Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End – but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally – their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.

Hard live. Hard Lessons. It's murder on the streets. When a prostitute's body is found lifeless, mutilated and brutally raped, DCI Annie Carr has never seen anything like it and never wants to again. Kate Burrows, retired DCI now consultant, has plenty of experience when it comes to murder - after all she caught the Grantley Ripper and broke the biggest pedophile ring in the South East. She is determined to help put the killer behind bars.

Mike Regan and Zara Ezra believe the so-called Governor is safely locked away - in Zara’s hangar. But less than 24 hours later, the Governor is loose and out there, wreaking havoc.

There’s a village an hour from London. It’s no different from many others today: one pub, one church, redbrick cottages, some public housing, and a few larger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs. This village belongs to the people who live in it, to the land and to the land’s past. It also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a mythical figure local schoolchildren used to draw as green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth, who awakens after a glorious nap.

Jack Warr is a young DC with the Metropolitan Police. Charming but aimless, Jack can't seem to find his place in the world - until he's drawn into an investigation that turns his life upside down. In the aftermath of a fire at a derelict cottage, a badly charred body is discovered, along with the burnt remnants of millions of stolen, untraceable bank notes - the hidden legacy of Dolly Rawlins and her gang of Widows. Jack's assignment to the case coincides with an investigation into his own past.

'I'm not working on a factory floor or digging for victory, but in my own small way I do what I can for those I love.' It's 1943, and Peggy Reilly is at her best when the troubles of war come knocking at the door of Beach View Boarding House - especially when it concerns her younger sister, Doreen. Doreen is divorced from Eddie, but his letters have taken on a more threatening tone of late.

For Ianthe, war is all too familiar. A former soldier in the Astra Militarum, she now serves Inquisitor Covenant as an agent of the Throne. Her first mission sees her investigating a cult called the Children of Eternity. Falling foul of the local Enforcers, Ianthe soon learns that war in the shadows is seldom straightforward and that the local, angry law-keepers are the least of her troubles.

‘A second’s silence and then an almighty scream. It was the most moving thing I had ever seen … A baby, a real live baby, another human life had entered the world. It didn’t seem possible and yet I had witnessed it with my very own eyes.’ Born into a happy working-class North London family in the mid-twentieth century, Katie is determined to ‘do something’ with her life. Working in the impoverished East End in the 1950s, she meets the Sisters of St John the Divine – a community of nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery.

Inquisitor Greyfax and a retinue of incorruptible Grey Knights are sent on a mission by the reborn Primarch Guilliman to recover the Eye of Night, a fabled artefact of Ruin that could weaken the Great Rift. It will be no easy task as Greyfax – with the aid of a long dead inquisitor – must journey into the Eye of Terror itself and challenge a traitor of a truly ancient pedigree, the crone Moriana.

Having spent her life watching her father run his East London firm, Zara Ezra has learnt a thing or two about being a gangster, and she’s ready to take over when the time comes. Mike Regan, a blast from Zara’s past, is the head of his own firm, but when his son is kidnapped in the middle of a gangland feud, Mike has no choice but to accept help from the Ezras to get his little boy back alive. With a rival firm playing increasingly dirty, murder moves to the top of the agenda and Zara has some big choices to make.

Nellie Murphy wants out of her family’s shadow–and an empire of her own. So when smooth-talking ex-con Radley Barratt offers her fast money and a chance to finally become someone, she takes it. But Radley isn’t what he seems. He’s married to Lisa, who runs a brothel and believes his promises of a fresh start. But he lied. . . He’s playing his own game–with Kenny Ruck and a ruthless crew of Russians. Then came the wildcard–a reckless woman with a score to settle.

When 73-year-old Jen announces that she is going to marry Eddie, a man she met just a few months previously on a beach on Boxing Day, her four best friends from aqua aerobics are flabbergasted. The wedding is booked and, when the groom decides to have a stag trip to Las Vegas, the ladies arrange a hen party to beat all others - a week in the city of love, Paris.

The year is 1915, and the war is raging on.... The war was not 'over by Christmas' after all, and as 1915 begins, the Hunters begin to settle into wartime life. Diana, the eldest Hunter daughter, sees her fiance off to the front but doesn't expect such coldness from her future mother-in-law. David's battalion is almost ready to be sent to the front, but how will Beattie's fragile peace of mind endure?

‘Oh my goodness - another girl, Mrs Swain!' Clara's normal iron composure broke, and she screamed, ‘No! That's not the bloody deal!' And that was how my nanna, Bertha Swain, entered the world. When Helen Batten's marriage breaks down, she starts on a journey of discovery into her family's past and the mysteries surrounding her enigmatic nanna's early life. What she unearths is a tale of five feisty redheads struggling to climb out of poverty and find love through two world wars.

The international bestseller that “grabs the reader by the throat" (Crime Time). First in the new series featuring Detective Inspector Helen Grace. Two people are abducted, imprisoned, and left with a gun. As hunger and thirst set in, only one walks away alive. It’s a game more twisted than...

A New York Times Notable Book and Best Thriller of 2024 A whip-smart and “fast-paced mystery” (The Daily Telegraph, London) from the internationally bestselling author of The Twyford Code and The Appeal about a true crime journalist who revives a long-buried case about a cult—and finds...

Carrie and Dottie raised Billy and Jesse Murphy to have each other's backs, no matter what. But on one fateful night, as Billy takes his girlfriend Willow on a date, his world takes a devastating turn. A few days later, after a shocking revelation, the bond between the two brothers is broken–maybe forever. At the same time, Cas Ferrier's life is set to nosedive for a completely different reason. A long-buried heist, thought forgotten, returns with a vengeance, unleashing a ruthless killer with a thirst for bloodshed.

An unassuming Dottie Ellis falls for bad boy Jimmy Carson, who sweeps her off her feet. But after discovering she is pregnant and learning that Jimmy has gone back to his ex-girlfriend Carrie Verne, her happiness falls apart. Heartbroken, Dottie runs home, only to unearth a disturbing family secret that rocks her to the core. She is now faced with an agonizing decision to protect her unborn child. What she does shocks the town. In a moment of solidarity, Carrie makes a promise to Dottie, cementing an unlikely bond between them.

An absolutely gripping new thriller from the No.1 bestselling Queen of Gangland Crime! Don’t get mad, get even… 1999, Essex. Sharon, Jolene, and Evie have one thing in common – they’ve all been burned by one of the Bonds. Sharon’s seeking retribution after her husband’s affair...

A gripping thriller that will shock you to the core. Controlled all her life by her religious mother, 15-year-old Kelly Raven commits the ultimate sin. She soon discovers that running away to the cold, frightening streets of London is less harsh than her previous life. A drug dealer, two fraudsters, and a prostitute are her new family now, and she becomes the woman she was destined to be. Little does she know that Eddie Raven is coming for her, but she is no sweet four-year-old child, and he is certainly no doting father.