Showing results by narrator "Tamsin Kennard" in All Categories

I take a sip of coffee as I plan my day. My surgeon husband, Cole, slept at work last night, so I had to get the kids ready on my own, again. I can’t complain, though, I’ve loved him ever since we met, long before he became a famous surgeon and the papers started calling him the pride of the hospital. Our latest family photo hangs on the kitchen wall and I remember that day so clearly. Cole screamed at me over nothing, then apologised saying he was stressed at work. My heart pounded with fear, but I plastered a smile on my face for the sake of my children.

"Your daughter is dead." When Kat Cavanaugh hears the words every mother dreads, her perfect world shatters. She takes in the beautiful long blonde hair, torn yellow dress, and chipped blue nail-varnish. It can’t be real. And then the police add the word "suicide". But Kat refuses to believe them. Even when they show her the familiar looping handwriting and smudged ink on the note her little girl left behind. She knows her bubbly, vivacious daughter would never take her own life.

Two days ago, the Wilson family checked into the imposing, glass-fronted Lodge, surrounded by snow and perched perilously on the edge of a cliff looking out to a gray sea. Not everyone was looking forward to the family get-together. But mother-in-law Angela insisted the winter trip would help heal their rifts....

When city girl Shona moves with her partner Mikey and their baby to an idyllic cottage in rural Scotland, she believes that all that lies ahead for her family is happiness. But with Mikey working long hours away from home, the frightening isolation of the Scottish countryside begins to get to Shona. She feels lonely and trapped. That is, until she is rescued by a new friendship with the enchanting Valentina. Valentina enters Shona’s life like a whirlwind, bringing excitement and spontaneity to replace boredom and fear.

I thought my first husband died ten years ago. But now he’s back... Opening the front door, I’m stunned to see a familiar face. I never thought I’d see Freddie’s deep brown eyes and crooked smile again. But how is this possible when he died ten years ago…? It took years to move on, but finally my life is almost perfect.

My handsome husband Tom. You've given me everything our beautiful son and our perfect new seaside home. I want to trust you, but I know you haven't been honest about why you really wanted to move here. I haven't been honest with you either.

ME: Staring down at the sweet baby in my arms, I feel panic instead of love. Because this isn’t the child I gave birth to. My husband whispers to the midwife. They all think I’m going crazy. But the tiny boy in my arms is crying again. I’m certain: he knows I’m not his mummy. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get my son back.

In Clerkswell, the great and the good assemble for a Samhain party. In Manchester, mages prepare for the Warden Hustings. But on a tree in the Furness Peninsula hangs the body of a man. Someone thinks they have settled a score, but all they’ve done is start a feud. A storm is brewing, and Conrad has to stop it turning into all-out war. Fate has dealt him a difficult hand—another new partner, the implacable opposition of the Lakeland Mages, and having to shield the members of his non-magickal team. So Conrad does what he does best: grits his teeth and rides into the storm.

In the wake of my darling husband’s death, I am so lucky to have my three beautiful, grown-up daughters by my side at our holiday home in Scotland. We need some time together to recover from the shock. But I also need to set some things straight about their beloved father....

I’ve been on edge the whole time because 15 years ago when we were living in this city my husband Jack did something that ripped our lives apart. I swore I would never come back here, but Jack insisted. One afternoon, in the blur of a crowd, I lose sight of my son. I can’t find him anywhere. Frantic, I call my husband. But what he tells me next shakes me to the core....

Wife: I couldn’t be prouder of my charming husband and quiet and kind son. I’ve poured everything into my little family, so I choose to ignore my husband’s late-night phone calls and wandering eye. I won’t let anything ruin my perfect life…

Ten years ago, a boy named Samuel Murray went missing from the quiet village of Buckthorpe and was never seen again. Rosie Sharpe cried over her missing friend for weeks after. But her little sister, Heather, knows that Rosie’s tears hide the truth. Because the night Samuel was last seen, Heather watched her older sister climbing back through the window of their childhood bedroom. Her jacket torn, her eyes wild, and her body trembling with fear. Heather never told anyone what she saw, but secrets can’t stay buried forever....

I am on my way home, thinking only of the quiet, happy evening to come, when I see something completely impossible, and my heart stops dead. I would recognise those gorgeous pale blue eyes anywhere. It’s him. The high-school boyfriend I adored… Until the day he vanished without a trace. I run towards him, my pulse racing. He turns, politely, a puzzled look on that familiar face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Do I know you?’ I need answers. I’m certain he’s lying. I just have to prove it.

Deborah Jenkins pulls her coat around her as she sets out on her short walk home in the pouring rain. But she never makes it home that night. And she is never seen again.

Four years later, an abandoned baby girl is found wrapped in dirty rags on a doorstep. An anonymous phone call urges the police to run a DNA test on the baby. But nobody is prepared for the results. The newborn belongs to Deborah. She’s still alive.

When a traveling carnival arrives in Hollowbeck, it promises magic and mayhem. It's also an opportunity for Morgan to find someone who can transform her brother, Ruiner, back into a human—he's a little tired of being a talking cat, and she's a little tired of cleaning his litter box. Things look promising until the curtains rise on rehearsal night to reveal Ruiner sitting on the lifeless body of the wizard who promised to help him.

What’s it like to live forever? Alicia is about to find out... Just because you don’t grow old, it doesn't mean you won’t die a violent death at the hands of your broodmates. Or the Queen who laid your egg. From the moment she hatches in the Derwent Sídhe, Alicia is fighting. For her life. To gain position. To become an adult. And then, the moment she drops her wings and emerges, the fun really starts.

Private investigator Matilda Wren's new client is a woman seeking evidence to divorce her husband. She is also the former fiancée of her last client—and dear friend—Lord Ravenhurst. Though he has enthusiastically offered to aid Tilda with future investigations, she can't very well accept his help in this matter. Especially when her client's husband is murdered, and Ravenhurst is a suspect.

Widowed Georgina Drake has no regrets about moving to beautiful, sleepy Little Wenborough in rural Norfolk. Until she opens the door to her rental property and finds the dead body of her latest guest, irritable university professor Roland Garnett. And on top of that she’s suddenly hearing a woman’s voice through her hearing aids. Completely shaken by the discovery, Georgina can hardly believe it when the police conclude that Professor Garnett was poisoned, with a dinner delivered by Georgina herself.

It’s the day I’ve been dreaming about my whole life. As I glide down the flower-strewn aisle overlooking the Greek orange groves, in my pearl-encrusted ivory gown, I finally see my fiancé Nik. We look like the perfect couple, but not all fairy tales have happy endings....

Find out what Conrad (and especially Vicky) get up to when they’re not cracking the big cases in this collection of novellas from Mark Hayden’s King’s Watch universe: Byways, the less travelled roads of magick.