How would you feel coming home to find a family living in your house who call you Sarah, tell you your brother's name is Andy and insist that you should be ashamed of calling the police for help?My name is Rowena Shaw and I've never seen any of them before. They are total strangers. It's Thursday and it's just the beginning.
The premiere of Jazz singer Olivia Maitland's life story is being filmed in London. The book caused a furore when it was first published over fifty years ago, the threads of the story being woven together with a potent mixture of fame, wealth, drugs and murder.However the ghost-writer is the only person left alive who has extracted the truth from the tangled web of lies hidden within its pages.
Alexandra Davenport saw a ghost when she was a child but no one believed her. They said it was understandable - her parents had died in a car accident - she'd recently attended her uncle's funeral - Marshlands house on the outskirts of Leahampton was a house that encouraged the mind to see apparitions. She was living and working in the village of Saltbank when she took a phone call from her cousin Harry - he was worried about his mother - her aunt Jess - she'd started to insist that she was seeing her dead husband.Chief Inspector Carl Hoyland remembers the case partly because of his his fascination with a teenage girl who told him she'd once seen a ghost and partly because of Marshlands house. It was an open an shut case; the body of Dominic Grant had been identified by his wife Jessica Grant. Why, after all this time was someone using Grant's credit card to book a room?The lives of the inhabitants of Marshlands house both in the past and in the present intertwine to provide the answers.
The silver box is a story suitable for nine-year-olds. At the beginning of the school holidays Ben Wilson and Scarlett Bennett, find a silver box hidden under the floor of and old outhouse in Ben's garden. They soon discover that only Ben can open the lid of the box and, when he does, the pair are amazed to find that they are able to travel back into the past and also forward into the future. Danger lurks around every corner during their adventures and with each journey the box changes its appearance.The children need to unravel the mystery of why only they can see it as a silver box, whilst everyone else thinks it's just made of wood. It soon becomes obvious to Ben and Scarlett that they have to solve the mystery before the end of the school holidays or risk being trapped in the past for ever.
How would you feel if your wife has disappeared and you hear nothing from her for two years until, arriving home from work one day, you find her in the kitchen cooking your meal and behaving as if nothing has happened?The events surrounding the Piper Archer case baffle Private Investigator Richie Stevens and his PA Sandy Smith. Why would a woman leave a happy marriage to a wealthy, intelligent, man without a word of explanation and why is Beresford Archer so insistent that his wife has returned to Elm Tree house, when he appears to be the only one who has seen her?This story is told from multiple perspectives as each character gives their own version of events. The garrulous Serena is puzzled why Piper, her sister, hasn't contacted her to let her know she's alive and concludes she must be dead. The police believe Beresford Archer's wife has run off with someone she met on the Internet. But Piper's husband thinks this is unlikely and as his friendship with Isobel Myers grows stronger, he becomes certain Serena's version of events is plausible and he has to move on with his life and forget the past. However, he has no premonition when, on a perfectly ordinary day, he returns from work to find his wife cooking a meal for him in the kitchen and behaving as if the past two years have never occurred. In a daze, he does as she suggests, whilst she pours him a drink, then returns to the kitchen to find an empty house and a meal cooking in the oven.As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that all it not what it seems; there are threads of a back-story to pick up and versions of the truth to establish before culminating in a satisfactory conclusion.
WHEN THE SNOW CAME is the fifth novel in the Richie Stevens investigates series. When Judith Weston leaves her handbag on a bus, this insignificant event is responsible for unlocking the past. Annie Troughton has a secret, which she is desperate to hide, John Banks fears his wife Katie is damaged by her past, a child adopted at birth has killed a cat and another searches for his mother. All these characters are linked to the woman who is living a quiet life in Lockford on the south coast of England, where Richie Stevens has his office. All of them have a motive to commit a murder.Richie's investigations into a murder are complicated by his unspoken feelings for his assistant Sandy Smith whom he fears is about to leave and seek work in London.
Whilst locked in a coma and lying in a hospital bed Gabriel Radford tells his version of the story. He has only one day left to explain, as unless he can show signs of an improvement his life support machine will be turned off and it will be Termination Day. Throughout his waiting hours, each of the five people who will visit him have their own accounts of what happened leading up to the day of the party when the 'accident' occurred. The subtle differences between each story give the reader a clearer understanding of why Gabriel Radford's life is in danger and why he must find a key to unlock the paralysing symptoms of his condition before the day is out.These accounts, together with an unfolding back-story, gradually strip away the layers of lies allowing the truth to be revealed.
