Showing results by narrator "Clare Wille" in All Categories

March, 1925. Pregnant, bored, and longing for an adventure, Posie Parker accepts a rather last-minute wedding invitation from an old friend who is getting married out in the gorgeous town of San Gimignano, Tuscany. But what Posie - and her husband Richard Lovelace - arrive into is not a blissfully happy wedding party, at all. It’s a chaotic mix of mistrust, unfaithful fiancées, bizarre death threats, uninvited wedding guests, and a big dollop of very real unease.

When Posie Parker, London’s premier female Detective, accidentally runs into an old family acquaintance, she is persuaded to leave town immediately and return to the place of her childhood roots - the beautiful and bleak Norfolk coast - to investigate a closed-room murder mystery which local police believe has a foregone conclusion. But have the police got it right? Posie must race against the clock as the Murder Trial is scheduled to begin in just two days’ time.

A winter wedding. Venice, 1923. Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, is getting married. But on arrival in Venice, Posie finds she is walking into a nightmare. Her lodgings on the Grand Canal are consumed by fire, her famous fiancé is preoccupied, and most bizarrely of all, her hostess, the Countess Romagnoli, confesses she has a stalker and fears for her life.

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.

Sir Joshua Stiles wants nothing more than to fill the hole in his heart left by his wife's death, but it seems that women are more interested in his fortune than in himself. Cynical and ready to renounce all females, he is none too pleased when his sister invites her dear friend to visit for the Season.

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’.

French Riviera, winter 1992. On a freezing night, 19-year-old Vinca Rockwell runs away with her philosophy teacher with whom she's been having a secret affair. No one will ever see her again. French Riviera, spring 2017. Formerly inseparable, Fanny, Thomas and Maxime - Vinca's best friends - have not spoken in 25 years. But when they receive a notice from their old school detailing the plans for a new gymnasium and inviting them to a class reunion, they know they must go back one more time. Because there is a body buried in that building...and they're the ones who put it there.

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.

Advancements in data, technology, and AI, combined with the disruption of a global pandemic, have radically reorganized the world of marketing communications. From how people are consuming media and the techniques used to engage with them, to how we in marketing actually work together. As an industry, it is important that we try to get ahead of the change and stop just responding to it. To think longer term. To start building the future, today.

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?

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.

A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.

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.

Only after his regiment is recalled to the Continent to fight the horrific battle of Waterloo does Captain Geoffrey Mantell at last see the truth: that Miss Emily Chandry, the unfortunate daughter of the miser next door, is more than his childhood playfellow. He comes back to England after the war to claim her hand, but he is too late—Emily is lost to him, the wife of a stranger who does not seem to care for more than her social connections. Reeling from this turn of events, Geoffrey must try to move on. But Emily's situation will continue to haunt him.

The ruined manor promised her romance, but its master was maddeningly elusive. Prey to gothic sensibilities, Miss Lenora Breckinridge is smitten with the air of tragedy and romance surrounding an abandoned mansion. Convinced that she is fated to become its mistress, she sets out to find the master, secure in the belief that he will fall madly in love with her and they will use her fortune to restore the manor together.

When they were children, Erica Calcott and her sister, Beth, spent their summer holidays at Storton Manor. Now, following the death of their grandmother, they have returned to the grand, imposing house in Wiltshire, England. Unable to stem the tide of childhood memories that arise as she sorts through her grandmother's belongings, Erica thinks back to the summer her cousin Henry vanished mysteriously from the estate, an event that tore their family to pieces. It is time, she believes, to lay the past to rest.

What does the name "Agatha Christie" mean? To many people, it means a book about a murder mystery - a "whodunnit". "I'm reading an Agatha Christie," people say. "I'm not sure who the murderer is. I think it's…." But they are usually wrong, because it is not easy to guess the murderer's name before the end of the book. But who was Agatha Christie? What was she like? Was her life quiet and unexciting, or was it full of interest and adventure?Was there a mystery in her life, too?

Growing up, Viola and Issy clung to each other in the wake of their mother's eccentricity, as she dragged them from a commune to a tiny Welsh village. They thought the three of them would be together forever. But an innocent mistake one summer set them on drastically different paths. Now in their twenties, Issy is trying to hold together a life as a magazine art director, while Viola is slowly destroying herself, consumed with guilt over the events they unknowingly set into motion as children.

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.

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.