Showing results by narrator "Olivia Dowd" in All Categories

Julia has landed a fresh start—at a 'pan-European' restaurant. 'Imagine that,' says her mother. 'I'm imagining.' Nick is flirting with sobriety, and nobody else. Did you know: adults his age are now more likely to live with their parents than a romantic partner? Life should have started to take shape by now—but instead, we're trying on new versions of ourselves, swiping left and right, and searching for a convincing answer to that question: 'what do you do?'

Frances—you can call her Frankie—was not a happy baby. She was born amidst chaos, to two loving but unprepared parents. On a beach. In a storm. No wonder she’s always had a temper. And you know what did nothing to quell her anger? Dying dramatically in a freak natural disaster that wiped out her whole town. As a ghost, it’s not so easy for Frankie to hide her rage, especially when suspicious visitors to her ruined home seem to have a keen and ominous interest in her.

An old house, a secret heartbreak, a second chance at love. Lizzie Greene is about to lose everything when her husband suddenly dies and his debts come to light. To make ends meet she opens up her quirky old house to be used as a set for a film based on a bestselling romance novel. Her life and household are turned upside down when a whole cast of colourful characters enters her family's lives: from an enigmatic author, a handsome location scout, a brooding director, to a heart-throb leading man, never mind her now ex-mother-in-law camped out in her drive.

Marguerite Demers is 24 when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint-Sulpice, to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier, once one of the most powerful men in the village, and now dying alone in his large and secluded house, surrounded by rambling gardens. Manipulative and tyrannical, Jerome has scared away all his previous nurses.

Having access to natural, green spaces is vital to our physical and mental wellbeing. But, as urban development spreads, grey has become the new green. Already, concrete outweighs every tree, bush and shrub on Earth. Nature deprivation is a fast-growing epidemic, harming the health and happiness of hundreds of millions of people worldwide - especially vulnerable and marginalized groups. To combat this, Nature Is a Human Right, founded by Ellen Miles in 2020, is working to make access to green space a recognised right for all, not a privilege.

Pleo Tanza is a survivor. Her father was broken by tragedy, her twin sister is dead - chewed up and spat out by the corruption and injustice of Chatoyance - but she's going to make it, whatever it takes. She's going to get off this rock. But escape is for the rich or lucky. Pleo's framed for the murder of a rival student - the daughter of one of the colony's wealthy, squabbling clans - and goes on the run, setting off a chain of events that could destroy the fragile balance of the old colony forever.

1998. A 16-year-old girl is found dead on school property, dressed in white and posed on a swing. No known cause of death. Four girls know what happened. And until now they’ve kept their silence.

You never know what’s going on behind closed doors.... If you passed it on the street, you’d see an ordinary London townhouse. You might wonder about the people who live there, assume they’re just like you. But inside a family is trapped in a nightmare. In the kitchen, a man lies dead on the blood-soaked floor. Soon the police will come, and they’ll want answers. Perhaps they'll believe the family’s version of events - that this man is a murderer who deserved to die. But would that be the truth?

Fourteen-year-old Ava Bonney is unlike other children. She has an obsessive interest in the rate at which dead animals decompose. The motorway she lives by regularly offers up roadkill, and in the dead of night, Ava likes nothing more than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den and record her findings. One night, she stumbles across the body of her classmate Mickey Grant, and fearing that her secret ritual could be revealed, she makes an anonymous call to the police. When Detective Seth Delahaye is given the case, Ava won’t step back—not when teenagers are going missing.

You can trust me. But can I trust you? Olivia is the domestic goddess who has won millions of followers by sharing her picture-perfect life online. And now she's releasing her tell-all autobiography. For professional ghostwriter Nicky it's the biggest job of her career. But as she delves deeper into Olivia's life, cracks begin to appear in the glamorous façade. From the strained relationship with her handsome husband, to murky details of a tragic family death in her childhood, the truth belies Olivia's perfect public image.

Margot Sorrell didn't want to go home. She had spent all her adult life trying not to look behind. But a text from her sister Lucy brought her back to Somerset. 'I need you.' As Margot, Lucy and their eldest sister, Eve, reunite in the house they grew up in beside the river, the secrets they keep from each other and from themselves, refuse to stay hidden. A wedding brings them together but long-simmering resentments threaten to tear the family apart.

Three years ago, Nikki and Ethan Rhodes suffered a devastating loss when their four-year-old daughter Grace was tragically killed in a road accident. Ethan, a radio personality, escapes into work, leaving Nikki to care for their remaining child, Bella, who hasn't spoken since that day. Seeking a fresh start, the family moves into a revolutionary new house designed by renowned architect Catriona Fisher. The house features a state-of-the-art security system, along with every amenity you could dream of.

Feminism is... tackles more than 50 intriguing and relevant topics, such as 'Are all people equal?', 'Do boys and girls learn the same things?' and 'Can men be feminists?' Find out what equality for women really means, get a short history of feminism and take a look at the issues that affect women at work, in the home and around sex and identity.

Whether part of religious habit or just part of a daily routine, meditation can help slow today's frenzied pace and improve feelings of good health, peace and control. In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Meditation, Joan Budilovsky and Eve Adamson explain how easy it is to enjoy the benefits of meditation.

Mindfulness is consciously paying attention to your present experience with a receptive attitude, in order to perceive things more clearly. Mindfulness enables people to get more in touch with the truth of their lives and make more beneficial choices. When people cultivate mindfulness, they experience important physical and emotional benefits. 

Bettina and Bart have grown up as best friends, so surely they will end up together? After all, Bettina is young, rich, headstrong...and gay. Bart is young, rich, charismatic...and also, definitely, gay. Any doubts are dispelled by, in short order: that ghastly kiss; a torrid encounter for Bettina in the school boiler-rooms; and an eye-opening Parisian visit for Bart. Society will never stand for it. What else can they do but enter into a ‘lavender marriage’ and carry on indulging their true natures in secret?

Frances’ parents were not prepared for her birth: they had a blanket and an easel and some paint, but not anything useful, like a car or a phone. So it’s no wonder Frankie has always had a temper. She was born on a beach, in a storm. What Frances was not prepared for was dying in a freak natural disaster that wiped out her whole town. Waking up 100 years later, Frances finds a whole load of new things to be angry about. And that’s before the visitors start turning up, treating her home like it’s a tourist attraction. Which it is.

In CLEAVAGE Prime minister Eric Courteney, fresh from another scandal, realises he has his work cut out when the Labour offensive kicks off with the charismatic Vicky Tennyson and handsome Christian Eccles at the helm, both dead set on an end to Conservative rule. The desperate Tories resort to hiring maverick strategist Callum Gallagher to get them out of a fix. Gallagher's methods are unusual in the extreme and kept from his employers. As he and his data geeks travel deep into the data, sieving the red-hot web searches of the unsuspecting electorate, it becomes clear that sex sells.

Julia has landed a fresh start at an up-and-coming city restaurant. "Imagine that," says her mother. "I’m imagining." Her ex-boyfriend Nick is flirting with sobriety and nobody else. Did you know that adults his age are more likely to live with their parents than with a romantic partner? Life should have started to take shape by now—but instead we’re trying on new versions of ourselves, swiping left and right, searching for a good answer to the question "What do you do?"

When Dylan Coughlan impulsively rings into a radio competition she never expected to win. But now she's about to travel around the world. The catch? Her travel partner is a random contact from her phone. And of course it had to be Jack the Posho, the man she accidentally ghosted. The two couldn't be more different, and as the trip kicks off, Jack seems like he'd sooner fling himself into the sun than have a conversation with Dylan. But more is hinging on this trip than the chance to see the world.