Showing results by narrator "Ruth Redman" in All Categories

Mary Tudor watches her elder brother become King of England and wonders what the future holds for her. Born into great privilege, Mary has beauty and intelligence beyond her years and is the most marriageable princess in Europe. Henry plans to use her marriage to build a powerful alliance against his enemies. Will she dare risk his anger by marrying for love? Meticulously researched and based on actual events, this 'sequel' follows Mary's story from book three of the Tudor Trilogy and is set during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Ireland, 1895. Polly Brady hopes to escape her oppressive past by accepting the position of governess at Colgrannagh, an old house in the Wicklow mountains. But when she learns her employer’s botanist husband died in unusual circumstances, she is drawn into a poisonous deception that threatens her future.

Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered. Granted shelter at the Villa delle Colombe, she seeks refuge in Francesca and Edoardo’s beautiful walled garden, hidden from the outside world, with an elaborate cypress maze at its heart. But Beatrice is not the only one seeking an escape here. Francesca has brought children to the safety of the house, as well as other adults, all of them seeking sanctuary on the estate with its mysterious maze.

When movie producer Cody Ziegler goes missing from The Homestead’s Millionaires’ Row, his wife, retired actress Olivia, immediately claims there’s foul play afoot. A million-dollar ransom demand soon follows, with clear instructions not to involve the cops. In desperation she enlists the help of Moira, Rick, Philip and Lizzie, aka the Retired Detectives Club. Racing against the clock, the four retirees set to work.

First published in 1910, this classic tale of three very different and socially distant families, whose lives intertwine through chance encounter, still has the power to move and entertain us. The passionate and artistic Schlegels, with their idealism and compassion find themselves inextricably linked with the pragmatic and capable Wilcox family, through a series of events which change the course of their lives forever.

Ireland, 1891. Happy at first to have given her husband the son he longed for, Rosalind Thornton begins to worry about his increasingly erratic spending and volatile moods. When his body turns up in the woods, her guilt remains in question for 130 years. 2019. Fiona Foley needs to put her husband's betrayal behind her. The disillusioned history teacher travels to the sweeping Wexford coast to assist an eccentric descendant of the Thornton family. Can Fiona figure out what really happened on the fateful night Rosalind disappeared forever?

Take a trip back to Jane Austen's world and the many places she lived as historian Lucy Worsley visits Austen's childhood home, her schools, her holiday accommodations, the houses - both grand and small - of the relations upon whom she was dependent, and the home she shared with her mother and sister towards the end of her life.

The brand-new Shimmering Sands retirement community is a beachfront paradise—until realtor Jessie Beckton plunges to her death from the penthouse suite she’s selling. When the cops rule out foul play, the Retired Detectives agree to step in. They’re certain Jessie was murdered—but how can they prove it when the apartment was locked from the inside?

It's high summer and, with the grisly events at Dorset's Sherborne Hall behind her, Astrid Swift sets sail for the Isle of Wight. She's been asked to value a collection of maritime art owned by a recently deceased millionaire. His surviving daughter has inherited the art along with the family's seafront mansion, The Needle's Eye, and wants to sell up. There are too many memories of her twin sister, a sailing prodigy who went missing at sea three years earlier.

When a local man is found murdered in an English Trust stately home, the community is shaken to its core. None more so than newcomer Astrid Swift, who finds the body. When she moved from London to the sleepy Dorset village and got a job at the house as an art restorer, she thought she was heading for a quieter life. Far from it. Because it turns out that rather than being the genteel organisation it seems on the surface, the Trust is a hotbed of politics and intrigue. As Astrid's new friend Kath from the village says: 'It's like the mafia, but with scones.'

It's the end of the summer season in the harbour town of Estepona. The holiday makers are heading home, leaving the British expats to reclaim their little corner of paradise. Among them is art restorer Astrid Swift's estranged father. She's sailed into town to reunite with him but has instead been tasked with catching an internet troll who's been threatening his wife online. Soon Astrid is entwined in the lives of these expats, from the boozy local heckler to the socially awkward beachcomber. And then she discovers a body in the bunker of the golf course.

In Regency England, marriage is everything. For young widow Sybella Lovatt, the time has come to find a suitable husband for her sister and ward Lucie. Male suitors are scarce near their Wiltshire estate, so the sisters resolve to head to London in time for the Season to begin. Once ensconced at the Mayfair home of Lady Godley, Lucie’s godmother, the whirl of balls, parties and promenades can begin. But the job of finding a husband is fraught with rules and tradition. Jostling for attention are two lords.

Attractive, wealthy, and influential, Katherine Willoughby is one of the most unusual ladies of the Tudor court. A favourite of King Henry VIII, Katherine knows all his six wives, his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and his son Edward, as well as being related by marriage to Lady Jane Grey. She marries Tudor knight, Sir Charles Brandon, and becomes Duchess of Suffolk at the age of 14. Her Spanish mother, Maria de Salinas, is Queen Catherine of Aragon’s lady in waiting, so it is a challenging time for them all when King Henry marries the enigmatic Anne Boleyn.

What causes a woman to murder her family? Jo's idyllic life would make most people jealous. Until one day her daughter is abducted, and the only way to find her is to unravel her dark past. Ellie is a devoted wife...until she discovers the pain of betrayal. Now vengeance is all she can think about. Party girl Shayla knows how to hide her demons. But when she's confronted with a life-shattering choice, it will cost her everything. June knows suffering intimately, though the smile she wears keeps it hidden. Soon, the lives of these four women intersect, and one of them is about to snap.

Newly escaped from a loathsome engagement of convenience, Charlotte has no interest in romance. More than ever, she is convinced that no man would—or could—love her. As companion to an aging aunt, Charlotte’s new life is as predictable as it is circumspect. But on Christmas Eve she is rescued from a robbery by her uncle’s heir, a masterful man who is disastrously handsome. Why has he remained as a guest in the house? Why is he so determined to draw Charlotte out and make her talk? It isn't as if he likes her!

Bess Throckmorton defies her notorious background and lack of education to become Queen Elizabeth’s Gentlewoman and trusted confidante. Forced to choose between loyalty and love, duty and desire, will she risk her queen’s anger by marrying adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh without permission? Entangled in a web of intrigue, from the glittering Palace of Whitehall to the cells of the Tower of London, Bess endures tragedy and injustice, becoming a resilient, determined woman, who takes nothing for granted.

In 1537, amidst England's religious turmoil, fifteen-year-old Anne Askew is forced to take her dead sister’s place in an arranged marriage. The witty, well-educated daughter of a Lincolnshire knight, Anne is determined to free herself from her abusive husband, harsh in-laws, and the cruel strictures of her married life. But this is the England of Henry VIII, where religion and politics are dangerously entangled.

It’s 1938, and hard-working Lily Baker’s life turns upside down when she and her family move to a new town. Two jobs leave little free time, yet she becomes involved in a struggle to improve her area. Pushed by the group leader, she undertakes tasks she previously thought impossible and meets the man of her dreams. Amidst homesickness, looming war, and an aggressive father, can she find the strength to win through?

While Gwyneth Kerrison lies in a coma, the victim of a hit-and-run, her husband Harvey spends every waking hour at her bedside praying for her swift recovery. That is until his daily routine at the hospital is disrupted by a stranger who claims to be Gwyneth's long-lost mother, Freya. She seems harmless, but there's something odd about her story. And as her behavior becomes increasingly threatening, a chilling truth stares Harvey in the face. The stranger at the door might not be who she claims to be.

Ireland, 2010. Gilly Townsend's beloved landscaping business doesn't survive the financial crash. Just when she thinks she'll have to move back home, a profitable project to restore an inspirational walled garden lands in her lap. But she never expected her wealthy boss from London to inspire her as well.