Showing results by publisher "Soundings" in All Categories

A few days before Christmas Tess Williams rushes into Albert Payne's tobacconist shop, with two boys in hot pursuit, saying she's a thief. Albert chases the boys away, and though Tess does not realise it, this incident changes her life. Tess lives with her grandmother, Edie, in a small flat on Heyworth Street. She has recently returned from Bell Farm, where she was evacuated during the war. When the handsome Snowy White comes to her rescue she thinks her troubles are over, and returns to Bell Farm for a working holiday.

It’s Christmas, and James and Beth are preparing for Harrington’s festive dinner and dance. This year, famous diva Olivia Dupre is singing; a wedding is taking place, and they’re hosting a reunion of PALs - ex-army comrades from the Great War. When Olivia falls ill and claims she’s been poisoned, James puts his sleuthing hat on. But things take a sinister turn when a further attack takes place.

Lord James Harrington and his wife, Beth, are taking a well-earned holiday with Stephen and Anne in Polpennarth, Cornwall, where the Cornish Legends festival is taking place. James learns that during the opening procession, a local fisherman vanished, and when further men disappear in broad daylight, he can't help but put his sleuthing hat on. The streets were crowded, yet no witnesses have come forward. If they were kidnapped, why is there no ransom demand? What are the flashing lights off the coastline? Have the Cornish Legends really come to life? James delves into the mystery, but his questions come at a price.

Anna is over the moon when her sweetheart returns from the front line. As he recovers from his injuries, they make plans to be married, but the horrors of the trenches cast a long shadow. Caring for shell-shocked soldiers brings untold challenges for Grace, and her parents have very different dreams for her future. Meanwhile Dulcie has her sights firmly set on her own happy ending. And yet sometimes we find love where we least expect to. Each of the nurses has her own battle to fight, but they must rally together if they’re to find true happiness.

Ada Hobbes has cleaned for Dr Tindall for many years and begins the morning like any other day. But the house is not empty after all. The blood-covered George Tindall is sprawled across the floor. Detective Inspector Harvey Marmion and Sergeant Joe Keedy arrive to a horrific scene. Someone enjoyed killing Tindall, without a doubt. Their investigation takes them out of London and on the trail of three different women as it emerges that Dr Tindall was not the respectable local GP after all, but a bigamist whose third wife had some very interesting connections in the crime fraternity.

1939. When the man Georgie has always loved is sent to France on a secret mission, every knock of the door fills her with dread. Beth is determined to do her bit for the war effort. Caught up in a whirlwind romance, she marries only to become a war widow. Desperately trying to make her way back from Paris to her family in England, a fateful and tragic encounter brings Hetty to Chateau de Faubourg, where she joins the resistance.

London, 1941. The East End Angels - Frankie, Bella and Winnie - are settled into life as ambulance crew members at LAAS Station 75. Frankie's grandfather is unwell, and she promised him she would always look after Ivy, her step-grandmother, but things between the two women are becoming strained. Winnie is making the difficult decisions on call-outs and begins to wonder how much more war and destruction she can take. Bella starts driving the ambulances and is growing closer to James while her love for writing is opening up new doors.

Living on the edge of the beautiful Norfolk Broads with her father, the only ripple in Tess Delamere's calm life is the disturbing dream about her dead mother which haunts her. She yearns to know more, but the arrival of a new stepmother heralds the end of Tess' hopes that her father might divulge the past. As she grows up, Tess slowly starts to put together the pieces herself. But the outbreak of war brings tragedy and upheaval, changing Tess' priorities....

The body of a smartly dressed businessman turns up in the yard of Eli Simpson's car workshop. But there's no ID in the pockets, and Eli swears he's never seen the man before. Then a girlfriend turns up with a name and claims the victim told her he was someone's 'right-hand man'. But old fractures and scars suggest a more colourful past.

For 'right-hand man', DCI Bill Slider and his team read 'enforcer'. So who was Mr King? Who was he the muscle for? What did he have to do with the Davy Lane project and the blackmailing of an MP? And, most crucially, what did he know that made someone decide to terminally muscle the muscle?

Imogen, Rita and Debby all missed the original evacuation and now the authorities are finding it difficult to place them. When Auntie and her niece, Jill, who run the Canary and Linnet Public House, offer to take them in, the billeting officer is greatly relieved. The countryside is heaven to the three little townies, especially after they meet Woody and Josh. They find that by climbing to the top of a tree they are able to watch the comings and goings of the young fighter pilots.

Thea Osborne, Cotswold house-sitter with an infamous reputation for getting mixed up in crime, is determined to avoid trouble this time. Her latest commission in the village of Daglingworth seems straightforward, with most of her time spent looking after an old corgi and a hibernating tortoise. Thea is ready for a relaxing if rather boring two weeks, with phone calls to new boyfriend Drew Slocombe the highlight of her days. Until, that is, a dead body is discovered in a nearby quarry....

Two days before an auction of the contents of High Gates House in Borrowdale, Christopher Henderson bumps into Jennifer Reade, the heir to the entire estate, and the expected recipient of the proceeds of the house clearance sale. She discovers a dead man in the cellar of the house but threatens and cajoles Christopher into remaining silent about it until after the auction to avoid complications and delays. The auction begins but is soon halted by the police with the news that a murder has been committed.

The year is 1652. General George Monck has been through an awful lot since he sat as a prisoner in the Tower of London eight years before. He had led his men admirably through campaigns in Ireland and Scotland, but still storm clouds surround his future. He had been away from his beloved Anne for many months and had come to London to find whether Ratsford was alive, and still proving to be an obstacle to their proposed marriage, or dead.

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.

Superintendent John Lambert finds that a round of golf is the perfect diversion, especially when he’s beating – and offering patronising tips to – his sergeant, Bert Hook. Hook isn’t having much fun, but when he tops a ball horribly, he comes across something far, far more horrible lying in a ditch. The dead young woman, it turns out, was not only a drug dealer, but she was also on the game.

One lousy Monday, Jenna loses her job, her boyfriend, and her home. She finds a job that feels like a holiday - cataloguing books for an elderly cousin, Kitty Everest, at her country mansion. Jenna soon gets involved in Kitty’s life and the lives of those around her: especially Kitty’s infuriating godson, Alexander Latham, and his icily disapproving fiancée. She is horrified to discover that Kitty may be forced to sell Holtby House.… But when she tries to help save it, an attempt is made on her life. Jenna finds herself at the heart of a baffling plot and a race to save Holtby, Kitty - and herself.

Lizzie is an orphan living with her aunt Annie, uncle Perce and two boy cousins within a stone's throw of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Lizzie loves her aunt but is hated by her uncle. She makes friends with Geoff Gardiner, another orphan, and is teaching him to swim in the Scaldy when Clem Gilligan rescues the pair of them from drowning. Clem works on the canal boat, The Liverpool Rose, with Jake Pridmore and his wife, plying between the great cities of Leeds and Liverpool. Lizzie's situation at home starts to worsen and eventually she is forced to flee. Her first instinct is to make for the canal, but finding Clem is not so easy....

Winifred Maxwell is found guilty of treason, and her brother William could be found guilty of the same charge for helping her escape from London. . . She has been persecuted throughout her life for her family's loyalty to the exiled Stuart dynasty. Winifred and her husband make it to Rome, to the exiled court of the James III, where Winifred becomes governess to the princes Charles and Henry. Meanwhile, her niece Mary is in Paris with her lover. Are Winifred's resolve and tenacity a match for her niece's imprudent behaviour?

Adam and Polly Fitch face a bleak future after being sold for just five shillings to Miss Reed's orphanage by their bullying father. But the orphanage does have one advantage - a merry band of children who soon form their own kind of family - and they're all determined to escape the clutches of the wicked Miss Reed. Can Adam, Polly and their band of friends survive life with only each other to rely on?

Who were the three men the Soviet and American superpowers exchanged on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge on February 10, 1962? Bridge of Spies is the true story of those men - Rudolf Abel, a Soviet Spy who was a master of disguise; Gary Powers, an American who was captured when his spy plane was shot down; and Frederic Pryor, a young American doctor mistakenly identified as a spy. They had been drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten.