap identities with his man of affairs during their next visit to Swan Park, and be free to pursue his own desires! After all, he's not about to marry some homely spinster just to claim his rightful title. But Griff didn't reckon on the brazen, voluptuous Rosalind, who could tempt even a saint into sinning, and Griff is no saint.

After years of escaping etiquette lessons in favor of the stables, Christine Devon's grand debut in London is only weeks away, though her deportment lacks the sophisticated polish she needs to achieve her goals of a lofty marriage. Desperate to take her place in society, she needs someone to instruct her in proper behavior. Thomas Gilbert, newly returned from Italy, is ready to begin his dream of founding a horse farm. But during his time away, the estate's finances have dwindled to almost nothing. A chance meeting between them may solve both their problems.

Teenager Edie Hudson was nobody’s little darling, which made vanishing all too easy. Two decades later, she’s been forgotten by everyone except her mother, Samantha. And the person who knows what happened to her. Samantha has had a long time to remember, and to regret. Having seen how little her daughter mattered to the community in the months following her disappearance, she wonders if Edie was lost before she was even gone. Or was it guilt, not indifference, that made the locals turn a blind eye? When she meets Frances, she at last starts to hope for answers.

In this captivating new Regency trilogy, best-selling author Ella Quinn picks up where her beloved Worthingtons series left off, as three Lords of London discover true love at last...Handsome, rakish, incorrigibly flirtatious - Fredrick, Lord Littleton, is notorious. Lady Adeline Wivenly is resolved to keep him at arm's length during her first season - until she overhears another woman's plot to trick him into marriage. Even a rogue is undeserving of such deception, and Adeline feels obliged to warn him - only to find herself perilously attracted...

I've known him my entire life. Before marriage. Before fatherhood. Before betrayal. Now, he's one of rock's bad boys trying to be good. Trying to be the best father he can for his daughter. He's my brother's best friend. He's my boss. He has a wife. Max isn't mine to have, but I want him all the same. And I haven't survived all that I have to not go after what I want.

She was the mother of Henry VIII and wife of Henry VII, but who was Elizabeth of York? Raised as the precious eldest child of Edward IV, Elizabeth had every reason to expect a bright future until Edward died, and her life fell apart. When Elizabeth's uncle became Richard III, she was forced to choose sides. Should she trust her father's brother and most loyal supporter or honor the betrothal that her mother has made for her to her family's enemy, Henry Tudor? The choice was made for her on the field at Bosworth.

Sasha Adams has it all. Fulfilling career, loving family, great friends, and . . . Who's she kidding? She lives at home with her aging mother, Fleur. She works as a massage therapist, and spends all her time with her best friend, Bobbi. But damn it, she's happy. Well, okay, maybe not happy, but she's content. It's enough. Until the well-meaning but meddlesome women in her life, Fleur and Bobbi, team up and enter Sasha into a writing competition with the potential to change her life.

Yorkshire anatomy lecturer Ruby Clark considers her life low-maintenance. She teaches at the local university, has two well-behaved teenage daughters, and what she doesn't know about human anatomy isn't worth knowing. Being a paramedic doesn't do Melissa Jackson's joints any favors, so she's looking into university courses to try a less strenuous line of her work. But the brash, proudly out, down-to-earth woman's biggest challenge is keeping her dyslexia a secret. A university open day throws the two women into each other's orbits.

Alex Scarston, Earl of Selbourne. With his efforts for England in the war against the French suspended, family obligations compel him to investigate the disappearance of Viscount Brigham's son. When the viscount's daughter becomes involved as well, Alex finds himself entangled in a venture that risks both heart and soul. It's not that Lucia Dashing, youngest daughter of Lord Brigham, wants Alex to go away. She just wishes he wasn't always so close. But when her brother disappears, she's no choice but to engage the earl in a battle risking her brother, her country, and her love.

Arabella Caulfield, one of three orphaned sisters, has clung to an ancient gypsy prophecy as the only way to save her family from endless heartbreak. Now she has 12 days to reach a remote French castle and fulfill her destiny: to marry a prince. Along the way, Arabella meets Lucien Westfall, decorated naval captain and the new Duke of Lycombe. She thought he was a pirate. He thought she was a governess. Two wrongs have never made such a scandalously perfect right.

Mary Anning was only 12 years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton - of an ichthyosaur - while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct.

Kids often suffer unknowingly from the consequences of sleep problems because their issue is frequently missed or dismissed, by both health professionals and parents. Sleep disorders are a major public health issue that can kick start a lifetime pattern of health, behavior, and learning problems. From ages four-ten, at least 25 percent of kids have sleep problems. Sleep Wrecked Kids guides parents towards good sleep as the norm, allowing themselves and their children to grow and thrive.

Charlotte Mullins brings art to life through the stories of those who created it and, importantly, reframes who is included in the narrative to create a more diverse and exciting landscape of art. She shows how art can help us see the world differently and understand our place in it, how it helps us express ourselves, fuels our creativity, and contributes to our overall wellbeing and positive mental health.

He’s an unrepentant sinner, East End rogue, and devoted charmer of anything in petticoats. But Rafe Sutton has one small problem: he cannot seem to recall what happened between himself and one delectable, surly governess. He woke in her bed with the devil’s own headache and no memory of the evening before. Now, he’s on a mission to unravel the mystery, for the sake of his pride and for the honor he had not previously believed he possessed.

On a dark and stormy December night, my family are gathered at an isolated hotel in the English countryside. We're reuniting for the first time since the accident that shattered our lives ten years ago. It's a time for love and forgiveness. But more than one guest has an ulterior motive. As the clock strikes midnight, one member of our party is found dead at the foot of the grand marble staircase. Everyone is a suspect. But which one of us is a killer?