Showing results by narrator "lesley Mackie" in All Categories

Fiercely independent, Marguerite Sinclair has the opportunity of a lifetime to become a nurse and contribute to the war effort. Meanwhile, Rick, who has loved her from the first moment he saw her, asks her to marry him before being shipped off to the war front. Despite their distance, he pursues her in a romantic cross-country courtship. She refuses him but soon after begins to realise how strong her feelings for him are in his absence. Rick somehow manages to survive the carnage of the war unscathed, but Marguerite has an accident, becoming very ill as a result.

1919. Miss Rina Capel, granddaughter of the Laird of Stavondale, has one ambition - to set aside her life of privilege and become a nurse. But when she is summoned back to Bonnybrae to see her dying grandfather just before her 18th birthday, he reveals to her family secrets which turn her world upside down. In love with a man she can't have, and facing marriage to a man she has never met, Rina must draw on all her reserves of strength and female guile to escape a fate to which her dissolute parents would condemn her.

It's January 1955, and for the residents of Meadow Lane, a small community of seven terraced houses, each household has its own story.... When Sadie returns to Meadow Lane from Canada with her son and no husband, she throws the small community into turmoil. She tries to rekindle an old flame, despite him now being married with two children. Then Sadie's son, unhappy with his mother, runs away, desperate to get back to Canada to be with his father. Depressed by how life is turning out, Sadie starts drinking, with tragic consequences for those in Meadow Lane....

Coffee, cake and cats. These are a few of Lexie Farrington’s favourite things, and when she walks into the Thistledean Café in Edinburgh, she’s delighted to find all three: coffee, cake, a big black cat on a purple lead being held by a very grumpy-looking pirate. Okay, maybe she wasn’t quite expecting that one. Of course, Billy McCreadie isn’t really a pirate; he is on his way to give a historical talk to school kids

On a night out in Edinburgh, single mum Liza-Belle Graham finds herself revealing her hopes and dreams to a green-eyed stranger. Liza always wanted to run an 'arty-crafty-booky' business, and she’s seen the perfect empty shop to make her dreams a reality. No harm in telling the stranger. It’s not like she’ll see him again.... But Scott McCreadie is no mystery man - he’s an interior designer looking for new premises. And who does Liza bump into when she arranges a viewing? None other than Scott trying to steal her perfect shop!

It's 1925. Attractive and strong-willed 23-year-old Isla Scott leaves her job as a nurse in Edinburgh to return to her hometown of Edgemuir and take up a vacancy at Dr Lorne's fashionable spa, where she is reunited with her handsome brother, Boyd. Revelling in her new role and being close to Boyd, all seems well for Isla and the Scott family. But the siblings soon find that romance threatens to cloud their future. Boyd is bowled over by pretty new waitress Trina Morris, but is she playing games with his affections?

. She is content there until, suddenly, she must make decisions that will change everything. Fraser Kyle, the owner of the florist’s, proposes marriage. Should she accept, or renew her childish love for Mark Lindsay the doctor from the orphanage who first showed Shona the Handkerchief Tree that inspired her?

William and Emma Sinclair have settled into life at Moorend Farm in North Yorkshire and live happily with their growing family, believing they have left the shame of their past behind. William is determined to prove his success to his embittered mother and charts a secure living for his sons to follow in his footsteps and reap the benefits of William and his wife's hard work. When Emma takes Jamie and Meg to visit her parents in Scotland, they receive a warm welcome from all their relations, except 'Grandmother Sinclair'.

Glasgow, WW2. Despite being shy and reserved, Jeannie finds herself newly engaged to Arthur the day war is announced. Unsure if she would ever get another proposal, Jeanie accepts. But with war raging on, her wedding must wait. As she sets off to work at a munitions factory, she meets Eileen, Janet and Annie. As her new friends reveal their chaotic romances at such a troubling time, Jeannie is grateful to be settled with rigid, formal and straight-talking Arthur. Until she begins to doubt everything.

Alfie McCreadie wants his twin sister, Nessa, to have the best wedding ever, but he’s not happy at being roped in as wedding planner - especially as, unbelievably, his main assistant seems to be Nessa’s cat, Schubert. Anyway, Alfie is a scientist. He might know his protons from his neutrons, but what does he know about weddings? It’s Nessa who points him in the direction of Bea’s Garden. It’s there he meets Fae Brimham, who might be prettier than any bouquet bloom but doesn’t seem impressed by Alfie’s sensible, scientific side.

May 1945. In post-war Leith, the Anderson family must come to terms with the reality of peacetime Britain. Johnny's hopes of a life in politics finally come true, but will his vows to remain a dutiful husband and father be kept? Peacetime is not easy for Johnny's Polish brother-in-law Hans, either. Meanwhile, nurse Kitty - Johnny's daughter from his first marriage - gets caught up in a sensational trial when her friend Laura's brother is accused of murder.

1895. With five children as well as her husband Sandy to care for, Katy Fraser’s life is always fully occupied. Yet, Katy longs for something else. And when the new minister moves into the manse he agrees to take her on as a housekeeper. Soon she is given a rare opportunity to fulfil her dreams, but Sandy begins to resent her new-found confidence... Eight years later, Katy and Sandy’s brood are fast growing up.

When attractive redhead Lorna Fernie is taken on to play saxophone in a post-war Glasgow dance band, she is at first over the moon – especially when she and likeable trumpet player Rod Warren fall in love. But then disaster strikes. Things go wrong between her and Rod. He leaves her life, she loses her job, and it only when she forms her own band – the Melody Girls – that the future gradually brightens.

Margaret Kerr of Perth is living in Edinburgh with her uncle Murdoch during the summer of 1297. She'd come to search for her long-absent husband who is in the service of Robert the Bruce. Margaret herself is still loyal to the deposed King John Balliol. Then terrifying raids and a brutal murder on the Kerr property bring the wrath of the English down on the heads of Margaret and her uncle.

It is the spring of 1297, and young wife Margaret Kerr is desperately afraid.

Intelligent, ambitious Elinor Rae, maid at an exclusive ladies’ club in the idyllic Primrose Square, dreams of a better future. Encouraged by her kindly manageress, Elinor enrols in an evening course, where she soon falls for her handsome tutor, Stephen Muirhead. But it is her attraction to charismatic Barry Howat that turns her life upside down. Breaking Stephen’s heart is bad enough, but when Barry signs up to the war effort and reveals his true feelings, Elinor is devastated.

Feisty, hardworking Catherine McDonald knows what's best for everyone and tries to make it happen. To keep her aristocratic family's heads above water, she's turned their Scottish Highland home, Annat House, into a hotel, but it's a struggle. And things don't improve when a woman goes missing in the nearby mountains and the media moves in.

When her employer Miss Macintosh dies, Alice Findlay is forced to look for work elsewhere. She has no family to turn to, relying instead on the help of her former teacher at the orphanage, Miss Lennox. Alice dreams of being an artist, and to her the first step to this is learning a craft. Miss Lennox helps her find work at Simpson's Pottery, painting the where she befriends Nannie and Bet. Despite doing well at work, Alice is determined to further herself as an artist.

On the rugged, sea-lashed coast of west Scotland lies Ullaness: home to the Scottish legend of Ulla, a Viking woman who washed up on Scottish shores centuries ago. The legend will bring the stories of three different women together. In AD 800 there is Ulla, lost in a foreign country after her lover is brutally killed. Ellen, a servant-girl in the 1800s, catches the unwanted attentions of the master of the house's lascivious son. And, in the present day, there is Libby - an archaeologist who is determined to uncover an age-old mystery.

After You’d Gone is the groundbreaking debut novel from National Book Critics Circle Award winner Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait. A stunning, bestselling novel of wrenching love and grief. Alice Raikes takes a train from London to Scotland to visit her family...