Showing results by narrator "Kim Hicks" in All Categories

STILL REMEMBER THE YANKS, ALMOST MORE THAN I DO THE WAR’ A Suffolk woman.It was August 1943 – and the inhabitants of King’s Thorpe had lived with the idea of invasion for some time – but by the Germans, not the Americans. The village had never seen anything like them before – certainly they were different with their wealth, their glamour, and their louche but romantic uniforms

Delphine Venner is an old woman now, but she remembers everything. She remembers what it is to be a child of war, fighting for her life, and what the terrifying creatures from another world took from her all those years ago. And in that other world, beast-filled and brutal, someone waits for her. Hagar, a centuries-old assassin, daily paying a terrible price for her unending youth, is planning one final death: that of her abhorrent master, the Grand-Duc. The death that will cost her everything.

In 1940, as the shadows are lengthening over Europe, painter Louis Duval decides to leave his studio in Brittany and, in his small motor boat, make the short but perilous journey to England. His aim is not to flee from the enemy, but to join the Resistance to fight for his beloved France

Four short murder mysteries, three featuring Detective Sergeant Christina Kenton, set in the Cambridgeshire countryside... In "Kill Me Tomorrow", a serial murderer is killing according to the position of the numbers on a clock face. The police think they can mark on the map the place where the fifth murder will occur: In Christina Kenton's own village of Foxfield.

Hannah is a hotel worker, who struggles with depression after a trauma in her childhood and a toxic ex-boyfriend. Callum is a student, questioning his own sanity since a strange young man appeared on the other side of his mirror. When Hannah disappears, her brother Callum determines to find her. His journey leads him to Epping Forest and a mysterious waterfall. But Hannah has fallen through a portal to another world.

Sunny's mundane country life is changed overnight when handsome, stylish Gray's Bentley breaks down outside her parents' cottage in Rushington. It seems that he may have fallen in love with her. Sunny herself remains unconvinced.

Mark is scared of the dark, but when he thinks his Great Gran is in trouble, nothing is going to stop him from coming to her rescue. Young Angela is obsessed with Jimmy Jelly, her favourite TV personality, though the rest of the family can't stand him - that is, until he comes to open a shop in the local shopping mall!

Twistleton is a village untouched by time. Daisy, Jean, Freddie and their friends Aurelia and Laura are devoted to the place, so that when war breaks out Twistleton becomes the embodiment of everything for which they are fighting. For the previous generation the new conflict causes private despair, increased when Twistleton is requisitioned by the Army. Turfed out of their houses, the villagers take refuge at the Hall.

Legendary stage and movie star Sir Nigel Bellingham arrives on Cape Cod to star in a stage production of The Hound of the Baskervilles put on by the West London Theater Festival. When Sir Nigel, some of the cast, and the director visit the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop at 222 Baker Street, Gemma Doyle realizes that Sir Nigel is not at all suited to the role. He's long past his prime and an old drunk to boot. The cast is not happy, but the show must go on. Before the play opens, Jayne's mother arranges a fundraising afternoon tea to be catered by Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room. The tea is a huge success, but, when it's time to leave, Sir Nigel has gone missing - only to be found at the bottom of the rocky cliff, dead. When the police focus their attention on Jayne's mother despite numerous other suspects, the game is once again afoot, and it's up to Gemma and Jayne to clear Jayne's mother's name.

When Juliet Porter’s mother dies, she leaves Juliet some old letters and a photograph which shatter all her previously-held beliefs. They show that her real father was an American bomber pilot in the second world war, some 40 years before, and that he had met her mother while serving in England. Armed only with this photo, Juliet sets out to trace her real father, and eventually finds the airfield where he served.

Scarlet House, now a historical re-enactment museum, is the oldest building in West London, Massachusetts. When things start moving around on their own, board members suggest that Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium, might be able to get to the bottom of it.

In May 1943, a young, pregnant Frenchwoman called Lucie Aubrac engineered the escape of her husband Raymond from the clutches of Klaus Barbie, the feared Gestapo chief. She later ambushed the prison vans in which members of the Resistance were being driven to an almost certain death. Spirited out of France by the RAF at the end of 1943, nine months pregnant, she arrived in London a heroine. In 1983, when both Aubracs had retired, Klaus Barbie was put on trial in France.

There's consternation among the villagers of Prior's Ford when a firm is interested in re-opening an old granite quarry. It'll be disruptive, noisy and dusty, despite bringing in some new jobs. Publican Glen organises a protest group - but when a local newspaper takes an interest in him and the story, he begins to feel nervous. And when Jenny Forsyth attends a protest meeting, she is shocked to discover the quarry surveyor is an unwelcome face from her past.

The 6th of January is Sherlock Holmes’s birthday, and lucky for Gemma Doyle, January is also the slowest time of the year at both the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. It’s a good time for Gemma and her friends to travel to England for a Holmes Convention. For Gemma, the trip provides an opportunity to visit her parents. Jayne Wilson is excited about seeing all the sites London has to offer, and Ryan Ashburton just wants to spend some time with Gemma. But the trip is immediately derailed when Gemma’s father Henry recognizes his brother-in-law.

When Kitty is invited to stay with her friend Partita at Bauders Castle, her mother sees it as an undreamed-of opportunity for her daughter to escape from the dark presence of her notorious father.

Who is about to disturb the peace in Prior's Ford? Actress Meredith Whitelaw, axed from a popular television soap, has descended upon Prior's Ford to 'rest' - but instead she creates havoc for the local dramatic society. Clarissa Ramsay, travelling the world, keeps in contact with her friend Alastair Marshall, who finds himself missing her more with each letter that arrives.

You wouldn’t be ‘barking mad’ if, when asked the definition of certain phrases, ‘the cat got your tongue’ and you ‘clammed up’. Let’s not ‘beat around the bush’; the English language is littered with linguistic quirks that, on closer examination, seem utterly fantastical. In Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas, Judy Parkinson explores the many colourful – but rather incomprehensible – phrases that enhance our language, describing their origins and defining their true meanings.

As the top model for the Ivano King fashion house and girlfriend of the label's founder, Ian King, Kirsty was destined for stardom. But when she is found dead in her flat, D.I. Angela Costello is called to the scene. D.I. Costello's investigation leads her to the local gym, and as she delves deeper, she discovers a seedy underworld of theft, addiction, and prostitution lurking behind the glamorous façade of the fashion world.

Beneath the blooms of Chelsea Flower Show, danger lurks behind every petal... When a suspicious death occurs at the high-profile book launch party of Welsh TV chef Griff Madoc, DI Angela Costello finds herself entangled in yet another tantalizing web of intrigue. With cyanide-laced champagne and a long list of suspects, DI Costello and her team must unravel the truth behind the deadly incident before it's lights out for another victim...

Something wicked has happened on court eighteen... When a double grand slam winner is found dead, newly promoted Detective Inspector Angela Costello finds herself uncovering a trail through the complicated life of the beloved victim. While she has no way of proving her many suspicions, she gets closer to the truth when a prime suspect overlooks a vital detail... A classic murder mystery in the Christie tradition, Game, Set and Murder is ideal for fans of that genre, tennis lovers, and anyone seeking a light but satisfying read.