Showing results by narrator "Diana Croft" in All Categories

At Samhain, the veil between past and present is thinner than anyone knew. White Haven is preparing for the Walk of the Spirits when Ben vanishes from Old Haven Church without a trace. No clue. No magical signature. Just gone. When part of the town itself begins to slip into the past, the...

Winter has come to White Haven. And it has brought something ancient with it. Bodies are turning up drained of blood. People are vanishing. When Newton brings the news to the witches, Genevieve calls an emergency coven meeting — and what they hear chills them to the bone. This has happened...

In White Haven, even the festive season comes with magic attached. Stan has outdone himself this year. As self-appointed Lord of Misrule, he's assembled his Court of Fools — and the Yuletide celebrations are already the talk of the town. Then strange things start happening. Magic that should...

An ancient tomb. A client who can't get past the magic sealing it. A fortune waiting on the other side. Shadow and Gabe have faced worse odds. She's a fey warrior with centuries of battle behind her, he's one of seven Nephilim, part-angel warriors with a violent history and millennia trapped in...

The Society for Magickal Heritage’s best agents are heading back into paradise. Giddy Gods help them all. No one ever said heroic adventure would be easy, but this is ridiculous. Magickal wonderlands aren’t meant to have a dark side. Heroes aren’t meant to get stranded there, either. Ves may be up for anything, but she hadn’t expected that pretty much anything would be up for her. And with a horde of unhappy spirits enjoying a direct line to Zareen’s psyche, it’s lucky she’s unbreakable... right?

Things are getting serious at the Society for Magickal Heritage. An ancient legend has plans for Ves, and Ves has plans for just about everything else. It’s time to take on the ultimate challenge—and hope for the best. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. As usual. But if old magick is going to survive in the modern world, it’s no use being cautious. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and Ves is giving it everything she’s got. But can she handle the cost? And can the cost handle her?

Lara is so busy trying to get her fledgling software company off the ground that she’s up in Yorkshire, pitching for business, just before Christmas. When bad weather sees the trains cancelled, the only place she can find shelter is a small pub called the Trewton Arms. Thilini ("Tilly") loves that her art helps feed her travel addiction. She’s back in England for Christmas after two years away and can’t wait to be on the move again. When they meet, their attraction is hard to deny. But what happens when the trains are running again and they have to go their separate ways?

Tracey is a tech millionaire. Burned out and fed up of people needing her all the time, she retreats to a rural English village. All she wants for Christmas is a of bit space. Dumped by the woman he was about to propose to, Vinnie is spending Christmas alone in a cozy cottage for two. All he wants is to hide away and lick his wounds. Alone. When Tracey gets caught in a blizzard, the only place she can take shelter is Vinnie’s cottage. Can two snowbound people stop being grumpy for long enough to feel their attraction to each other?

The lost treasure of the Knights Templar has remained hidden for centuries. Someone just found a new lead. When Harlan's client — the owner of a Kent castle with a very particular history — asks The Orphic Guild to follow fresh clues to the fabled Templar treasure, Shadow and Gabe take the...

Welcome to the Grand Masquerade Ball for the Wyrde…and Wondrous! It’s time to party like it’s 1820, and you know what that means. Rout cakes and punch, satins and silks, and flirting on the balcony under a star-washed sky. Decorous. Genteel. Lovely. Nobody knows who’s throwing this bash, but who cares? It’s the party of the century, and everyone who’s anyone is going to be there. Including, astonishingly, the Werths. Famous recluses they may be, but who can resist a mystery and a waltz? Not that everyone’s on their best behaviour.

It took her 20 years to build up her business. He works for the competition. What is she willing to risk to get a second chance at love? Jack left Sue when she was 18 and no one else has even come close to taking his place in her heart. Twenty years and plenty of hard work later, Sue is too busy running the local bakery and fighting off competition from the new bistro in the village to have time for romance. Jack finally returns to the village he grew up in. Seeing Sue rekindles feelings he thought were long buried.

Tim thinks Harriet broke up his sister’s marriage all those years ago. His sister’s enemies are his enemies. When his niece runs away to Harriet’s house, he knows he has to get her back before his sister finds out. But that means talking with Harriet. As they work together to console Niamh and get her home safely, Tim and Harriet become increasingly attracted to each other. But with attraction comes guilt. Can they overcome their respective loyalties and give in to love?

Four years ago, somebody pinched perhaps the most valuable book in existence. Merlin’s personal grimoire. And the price they’re offering for its return is the kind we can’t refuse, so it’s Ves and Jay on the case. Except that there aren’t any clues. Seriously, not even a little one. Nothing’s going to solve this case but a Vesper-patented Crazy Plan, and it had better be a good one, for complications are sprouting like daisies. At least it’s a straightforward mission. There’s no earthly way this one’s going to turn my entire life upside down... right?

This collection of fantasy short stories are from the three winners of Remastered Words 2018 audio anthology, including a tale from one of our judges, Ian Whates with "Return to Arden Falls", which was first published in “Legend”, an anthology released in 2013 in honour of David Gemmell. There is a definite theme running through this year’s tales of the soldier’s passage; whether it be returning home to family, revisiting past battlefields, or taking the treacherous path into unknown realms and through bloody battlefields.

It’s winter at the Werth residence, and someone has turned up dead. Not that this is unusual. There’s Great-Aunt Honoria on the premises, after all. Only this corpse is freshly dead, and nobody knows how the lady came to be leaking blood all over Lady Werth's best parlour. The disastrous Miss Gussie confesses herself delighted, for nothing enlivens a dull week in February like a mysterious murder. And the culprit really ought to be discovered, for the circumstances suggest Lord Bedgberry might have had something to do with it…

Charlotte Clarke wants nothing more than to experience a London Season. But when she finds out she has to wait another year due to her sister's recent pregnancy, she is crushed. All is not lost as a letter arrives soon after summoning Charlotte to Danbury Hall to meet her new guardian, John Wilkins. With little choice but to go, she determines to contrive a way to convince her new guardian to take her to London in her sister's stead.

On the moors above White Haven, something ancient is screaming. Summer visitors fill White Haven, but when two people die in inexplicable circumstances and unearthly screams echo across the moors, fear descends on the town. As Lughnasadh approaches and the deaths multiply, the witches and Newton...

The Orphic Guild doesn't just buy occult treasures. Sometimes it steals them. Shadow and Gabe are finding their feet in the world of occult hunting, and it suits them perfectly. Shadow has centuries of fey cunning and absolutely no moral objections to breaking and entering. Gabe and his six...

Since her father's sudden death, all Evie wants is comfort and security for her family, especially from dragon cagers. The two-tongued serpents are said to take the shape of a man, woo their ill-fated victims, and then devour them whole. But no one ever told Evie she could be kindred to the creatures. When Evie is framed and exiled, a cager called Lachlann discovers her roaming in the barren dragon country. Now, while being hunted by the same slayers seeking his magic-imbued heart, Evie must put her trust in Lachlann and seek out his clan for help.

Malessar's Curse is broken, the wards around Caenthell destroyed. The Warlock himself lies, exhausted and gravely wounded, in the rubble of his own house. And while the dire spirits trapped behind the wards for centuries are unleashed into the world once more, Cassia is confined to a cell deep in Galliarca's grand palace. Yet Caenthell calls to her, and Cassia must answer. As Heir to the North, the throne and the power behind it belong to her. But the twisted hunger of Caenthell's spirits appalls her. and Cassia vows to do everything she can to defeat them.