Showing results by narrator "Penelope Penelope Rawlins" in All Categories

Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most enigmatic geniuses of European literature. What happens when his idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting.

Being arrested in your own bedroom is never a good start to the day. Tess Brookes really needs to sort out her back-stabbing flatmate - and her life. Should she gamble all on the new photography job she's landed, or snap up the offer from long-time crush and best friend Charlie to start up on their own - in more ways than one? There's just one small thing she hasn't mentioned. Or rather, one tall thing. He's handsome, infuriating and called Nick.…

Claire and Matt are no longer together but decide that it would be best for their daughter, Scarlett, to have a "normal" family Christmas. They can’t agree on whose idea it was to go to the Happy Forest holiday park or who said they should bring their new partners. But someone did - and it’s too late to pull the plug. Before you know it, their holiday is a powder keg that ends where this novel begins - with a tearful, frightened call to the police.

When famous TV chef Matteo McLeish turns up at the Old Forge Café and offers chef Charlie Hunter a place in his kitchen for the duration of Hampden Green's local opera festival, she thinks it's because he rates her cooking skills. In fact it's because he's heard she's good in a crisis. The wholesome star of Nonna's Kitchen is being blackmailed by one of his team.

Penny has big dreams for her wedding day. When Mark finally pops the question, it’s the best moment of her life. Until Penny checks her wedding fund and is horrified to discover that she’s somehow gambled away £10,000 playing online bingo! Working under the pretense of surprising Mark with her plans on their big day, operation ‘Don’t Tell the Groom’ rolls into action, with surprising, hilarious and moving results.

On the 20th anniversary of Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder returns with a spellbinding fable. When 15-year-old Anna begins receiving messages from another time, her parents take her to the doctor. But he can find nothing wrong with Anna; in fact he believes there may be some truth to what she is seeing. Anna is haunted by visions of the desolate world of 2082. She sees her great-granddaughter, Nova, in a wasteland peopled by ragged survivors, after animals and plants have died out.

A decade after Nocturnes first terrified and delighted listeners, John Connolly, best-selling author of 13 acclaimed thrillers featuring private investigator Charlie Parker, gives us a second volume of tales of the supernatural.

England, 1932: Grace Hamblin, the beekeeper's daughter, knows her place and her future, until her father dies. She’s alone, except for one man who she just can't shake from her thoughts…. Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's daughter Trixie Valentine is in love. But when he has to go home to England, he promises to come back, if she will wait for him. Both mother and daughter are searching for love and happiness, unaware of the secrets that bind them.

The Axiom Diamond is a mythical relic, with the power to show its bearer any truth they desire. Men have sought for it across many continents for centuries but in vain. When trainee sorceress Aimee de Laurent's first ever portal-casting goes awry, she and her mentor are thrown into the race to find the gem, on the skyship Elysium. Opposing them are the infamous magic-wielding knights of the Eternal Order and their ruthless commander, Lord Azrael, who will destroy everything in their path....

Clayton and Avril Shaw have lost their little boy and are still mourning when they move into Swallow’s Nest on the Yorkshire moors. In their new house Avril discovers a painting. When she learns that the boy in the painting was deaf, like her dead son, she starts to try to communicate with his ghost. Meanwhile, Clayton finds himself entangled in an equally undesirable friendship with a retired fire chief who knows more about the painting than he is prepared to let on. Is The Crying Boy painting cursed, and can numerous house fires be linked to it?

America. The 1960s. Stuck on a remote farm with her awful aunt, twelve-year-old orphan Ruth spends every night gazing at the stars, dreaming of adventure. One night she spots a flying saucer blazing across the sky…before crash-landing in a field. When the spaceship opens and reveals a mysterious alien, all Ruth’s dreams come true. But does this visitor from another planet have a giant secret?

Princess Ellie is pony-mad! She loves helping out at the stables and riding her ponies. It's so long since she learned to ride on Shadow, her Shetland pony, that now her feet touch the ground when she's riding him. The King thinks she looks silly and decides to sell Shadow. But Ellie can't bear to lose him. Can she invent a plan to save Shadow?

Princess Ellie has four perfect ponies and the entire palace grounds in which to ride. So Ellie’s in trouble when the king finds hoofprints on his lawn. He thinks she’s been riding in the royal garden. To prove her innocence, Ellie must catch the real culprit. But the only way to do it is to set out on a scary starlight adventure....

Villa Dolce Vita, a rambling stone house on the Amalfi Coast, sits high above the Gulf of Naples amid dappled lemon groves and fragrant, tumbling bougainvillea. Kim, Colette and Annie all came to the villa in need of escape and in the process forged an unlikely friendship. Now, years later, Kim has transformed the crumbling house into a luxury retreat and has invited her friends back for the summer to celebrate.

A woman is accused of killing her husband, but is she guilty? Inspired by a true historical case, this spellbinding novel will keep you guessing until the final heart-stopping revelation....

In this biography, discover the fascinating story of Florence Nightingale, who cared for British soldiers during wartime as the "Lady of the Lamp". Florence Nightingale was a pioneer of nursing at a time when women were discouraged from working outside the home, especially in the field of science. She saved many lives both on and off the battlefield through implementing a new standard of medical care and by leading groups of nurses to improve conditions.

Bernadette is expert at hiding the truth. She has built her career as a journalist on her talent for lulling powerful men into a false sense of security, then exposing them in her ruthless profile pieces. But in Radley Blake, she may have met her match. Immune to her charms, he seems to see through every layer of her carefully constructed act, right to the truth of who she is inside. We think we're looking for love - but what if it's ourselves we need to find?

Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing due to an early childhood illness and spent the first 6 years of her life unable to interact with other people. She remained isolated from the outside world until Anne Sullivan came to work as her teacher. In this biography audiobook for kids ages 8-11, learn all about Helen Keller's amazing life and achievements—how she learned to read Braille and speak, go to college, write books, and ultimately revolutionize the world through her activism on behalf of the deaf and blind.

Everyone thinks my life is bliss. The love of my life, Cary, and I live in our dream home and we have a beautiful little girl, Harper. I may not have given birth to her, but I’m her mommy now. But there’s one thing we never talk about… Cary’s wife before me, Presley, was perfect in every way. But she went missing a long time ago. Cary was distraught when he told me how she was abducted from her car, leaving behind a pool of blood. No one saw a thing. The neighbors are always gossiping about Presley. I try to ignore them, but one day I hear something that makes my stomach flip.

When Rosa wakes one morning to find Grandma Nan missing, she must use all of her survival skills to uncover her grandma's whereabouts. With the help of the mountain community, Rosa's investigation leads her to the very summit of Big Sky Mountain, where a family of eagles are facing huge problems of their own. Through helping the eagles, Rosa realises she really is at home on Big Sky Mountain.