Showing results by narrator "Helen McAlpine" in Genre Fiction

Their rise was meteoric. Only a few years before, they had been three friends from Glasgow, trying to survive in a world of danger and dysfunction. Suddenly they were thrust on to the world’s biggest stage, accepting an Oscar in front of the watching world. That night was the beginning of their careers. But it was the end of their friendships. For two decades they didn’t speak, driven apart by a horrific secret. Until now... Their past is coming back to bite them, and they have to decide whether to run, hide, or fight.

Nothing has turned out quite how Rhona Beech thought: she's been swapping one so-so job for another on an annual basis...and now her nine-year relationship has ended abruptly. When her lukewarm efforts to adjust to the changes in her life are thrown entirely up in the air by some unwelcome news, Rhona has to think again.Her sardonic, funny, poignant attempts to find an answer to the questions she's facing are helped by a cast of friends, strangers and trained professionals..

Growing up in a convent in Glasgow, Ferelith Gallagher dreams of bigger and better things. With no money behind her and no family to speak of, she travels to Edinburgh to study to be a lawyer - a brave choice for a woman in the 1930s. And when she falls in love with a young fellow student, she thinks she's finally found a home. But after a brief and disastrous marriage, Ferelith swears she is through with love and buries herself in her studies, striving to become the first female senior advocate in Scottish history.

If someone took away your perfect life, how far would you go to get it back? Ellen's family is her world. So when her husband leaves her for another woman, she is almost destroyed. But not quite, because Ellen has a plan, a way to make those who have hurt her suffer. Leila is the other woman. She finally has everything she ever wanted. But Leila's brother has come back into her life, raking up a past that needs to stay buried. One of them will pay for their actions with their life, but which one?

The gripping new thriller from the author of What Goes Around and Do Me No Harm. Do you ever feel that prickle on the back of your neck, as though someone's watching you? Someone is watching Hannah. Her name is Ruby, and her job as CCTV operative means she can follow Hannah everywhere she goes. It's against the law, but Ruby is willing to do whatever is necessary to keep Hannah safe. And there's no harm in just watching. Until just watching isn't enough....

From the fields of Angus to the shores of Mexico, a family struggles to find their way home. To young Victoria Cameron, Angus, Scotland is the most beautiful place on earth, and she wishes nothing more than to stay on her little farm forever. But the death of her beloved grandfather leaves her and her mother without a farm and struggling to make ends meet. Never one to give up, Victoria soon finds work in a Dundee mill, while her mother supports them by taking in lodgers.

Set Me Free is the new bestseller from Daniela Sacerdoti, following up the huge successes of her first two novels, Watch Over Me and Take Me Home. In London, Margherita’s marriage has slowly been falling apart since her little Lewis’ birth, a surprise baby much wanted by her but not by her husband. To add to her problems, her adopted daughter, Lara, is going through a rough patch, and all of a sudden she’s gone from quiet and introverted to constantly angry.

Knotshead is a school catering for the children of the rich, famous, liberal - and deluded. With its progressive curriculum, complacent staff and beautiful grounds, it looks like paradise. But the clever, the odd and the bookish are relentlessly persecuted as pupils make their own rules in a bubble of privilege and prejudice.

Inary Monteith’s life is at a crossroads. After a stolen night with her close friend Alex, she's just broken his heart by telling him it was all a terrible mistake. Then she has to rush home from London to the Scottish Highlands when her little sister's illness suddenly worsens – and in returning she must confront the painful memories she has been trying so hard to escape. Back home, things become more complicated than she could ever have imagined.

Isla's brother, an ex-marine and private investigator, has just been found drowned in the River Clyde. The coroner declares it an accidental death. The police are happy to close the case. But Isla is convinced he was murdered. Determined to find out what really happened the night Dougie died and what he was doing in Glasgow, she starts looking into his unsolved cases. What she finds will put her in grave danger and force her to question everything she thought she knew about those closest to her....

Since the death of her mother, Kate Kennedy has been parent, helper and housekeeper to her large family. But life changes drastically as the young men leave the pits and head to the Great War. Desolate to watch brothers and friends march into danger, Kate must stay at home to hold her family together. Against all odds, Kate's baking skills create a path out of poverty. But as storm clouds gather over Europe again, the love, life and happiness she's fought so hard for may not survive - will she lose everything?

Scotland, 1912. Antonia McCulloch’s life hasn’t gone the way she planned. She and her husband, Malcolm, have drifted apart; her burgeoning art career came to nothing; and when she looks in the mirror, she sees disappointment. But at least she will always have Balmarra, her family’s grand Scottish estate, and its exquisite glass house, filled with exotic plants that can take her far away. When her estranged brother’s wife, Cicely Pick, arrives unannounced, with her young daughter and enough trunks to last the summer, Antonia is instantly suspicious.

The moment she arrived on the Isle of Skye, life changed for Thea. Running from a succession of wrong turns, she comes to the island in search of blue sea, endless skies, and mountains that make the heart soar. Here, she feels at peace.