Showing results by narrator "Melanie Crawley" in All Categories

The Happy Hartes Bookshop has been a part of bookworm Florrie Appleton’s life as far back as she can remember. From the evocative smell of the books to working alongside her beloved Mr. H and his black Labrador, Gerty, there’s no wonder she calls it her happy place. Living in a town she loves with her family and group of close-knit friends around her, life is sweet. Until one dreadful Monday morning, when everything is turned upside down and things are changed forever. Devastated, Florrie finds herself thrown into an unexpected situation with handsome stranger Ed Harte.

Will her new home turn into a nightmare? As I stare out the window of my beautiful apartment, I hope that I’ve made the right decision to move back to the city that holds so many memories. I’ve chosen my home on the top-floor and in a quiet area because feeling safe and secure is important to me. But on my first day, I’m involved in a heart-stopping accident on the leafy-green street. A stranger comes to my rescue – if it wasn’t for his actions, I wouldn’t be alive. I’m shaken but grateful, so I invite him in. And that’s the moment that everything changes. I shouldn’t have trusted him.

As the last of my children leave home, I've persuaded my husband we should move house. Clearing out thirty-odd years of rubbish is overwhelming, but nothing prepares me for what I find in my attic. It's a hint at a hidden horror. Someone in my home has removed it. Which means someone I love thinks I know their secret. A secret so dark, I refuse to contemplate it. Until I am forced to. I need to find that box and take a better look. I need to protect myself because if I'm right… My life is in peril.

Michelle and Andy are thrilled to be fast-tracked into fostering and are quickly paired with 7-year-old Milo – whom they hope will complete their family, making a ‘pigeon pair’ with their older daughter, Grace. But Milo tears through their home like a raging tornado, destroying a beautiful interior – and their lives.

Diego and his siblings live in desperate poverty, but nobody seems to notice or care as they come close to starving, scouring food banks to survive. But he’s wrong–someone has noticed him. County Lines gang members can see his vulnerability. With an absent father, alcoholic mother and dependent young siblings, Diego is the perfect mark.

When 30-year-old Kate’s childhood sweetheart dumps her without a goodbye, she almost hits rock bottom. But she’s determined to have a fresh start and goes to Italy’s stunning capital city in search of healing. Hot sun, fresh coffee and white marble piazzas; here, Kate might be able to put herself back together. But when a glass (or three) more wine than is strictly necessary leads to questioning by a concerned policeman – a tall, Italian policeman, with wavy, black hair and cheekbones to die for – she knows she’s in trouble. 

One clandestine night… Two hidden heirs! Tabby must accept a convenient proposal. It’s the quickest way to secure her mother’s urgent medical care. Only, if she’s signing her life away, innocent Tabby wants control over who she’ll lose her virginity to. The moment she meets Aristide...

Named after the lager that christened her at birth, Stella's life is characterised instability and neglect. Her teenage mother abandons her in the first few weeks of her life, and left in the 'care' of her father, she ends up lying deserted in a house with no food, no water, no clothes and no warmth. She eventually lands in the care of foster carer Louise, who is determined to change her life for the better. 

As summer comes to the tranquil shores of Micklewick Bay, Maggie Marsay is on cloud nine. She can barely keep up with orders for her handmade teddy bears, turning her crafting hobby into a thriving business. And after trying for a baby for some time, she has joyful news to share with her devoted husband Bear who she lives with in an idyllic clifftop cottage alongside their cheeky Labrador.

Whatever Jenn Ashworth turns her hand to, I'm there to read it' BENJAMIN MYERS, author of The Offing 'With honesty, humour and determination, Ashworth's journey takes the reader from coast to coast in search of freedom' JESSICA ANDREWS, author of Milk Teeth 'A miracle of a book . . . One of our...

Helena has always prided herself on being a good mother, a constant for her daughters, Vanessa the responsible one, and Rachel—fragile and sensitive. But as her daughters navigate adulthood, a chilling question begins to fester: has her devotion been a delusion? Now, Rachel walks the city streets, lost to addiction, while Vanessa's endless nights at work leave her children vulnerable in Helena's care—proof of their fractured family.

Camila's Story is the 12th instalment in the popular Thrown Away Children series by Louise Allen.

Dark deeds in the Peak District refuse to stay buried... When a skeleton is unearthed at a building site in the village of Meresham, the police immediately link the case to a notorious missing persons investigation. Jayne Arnold was sixteen when she disappeared in the long, hot summer of 1976...

The next book in Louise Allen's Thrown Away Children series.

Parents Angelina and Ben exist in enviable luxury: not just wealth, success and a gorgeous home, but a loving relationship and beautiful twin babies to complete the perfect family. But having it all means that you have the most to lose. And when cracks begin to appear things fall apart at a shocking pace; and it's twins Max and Mia who suffer the most. Money isn't enough to paper over the problems in this extraordinary and heartbreaking story. It is a foster-caring experience like no other, and one which tests Louise's emotional strength to the core.

Ashley is a young single mum raising her daughter, Eden, and working hard to do the very best job she can - until one night she can't find a babysitter and makes the decision to leave Eden home alone for a couple of hours, asleep inside a wardrobe. It is an action that begins a terrible downward spiral for both of them. When Eden arrives at experienced foster carer Louise Allen's home, she has entered the care system because her mother is in prison. Eden is five years old and will not speak to any human.

While Jodey Whiting was stuck in hospital battling pneumonia over Christmas, a letter dropped on her doormat from the Department of Work and Pensions, asking her to attend an assessment. Despite her health problems, the powers-that-be callously halted benefit payments for the mum-of-nine. With no money coming in, Jodey killed herself, aged just 42. Another DWP letter pronouncing her "fit to work" was sent to her home three days after her tragic death. A Mother's Job is the story of how Jodey's mum Joy Dove, 67, took on the system—and won justice for her daughter.

Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret.

After my beautiful daughter Annabelle died in a tragic accident, I thought I would never recover. With my world in pieces, my husband Matthew did what he could to support me and our son, Noah. He hired a young woman, Reka, to help us at home, to be the mother for Noah that I couldn’t be. She cares for him like he’s her own.

Eve is clearing her father’s house when she finds an old cassette player and a box of tapes. Though grieving, she smiles at the spark of nostalgia. One tape is labelled ‘Eve’–in her mother, Angela’s, scrawled handwriting. She disappeared for good more than ten years ago. The tape whirrs. A voice crackles. ‘My name is Angela’. Tears fill Eve’s eyes at the familiar voice–at the thought her mother recorded this message just for her. But the next words make her heart pound.