Mostrando resultados por Editor "Soundings" en Ficción Literaria

Cambridge, 1583. About to graduate from Corpus Christi, the young Christopher Marlowe spends his days studying Virgil and Aristotle, and his nights carousing with old friends. But when one of them, Ralph Whittingside, is discovered lying dead in his King’s College room, mouth open in a silent scream, Marlowe refuses to accept the official verdict of suicide.

When Liz Upson reports that her husband, Matthew, has gone missing, he’s not exactly top priority for Detective Sergeant Bert Hook - he’s just one of thousands of missing persons reported each year. Anyway, Mrs Upson makes it clear that her husband may be missing, but he’s not missed. But when his body turns up with a bullet in the head in the Malvern Hills, Hook and his superintendent, John Lambert, have a formidable and complex case on their hands.

When Stella Simmons comes to the Devonshire village of Burracombe to start her teaching career, she is alone in the world. Orphaned as a child and brought up in a children's home, she was separated from her sister, Muriel, and has never been able to trace her. Stella is soon caught up in the life of the village, especially in the plans for celebrating the Festival of Britain. With the help of artist Luke Ferris, she tries to find Muriel. But Luke has his own troubles - notably the relationship he once had with Val Tozer, daughter of a local farmer.

With the death of Edward the Confessor, the crown of England is hanging in the balance. And in the north Harald Hardrada, the Norwegian Viking leader, is determined to take his chance of capturing the country. But newly-crowned King Harold Godwinson will not let that happen without a fight. Charismatic and the leader of a mighty army, he is determined to make Hadrada the last Viking in England. And so the bloodiest battle yet fought on English soil is about to begin. At stake is sovereignty, freedom and honour.

Deena Harrison was one of Leighford High School's “characters” - setting fire to the toilet block and throwing boys down stairs. But she had the voice of an angel and could act the skin off a rice pudding. The autumn she came down from Oxford, there was something of a crisis in the Drama department at Leighford High. Mrs Carmichael was in danger of losing her baby and the Little Shop of Horrors was in danger of closing down. So Deena comes back to help out.

It's the late 1950s and change is in the air. For the Napier family, up at the big house, the old ways are shifting. Hilary must discover if reaching out for a chance of happiness must mean breaking away from the life expected of her, while Patsy, their young housekeeper's help, is facing motherhood without her own family around her. Down the hill from the Napiers, villagers young and old are setting out on adventures.

With Beatlemania having finally reached the capital, it’s an exciting time to be in London. Especially for young photographer Kate O’Donnell, who left her native Liverpool six months previously to share a dilapidated flat with two girlfriends in trendy Notting Hill. When a prostitute is found murdered off the Portobello Road a West Indian immigrant is arrested, inflaming the district’s simmering racial tension to breaking point. The accused is Nelson Mackintosh, the father of one of Kate’s flatmate Tess’s pupils. Convinced of Nelson’s innocence, Kate determines to track down the real killer.

1935: Cal Jardine is a soldier of fortune. Forced to leave Hamburg, he is recruited by a secretive British committee to smuggle guns to Abyssinia. But first Jardine must procure the weapons from Romania. Taken to the Horn of Africa, the arms are then transported over a harsh landscape into the hands of the Ethiopian Army.

Having lost her mother at a young age, Maria Conti is close to her father, Leo, who owns an Italian restaurant, Leonardo’s. Secretly, however, she worries over Leo's drinking and gambling binges. Maria has no one to advise her as Leo's family is in Italy and her mother's family in Ireland rejected her when she married a foreigner. Then Leo is tragically killed. In the dark days that follow it emerges that he has left them deeply in debt. Maria has no choice but to turn to her estranged Irish family.

When King Edward II is informed that his wife, Queen Isabella, has defied him and remained in France with their son, he flies into a rage. It is Sir Baldwin de Furnshill and his friend Bailiff Simon Puttock who have broken the news to him and are now no longer in the king’s favour. They return to their homes in Devon, but they find that outlaws hold sway in the land. Sir Robert, a knight from the King’s household, has turned outlaw from his castle near Crediton. When a pair of clerics are found murdered, Baldwin and Simon are asked to investigate.

In the chaos aboard the sinking Titanic, Mair Parsons is separated from her infant daughter, Catherine, and her travelling companion and future mother-in-law, Ethel Jenkins. The disaster changes all their lives. During her repatriation to Britain, Mair has time to reassess her life and knows that before she can find happiness she must find the truth about her absent mother, even if it means leaving her beloved Wales and Catherine behind.

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1736. A foggy September evening. When a child is killed by an unknown horseman, musician sleuth Charles Patterson, the only witness close enough to see that the collision was no accident, vows to hunt down the rider. But there are distractions. Richard Nightingale, a fashionable “ladder-dancer”, arrives from London to cause havoc with the ladies.

When photographer Kate O’Donnell takes off for London from swinging Liverpool she has two things in mind: to make a career and to track down her brother, who made the same trip earlier and has disappeared. But a job turns out to be easier to find than Tom, who has left behind a dead flatmate and some very suspicious cops. When Harry Barnard of the vice squad catches up with Kate, Tom’s future looks grim.

Still reeling from a breakup, Cora Hendricks has given up on ever finding love. For herself, that is. To pass the time while working the Aer Lingus check-in desk at Heathrow, Cora begins to play cupid with high-flying singles. Using only her intuition, the internet, and glamorous flight attendant accomplice Nancy, row 27 becomes Cora's laboratory of love. Instead of being seated randomly, two unwitting passengers on each flight find themselves next to the person of their dreams - or not.

On a visit to the ruins of Madderstone Abbey, Penelope Lambe suffers a bad fall and before she slips into unconsciousness, manages to say, “I saw her… It was her”. Some take these words to mean that Penelope saw the Grey Nun, the ghost reputed to haunt the abbey, but Miss Dido Kent is unconvinced and is determined to find the real cause. Dido directs all her mental energy to solving the mystery and revisits the ruins looking for clues.

Something peculiar is going on at the Group Medical Practice in Taviscombe and old Dr MacDonald seems very uneasy. Sheila Malory can’t help but feel that it may have something to do with the unexpected arrival from London of a new GP, Dr Morrison, an arrogant, cold-mannered man, whose alleged misdiagnosis of a local patient has made him the focus of the village rumour mill.

Battered, bruised and washed up on the banks of a remote loch, the Lullaby Girl doesn't know who or where she is. She doesn't speak. She only sings a haunting Danish lullaby over and over again. When her shocking story hits the headlines, the Lullaby Girl is hot news. Everyone wants to know who she is. Strangers donate money for her care, and the media are breaking down the door to get to her.

Forbidden by her father to work on their farm, Celia Raines takes a job at the local printing works. When war comes, Celia hopes to achieve her ambition of being a farmer. But her boss has taken on sensitive work for the Ministry of Information and Celia is forced to stay. Romance blossoms between Celia and Matthew Dangerfield, an RAF friend of her brother, Edgar. Both men are engaged on bombing missions but Edgar is beginning to have doubts.

Although she believes nothing can come of it, ladies' maid Daisy March is eagerly awaiting the return on leave of naval lieutenant Jack Davenport, the brother of her mistress Georgina. She hopes that he will defy his family and declare his love. But before he can do so, she is accused of stealing and summarily dismissed. Daisy takes up nursing, but Georgina is also among the new recruits. When WWI breaks out, they are posted to Malta, where Daisy hopes to be reunited with Jack.

Castroux, France, 1939. In a bare farmhouse above the village, Oriane lives in desperate poverty. When the Germans invade, her simple world crumbles. Passions erupt, moral boundaries break down , and rebellion is soon in the air. Castroux, France, 2000. In an idyllic gîte overlooking the river, Claudia sunbathes on the terrace. She’s pregnant, trapped, and terrified of the future. She confides only in a reclusive neighbour, Oriane, and discovers that she too carried a shameful secret.