Showing results by narrator "Rachel Atkins" in All Categories

In these ten witty, dark and disturbing episodes some of Britain’s best comedians come together to perform simultaneously hilarious and unsettling stories that will have you gripped. Sticky situations on ski slopes, placating an unruly ghost, a boy stuck at the bottom of well and an unusual adventure weekend with romantic overtones - are just some of the scenarios from comedy writers Mark Maier and Daniel Maier (a long term collaborator of Charlie Brooker and Harry Hill).

A symbol of liberated womanhood, Simone de Beauvoir’s unconventional relationships inspired and scandalised her generation. A philosopher, writer, and feminist icon, she won prestigious literary prizes and transformed the way we think about gender with The Second Sex. But despite her successes, she wondered if she had sold herself short. This ground-breaking biography draws on never-before-published diaries and letters to tell the fascinating story of how Simone de Beauvoir became herself.

London, England, 1952. Meet the mercurial genius Professor Quanderhorn (James Fleet) - a maverick scientist with absolutely no moral compass. Join him and his rag-tag crew on their frontal-lobe-knotting escapades as they battle insane hybrid creatures: the Gorrirrel and the Squirrilla, to the death; become gods to a Stone-Age tribe; are engulfed in a Martian invasion of Earth; escape shipwreck on the Moon in a spacecraft powered by anger; and evade multiple fiendish traps in the Alien Ziggurat of Death. Will our crew of Brave Boffins survive?

Lady Isabel Carlyle leaves her husband and children for the aristocratic Francis Levison, who, as it turns out, has no intention of marrying her. Having been disfigured in a train accident, the unrecognizable Isabel then takes up the position of governess to her own children in the Carlyle household, with tragic consequences.

When Vale Moonwing is summoned to the Black Tower, she must prepare herself for a confrontation with the dread warlord Balthus Dire.

Thrilling, creepy, and utterly unforgettable, these five stories of strange voices, haunting passions, and terrifying nightmares will stay with you forever.

Prudence Bulstrode has fond memories of St Marianne's School for Girls, the beautiful Cornish school where she boarded as a girl. So when she's invited back to the school, to lead an Easter holidays course in the fundamentals of cookery, Prudence couldn't be more delighted. What's more, it's a chance to show her grand-daughter Suki the way school used to be in the good old days. But no sooner has Prudence arrived at St Marianne's, a gruesome discovery is made. The builders excavating the old hockey pitch to construct the new dormitories have unearthed human bones.

Diary of a War Crime is the first book in the DI Ruth Hunter crime prequel series. If you like chilling police procedurals, true-to-life characters and psychological twists, then you’ll love Simon McCleave’s addictive thrill ride. London, 1997. A series of baffling murders. A web of political corruption. DC Ruth Hunter thinks she has the brutal killer in her sights, but there's one problem. He’s a Serbian War criminal who died five years earlier and lies buried in Bosnia.

You lost your daughter. You will never forgive yourself. And now someone is determined to make you pay.... Seventeen years ago, something happened to Jess' daughter, Beth. The memory of it still makes her blood run cold. Jess has tried everything to make peace with that day, and the part she played in what happened. It was only a brief moment of desire...but she'll pay for it with a lifetime of guilt.

Derek Flint is a loner. He lives with his mother and spends his evenings watching his clients on the CCTV cameras he has installed inside their homes. He likes their companionship - even if it’s through a screen. When a series of crimes hits Derek's neighbourhood, DC Beth Mayes begins to suspect he's involved. How does he know so much about the victims' lives? Why won’t he let anyone into his office? And what is his mother hiding in that strange, lonely house?

Set in the extreme landscape of Alaska, The Quality of Silence follows the story of Yasmin and her deaf daughter, Ruby. Yasmin arrives in Alaska to be told her husband, Matt, is dead, the victim of a catastrophic accident. Yasmin, unable to accept this as truth, sets out into the frozen winter landscape, taking Ruby with her, in search of answers. But as a storm closes in, Yasmin realises that a very human danger may be keeping pace with them.

1940, London. A man learns a shocking truth about his past. Warsaw. A mother writes a diary as the ghetto walls go up. From the bombed streets of London, to occupied Warsaw, to the Polish forests bristling with partisans, will their paths cross? Will their pasts be reconciled? And will they survive the deadly assaults on their freedom and their lives?

The novels of Jane Austen have been celebrated for centuries. In this unique collection, listeners will be able to experience her wit, irony, and social commentary at its best.

When Vale Moonwing returns to Darkwood Forest, he discovers that her old friend, the wizard Yaztromo, has vanished...himself?

The Number One Kindle best seller guaranteed to break your heart. Every so often a love story comes along to remind us that sometimes, in our darkest hour, hope shines a candle to light our way. Discover the Number One best seller that has captured thousands of hearts worldwide.... Tina Craig longs to escape her violent husband. She works all the hours God sends to save up enough money to leave him, also volunteering in a charity shop to avoid her unhappy home.

Zelda's life isn't exactly what she expected it to be in her 30s. Single, without a home of her own, and at another underwhelming 40th birthday party, she wonders if there might be more to life. But her best friend Lennie has a plan, and before she knows it they have answered an advertisement to go to Sicily to help rejuvenate a crumbling town and head to the beautiful island as a couple. A new life with her favourite person could be the chance to start over. But what if a summer in Sicily is about to change her life in more ways than she could have ever imagined?

Ingrid Coleman writes letters to her husband, Gil, about the truth of their marriage, but instead of giving them to him, she hides each in the thousands of books he has collected over the years. When Ingrid has written her final letter, she disappears from a Dorset beach, leaving behind her beautiful but dilapidated house by the sea, her husband, and her two daughters, Flora and Nan. Twelve years after her disappearance, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window.

Eighteen months after Natalie Gray loses her husband, Bernie, in a horrific hit and run accident, she finds love with his best friend, Ed Cooper, and moves into his home with her teenage daughter, Scarlett. But she begins to suspect Ed has a dark side - and even darker intentions. Natalie must get her troubled child to a safer place, but when Scarlett starts to hear voices coming from the empty apartment next door it seems she has unwittingly moved them into the heart of danger.

Pre-war debutantes were members of the most protected, not to say isolated, stratum of 20th-century society: the young (17-20) unmarried daughters of the British upper classes. For most of them, the war changed all that for ever. It meant independence and the shock of the new, and daily exposure to customs and attitudes that must have seemed completely alien to them. For many, the almost military regime of an upper class childhood meant they were well suited for the no-nonsense approach needed in wartime. 

In the age of the Faerie Queene, Elizabeth I, Lord Francis Rodermere starts to lay waste to a forest. Furious, the sorceress who dwells there scrawls a curse into the bark of the first oak he fells: A faerie boy will be born to you whose beauty will be your death. Ten years later, Lord Rodermere’s son, Beau is born - and all who encounter him are struck by his great beauty. Meanwhile, many miles away in a London alchemist’s cellar lives Randa - a beast deemed too monstrous to see the light of day. And so begins a timeless tale of love, tragedy and revenge.