Maggie Stokes

When wealthy divorcée, Catherine Laggat-Brown walks in, Agatha gets her first real case. Death threats, blackmail and physical attack soon follow, and once again Agatha is off scouring the countryside for clues and showing friends and enemies alike what Raisin Investigations can do.  Book 15 of series.

Stories and animals have long travelled the same routes. Through our heritage of charming, quirky and profound tales, you will find yourself re-acquainted with Britain's wondrous fauna. Find out how hedgehog ended up with spines and what makes him scuttle so fast, discover how pigs saved a prince from leprosy and why the wealthy lord was so intent on capturing the black fox. Sharon Jacksties' wonderful book combines traditional stories, little-known zoological facts and true anecdotes to create a treasure trove of stories for animal lovers of every kind.

When Maggie Kaye and Sam Dee join the Bishops Well archaeological dig, they are as surprised as everyone else to unearth a body that was buried there less than fifty years ago. It can't possibly be the remains of an ancient Celt.

Maggie, with her usual flair - and psychic intuition - is convinced that there is more to this discovery than meets the eye. And some Bishops residents seem to know a lot more about the case than they are willing to let on.

But nobody is as shocked as Maggie when a face from the past - a face she thought she'd never see again - appears in the village, and long-hidden secrets begin to surface.

With danger at her door, and Sam by her side, can Maggie uncover the truth before it's too late?

Some events in life will always be out of our control, whether it's a global crisis or a traumatic event at home - but Be Resilient shows that the power to cope is in our hands.

Discover how to develop the skill of mental resilience in this fascinating guide from award-winning author and teenage brain expert Nicola Morgan. From building a support network to building optimism, find positive, practical advice for preparing for, coping with and bouncing back from the toughest of times. Authoritative and backed by the latest science, this is a reassuring companion for teenagers everywhere.

Life is bleak for Rose Lucas, a spirited, intelligent girl, born into a large family in the slums of pre-war Birmingham. But her friendship with Diana, daughter of a vicar from middle-class Moseley, gives her hope. She learns to aspire to a different kind of existence, vowing never to become a child-bearing drudge like her mother. Life, however, never follows the way of dreams...

When Susan Goodman, herself a child in WWII, appealed for wartime stories from her peers the response was overwhelming. Nostalgic, funny, everyday or tragic - the responses produced a rich tapestry of life in WWII through the eyes of children.

When Joanie Littler moves back home to look after her mother, she quickly falls for their stylish neighbour Susan, who has an admirable lounge but never invites Joanie to her patio parties. Finding herself with just her cat Edith Piaf for company, our heroine invents a new lover. 'Freddy' will provide hilarious material for Joanie's proposed comedy act and her passport back into the world of couples.

Seren's great aunt Nelly hates being in a care home, especially around Christmas. When Seren learns that Nelly and the other residents can't enjoy the simple pleasure of browsing for gifts in the shops. So what if Seren brings the shops to them? Converting an ice cream van into a gift shop, Seren travels around Tinstone to help out the less mobile. On her journeys, she keeps bumping into a reluctant - and handsome - Father Christmas, who has been roped into helping out this festive season. But running her own business comes with risks and surprises that Seren's not sure she's able to tackle. Has she bitten off more than she can chew, or will her travelling Christmas shop provide some much-needed festive cheer for the residents of Tinstone?

Liza lives with her mother, Eve, in a secluded gatehouse, which she has never been allowed to leave. Intruders entered at their peril, only to mysteriously disappear. When the police arrive on their doorstep, Eve throws her daughter into the real world and Liza begins to see the logic behind her mother's gruesome crimes. Soon she must accept the possibility that she has inherited Eve's lust for murder...

Freddie Sullivan, having failed to persuade his cousin Julia to marry him, goes to Bath in desperate search of a rich wife so that he can pay off his debts. Clara Danforth, plain and wheelchair-bound, seems the ideal choice, and Freddie sets about wooing her with his good looks, flattery, and considerable charm. Clara is not deceived for a moment, but she encourages him anyway as for once she wants to possess something beautiful in her life.

This global feast of ancient tales features valiant women overcoming every kind of obstacle and danger to fulfil their destinies. Travel through Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and the Pacific. Shudder, cheer and laugh out loud as the heroines deal with trolls, faeries, dragons and ghosts; admire their knowledge, wit and cunning; marvel at shapeshifting and other manifestations of the supernatural.

A rich collection of fairy tales, beautifully illustrated throughout with Joe McClaren woodcuts, this book is stitched together like a series of Scheherazade stories. It is story-telling at its best, pitch perfect fairy tales of fearless women for readers everywhere.

When Sam Dee moves to the beautiful Wiltshire village of Bishops Well, he expects a quiet life of country walks and pub lunches. OK, so his new neighbour, Maggie Kaye, is a little peculiar, but she's very nice - and his old pal Richard Ruta lives just down the road. But when Richard throws one of his famous parties, things take a sinister turn. Sam, Maggie and the rest of the guests are dumbfounded when Richard falls down dead. A horrible tragedy - or a cunningly planned murder? With a village full of suspects - and plenty of dark secrets - just who exactly would want to bump off their host? Is there a connection to another mysterious death, nearly twenty years before? Armed with her local knowledge, Maggie - with Sam's reluctant but indispensable help - is soon on the case. But when the body count starts to rise, will sleepy Bishops Well ever be the same again?

Early Summer, 1907, and the sparkling new concert hall, The Alexandria, is about to open its doors for the first time in the seaside resort of Nethergate. Dorinda Alexander has recruited company members from the London stage to join her existing concert party and is looking forward to their first season as The Alexandrians.

But when one of the company is murdered, Dorinda’s past threatens to destroy her new life. The local police inspector is determined to find her guilty, and the murder seems an impossible task to solve, until an enigmatic Scotland Yard detective shows up…

Gina Claye's poems explore the emotions experienced by those who grieve. Bereavement can leave people feeling isolated. It takes courage to grieve and is an intensely person process. Sharing feelings through poetry brings some comfort knowing they are not alone with their painful and overwhelming emotions.

1938: Sixteen-year-old Kate Monroe is living in Birmingham, far away from her family in Ireland. Her parents have always doted on her siblings, Sally and James, leaving no time for her. Kate harbours a dark secret, a deep longing for her cousin. Feelings she must suppress in this deeply staunch Irish-Catholic community - even if they are reciprocated. Crazed by her infatuation, Kate is left with no option, other than to up-roots once more and seek out a new life, far away from the temptation of Tim Monroe. Will Kate find true love, or will distance make the heart grow fonder?

In her memoir, Mary Wood shares her amusing coming-of-age journey to overcome religious dogma in post-war London during the ever-changing 1950s and 1960s. She offers a witty glimpse into one woman's entertaining journey as she fights to hold onto her identity, discover her passions in life, and ultimately achieve her true destiny.

Katherine Mansfield is known for her tender humanity, her clarity, her wit and her courageous gaiety. Of this collection of stories, many are set in the author's native New Zealand, others in England and the French Riviera. All are revelations of the unspoken, half-understood emotions that make up everyday experience.

When pretty but avaricious Lee Montgomery disappears in the little seaside town of Taviscombe, her fiancé Charles Richardson enlists Mrs Malory’s help. The dauntless Mrs Malory soon suspects the worst. Little does she realize the terrible secrets her investigation will reveal …

1945. Finally, peace has been declared. Cathie hardly dares believe that Alex, the fiance she has not seen for nearly two years, is coming home. And, finally, life can begin again for Cathie and the orphaned baby in her care.

But the Alex who returns is not the kind, loving man Cathie remembers. He's cold, selfish, sometimes even frightening. So Cathie has a choice: stand by him, and try to contain his violent temper? Or hold her tiny baby close...and run from the man she has yearned for.

Home is Where the Heart Is is a heart-wrenchingly, poignant new saga from Freda Lightfoot, set in the aftermath of World War II.

From ancient times the ice dragon was a creature of legend and fear, for no man had ever tamed one. But Adara was not afraid. For Adara was a winter child, born during the worst freeze that anyone, even the Old Ones, could remember.

The ice dragon had always been in her life, glimpsed from afar as she played in the snow long after the other children had fled the cold. In her fourth year she touched it, and in her fifth year she rode upon its broad, chilled back.

Then, in her seventh year, on a calm summer day, fiery dragons from the North swooped down upon the peaceful farm that was Adara's home. And only a winter child - and the ice dragon who loved her - could save her world from utter destruction.

For Kit, the quiet Devon village she visits every year is the ideal getaway. But this summer, she arrives with a heart in turmoil: years have passed since Kit last saw Jake, but now he has written asking to meet again. For renowned actor Sir Mungo, his quiet home in the village provides the perfect retreat. As the summer unfolds, hidden truths are uncovered that will shatter the sleepy community. But those involved soon realize that the only way to move forward might be to confront the past . . .

Janet is determined to make something of herself, and wins a scholarship to go to grammar school. Struggling to fit in she befriends, Ruth, another lonely pupil whose Jewish family have suffered many hardships. But will their friendship survive when Janet falls for Ruth’s brother, Ben –marriage to a Catholic girl would go against everything his community hold dear. When the whole world seems stacked against her, can Janet hold onto her dreams?

Early in 1938, with the threat of WW2 little more than a shadow on the horizon, Rose Hammond marries Tom Benest, whom she hardly knows, and leaves London to go to live with Tom on his family’s farm in Jersey. There, she’s welcomed by his parents as she attempts to adjust to her new life, but meets with open hostility from Tom’s sister, Kathleen.

Less than two years later, the lives of the family are turned upside down when Jersey is cut loose from British protection. The Germans move in and seize control of the island, forcing the islanders into a perilous situation that will test their endurance and resourcefulness.

As the German Occupation tightens its grip on life on the island, Tom and Rose are torn apart in a situation of unimaginable heartbreak, which calls for the greatest of courage, and a powerful determination to survive.

Lonely and stagnating in a soulless job, thirty-seven-year-old Marin Ellis is in need of a new start - but she is not prepared for the one she is given, when, after her estranged father and his second wife die in a car accident, she is made guardian of her fifteen-year-old half-sister Rebecca.

The half-sisters are practically strangers, and their life in Hampshire is stilted and strange. At Rebecca's pleading they move to the picturesque village of Goswell on the Cumbrian coast, settling into the charming Bower House on the edge of church property. When a door to a walled garden captures Rebecca's interest, Marin becomes determined to open it and discover what is hidden beneath the brambles. She enlists the help of local gardener Joss Fowler, and together they begin to uncover the garden's surprising secrets.

In 1919, nineteen-year-old Eleanor Sanderson, daughter of Goswell's vicar, is grieving the loss of her beloved brother Walter, killed just days before the Armistice was signed. As winter passes into spring, her mood remains bleak despite her attempts to alleviate the emptiness she feels. When her father decides to hire someone to help Eleanor restore the once beloved, but now neglected, vicarage gardens, she is enchanted by the possibility of a new garden-and the gardener her father hires, Yorkshireman Jack Taylor. Jack understands the nature of Eleanor's grief more than anyone else seems to, and as they spend time together, a surprising-and unsuitable-friendship unfolds...

The Lost Garden is a luminous novel about tragic secrets, the chance for forgiveness, and the healing that can come from a new start.

Outside a London theatre a throng of people wait for the last performance of a popular musical. But as the doors open at last, a man in the queue is found murdered by the deadly thrust of a stiletto. Inspector Alan Grant investigates and tenaciously pursues his suspects throughout the length of Britain and the labyrinth of London.

Mary Owen is forced to seek work in order to support her elderly aunt. Catching the eye of Will, a young waiter at Letts restaurant, she strikes it lucky: Will is desperate to meet her acquaintance and persuades the head chef to take Mary on in the kitchen.

It is not only Will who takes an interest in Mary. After spending two years in the trenches, Henry Lett has taken on the running of the family's famous London restaurant since his father got sick. Henry is intrigued by Mary's mysterious beauty and promoted her to an office job. But before he can make a move, his younger brother enters the scene. Charming, irresponsible Geoffrey, with film-star looks and money to burn, seems to have everything a girl on the brink of womanhood could desire.

Book 1 in the Lett Family series.

One day, Shirley Weeks' secret fiance, Guy Lamb, stepped off a plane at Heathrow airport and disappeared. For eighteen years she has kept the flame of love and hope alive. Without word or any sign from him, Shirley continues to work at the decaying mansion of Cartegena, which should have been Guy's inheritance. Shirley feels her life is governed by her own mother and the elderly Mrs Lamb. And then Frank comes into her life, but even he has secrets of his own. What will happen if Guy returns? Or if Frank goes away? This is a powerful and mysterious story of a woman trapped by her past.

Helen is 52 and Edward 49 when their mother dies, ending her reign of terror and leaving them ill-equipped to deal with their lives. Timid, cautious and naive, Helen makes the charming Giles Carnaby, familiy solicitor, the object of a belated schoolgirl crush; while Edward, free to express his sexuality at last, finds it gets the better of him. Dorothy may be dead and buried, but her iron grip continues to hold them in its power.

From the imaginations of Gothic short-story writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, and later weirdists such as H.P. Lovecraft came one of the most complex of villains-the mad scientist.

Promethean Horrors presents some of the greatest mad scientists ever created, as each cautionary tale explores the consequences of pushing nature too far.

These savants take many forms: there are malcontents who strive to create poisonous humans; technologists obsessed with genetic splicing; mesmerists interested in the way consciousness operates after death, and inventors who believe in a hidden reality.

From essential Gothic stories by Mary Shelley, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe to later forays into the weird and psychedelic by E. Nesbit, H. P. Lovecraft and George Langelaan, the classic figure of the mad scientist is reanimated in these pages along with every untethered ambition and its calamitous consequences.

England's seaside is made up of a striking variety of coastlines including cliffs, coves, pebbled shore, wide sandy beaches, salt marshes, and estuaries cutting deep inland. On these coastal edges England's great holiday resorts grew up, developed in the early eighteenth century originally as spas for medicinal bathing but soon morphing into places of pleasure, entertainment, fantasy and adventure. The author journeys clockwise around England from Scarborough to Blackpool to understand the enduring appeal of seaside towns, and what has happened to the golden sands, cold seas and donkey rides of childhood memory. 

Ellen Tyson is living the perfect village life in Goswell. But when her stepdaughter moves in, her fragile idyll is fractured.

At seventeen, Annabelle is surly, withdrawn, and adamant that she isn't, and never will be, part of her father's second family. As Ellen battles with Annabelle, new tensions arise with her husband Alex, shattering the happiness she'd once so carelessly enjoyed. Then Ellen finds a death certificate from the 1870s hidden under the floorboards, and its few stark lines awaken a curiosity in her. Ellen tries to involve Annabelle in her search for answers. But as they dig deeper into the circumstances of Sarah Mills' untimely death, truths both poignant and shocking come to light - about the present as well as the past.

Interlacing the lives of Ellen Tyson and Sarah Mills, The Second Bride is a captivating and moving story about what it means to be a family, and the lengths we will go to for the people we love.

After her years in domestic service, Winifred Foley married and started a family, but she continued to long for her home in the Forest of Dean. Determined to give their children the rural upbringing she had enjoyed, the couple moved to an isolated cottage not far from the Forest. Even in the 1950s it was a primitive life of hard work on the land, struggling to make ends meet, and finding strength in the embrace of a loving family.

A heartrending saga of a sister separated from her baby brother by tragedy and prejudice, who will brave the Blitz to bring him to safety

Molly's life changes forever when her mother is killed in a horrific accident. Although her beloved grandfather wants to keep her and little brother Kevin with him in Birmingham, the authorities decide it's best for the girl to live with her maternal grandmother, on a farm in Donegal. So Molly is packed off to Biddy Sullivan, who's a hard, cruel woman who loves to bear a grudge.

Years of hardship follow and just as Molly begins to grow independent, war breaks out. She learns that her grandfather has died - so what's become of ten year old Kevin? Surely he must need her? So the naive country girl sets off for her home city, little guessing what perils are to befall her before she can discover her brother's fate…

Twelve-year-old Amberley Jain has faced incredible challenges since the crash that took her parents and paralysed her legs. Now, with her best friend Ricardo about to be sent away and a swarm of mutated insects closing in on the Skyfleet base, the stakes have never been higher.

Something monstrous is driving the mutabugs north from the contaminated meteor site known as the Cauldron, and the only plane capable of stopping it - the Firehawk - lies in pieces in the hangar.

Determined to honour her parents' legacy, Amberley hatches a daring plan. With Ricardo's help, they stow away on a supply train, trading his most treasured possession for the parts needed to repair the Firehawk. After secret test flights, the legendary jet is ready for action and Amberley and Ricardo must save their home.

Pontypridd, in 1939, blackouts and conscription shatter family life. Three women are separated, possibly forever from the men they love.

Jenny Powell's husband, Eddie, abandoned her on her wedding night. Italian Tina Ronconi's sweetheart enlists, just as she and she and her entire family face internment as enemy aliens. Bethan's doctor husband, Andrew is called up, leaving her, pregnant with a toddler to care for.

All they can do is wait. Then comes news of the Allies' retreat at Dunkirk and, for some life will never be the same again.  Book 5 of series.

Lady Harriet Wingham, a widow, takes her young daughter to London to stay with friends. There she becomes reacquainted with the Duke of Tenby, the man who broke her heart six years earlier when he offered her carte blanche instead of marriage. This time he has honourable intentions toward her, but Harriet misunderstands and impulsively agrees to become his mistress. And so begins an affair disastrous to them both, for their feelings for each other cannot be satisfied by such a casual and clandestine arrangement.