Showing results by narrator "Dawn Murphy" in All Categories

Missing journalist Ellie Landy is found in the River Parrett by a news crew covering the worst floods the Somerset Levels have suffered in living memory. A paperback is found by the woman’s bed with a mysterious inscription mentioning 'Sandman' and a time of day. Police assume it is an accidental drowning. Kate disobeys orders from the top and probes the death, as she suspects this was no accident. When another woman dies in suspicious circumstances, Kate finds herself drawn ever deeper into a nightmare of murder, treachery and perversion.

What if... Dionysus appeared in an English village? Justinia Fitz Odo: musician, dreamer, and would-be-dutiful wife. A wild and wicked autumn wind howls off the Eyotshire fells, bringing a mysterious stranger to the ancient town of Unthrang where she lives; a stranger who intervenes in the lives of the inhabitants in the most unpredictable and shocking ways. Meanwhile in nearby Eyot, unholy machinations in the dignified precincts of the cathedral threaten to destroy centuries of musical tradition.

In this classically simple tale of the disastrous impact of outside life on a secluded community in Dorset, Hardy narrates the rivalry for the hand of Grace Melbury between a simple and loyal woodlander and an exotic and sophisticated outsider. Betrayal, adultery, disillusion, and moral compromise are all worked out in a setting evoked as both beautiful and treacherous.

Groom, best man, guests, even a bishop - but where is the bride? An orphan fresh out of convent school, Prue Pagan has no home and nowhere to go. Then a chance meeting with her worldly-wise friend Cleo lands her a summer job in the north of England at Mountjoy Castle, where generations of the Mountjoy family have loved, lusted, and scandalised their neighbours. Prue's innocence is no protection against the wickedness of the English upper classes.

An eccentric letter arrives at the police station from a man threatening to kill his aunts. Detective Kate and her colleagues don’t take it seriously. But an elderly woman is found strangled in her home. 'RIP Auntie' is written on the floor in red lipstick. Then another older woman is murdered. With a major police manhunt underway, it becomes clear that they are up against a very dangerous serial killer, who is engaged in some kind of personal vendetta. An adversary who will not stop until he has achieved what he set out to do.

Unwanted visitors come in all shapes and sizes, from three selfish brothers to a crusader from the past. Mimi Mountjoy's life is suddenly filled with problems. Her business as a purveyor of fountains is threatened and her husband Edmund, who desperately needs to finish his book on the Templars, is afflicted with writer's block. Then Mimi's mother decamps abroad to escape her three unmarried sons - who promptly descend on their sister in Eyot, with extremely disruptive results.

Judith Tarr returns to the always fascinating character of Alexander the Great in this fantasy novel that springs from the legend that the Queen of the Amazons came to meet him in Persia, and became his friend.

Struggling to overcome their marital problems, Alec and Peggy hoped their new life at Chamber cottage would be the retreat they both needed to recover. Both damaged by issues from their childhoods, they are trying to get on with their lives as best they can, but they can’t help feeling that they are being watched…. Peggy, already paranoid because of the terrible scars that mark her face, becomes even more agoraphobic and retreat further into the stone walls of the cottage, hoping it will keep her safe.

Told in emails, text messages, and essays, this unputdownable mystery follows a group of students in an art master’s program that goes dangerously awry, from the internationally bestselling “new queen of crime” (Electric Literature) Janice Hallett. Gela Nathaniel, head of Royal Hastings...