Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Genre Fiction

It is 1941, and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed and the king imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down. But when a body is found in a Mayfair flat, what at first appears to be a routine murder investigation sends him into a world of espionage, deceit and betrayal.

A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan. Unicorn skulls and voracious librarians. John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story, post-modern manifesto. All this rolled into one rip-roaring novel, End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami’s international following.

As Pyle's naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as Fowler intervenes he wonders why: for the greater good, or something altogether more complicated?

One morning in December, Kyungha is called to her friend Inseon’s hospital bedside. Airlifted to Seoul for an operation following a wood-chopping accident, Inseon is bedridden and begs Kyungha to take the first plane to her home on Jeju Island to feed her pet bird, who will quickly die unless it receives food. Unfortunately, as Kyungha arrives a snowstorm hits. Lost in a world of snow, she begins to wonder if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step.

When twenty-something Isabella Pasternack is fired from her job at a digital food magazine, she accepts a thankless job for the paycheck: ghostwrite the very past-due cookbook for a once-beloved thirty-something actress, Molly Babcock. Molly, trying to repair her reputation after a serious downward spiral, meets Isabella’s earnest attempts to connect with inconsistency, indifference, and cruelty. But, for the first time in her life, Isabella is determined to dig in her heels, and figure out if there’s anything Molly actually knows how to cook (or even likes to eat).

As Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of commuters, he is confronted by the intimidating figure of his Parish Confessor. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Better than his fellow man and woman? Does he have something to hide? Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody.

Nisha Cantor and Sam Kemp are two very different women. Nisha, 45, lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband inexplicably cuts her off entirely. She doesn't even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That's because Sam—47, middle-aged, struggling to keep herself and her family afloat—has accidentally taken Nisha's gym bag. Now Nisha's got nothing. And Sam's walking tall with shoes that catch eyes—and give her a career an unexpected boost. Except Nisha wants her life back—and she'll start with her shoes....

As the daughter of an ambitious merchant, Guinevere’s path has been predetermined: marry into a noble house, raise her family’s station, and live quietly as a lordling’s obedient wife. But Guinevere longs for a life unbounded by expectations, for freedom and passion and adventure. Those distant dreams become a sudden reality when her caravan is beset by bandits, leaving her guards slain and Guinevere stranded alone on the dangerous Amber Road. Her only chance of survival is to travel alongside Oskar, the aloof half-orc who saved her during the attack.

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.

On the cusp of adulthood, James dreams of another life far away from his small village. His burgeoning desire – an ache for autonomy, tenderness and sex – threatens to unravel his shy exterior. Then he meets Luke. Unkempt and handsome, charismatic and impulsive, he has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on a nearby farm. Luke comes with a reputation for danger, yet underneath his bravado lie anxieties and hopes of his own. As the seasons pass, and the pair form an ever-changing bond, James falls into a terrifying first love that will transform his life forever.

When Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon answer a distress call from a research ship, nothing can prepare them for what they find. A strange and dangerous toxin has left the crew helpless, unable to move or speak. And when a further attack leaves hundreds more paralysed, Juan and his team must race to find an antidote before the damage becomes permanent. Their search for answers leads to a Roman soldier's long-lost testimony, revealing ancient events that strangely parallel their own.

Twelve-year-old Adele is placed in a bleak, cruel children's home after a family tragedy drives her mother to madness. But when trust is betrayed Adele has no choice but to run away.... Alone and friendless, she heads for Sussex to seek out the grandmother she has never known. However the journey, without food or shelter, leaves her desperately ill. Surrounded by the beautiful Rye Marshes, Adele is nursed back to health. Can she now dream of a new life? But what will happen when her mother reappears bearing shocking family secrets?

One of the world's great storytellers conjures a captivating new book. In this first full collection since Not the End of the World, we meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; and a man whose luck changes when a horse speaks to him. Witty and wise, with subtle connections between the stories, Normal Rules Don't Apply is a startling , and funny feast for the imagination. In Kate Atkinson's world nothing is over until 'the talking dog speaks'.

In this 1962 classic, a novelistic exploration of modern crime and punishment, Alex is the 15-year-old leader of his gang of "droogs" thriving in the ultraviolent future as prophetically imagined by Burgess. Speaking a bizarre Russian-derived slang, Alex and his friends freely pillage and slash their way across a nightmarish urban landscape until Alex is captured by the judicial arm of the state. He then becomes their prized guinea pig in a scientific program to completely "redeem" him for society.

One morning on Harlow Lane, four families' lives are changed forever. Whitney Loverly can only sit by her son's hospital bed after he falls from his bedroom window in the middle of the night. She refuses to speak to anyone. Back at home, the Loverlys' neighbours must reckon with their own roles in the tragedy - their selfless best friends who live across the street, the ambitious Goldsteins who desperately want a family of their own, and the quiet elderly couple who spend their days people watching on the front porch.

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his 40 rules of life and love, she is shocked out of herself. Turning her back on her family, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work.

Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in a city of power cuts. His adolescent daughter spends his money with a skill that amazes him, so when a mysterious Englishman offers him an extra income he's tempted. In return all he has to do is carry out a little espionage and file a few reports. But when his fake reports start coming true, things suddenly get more complicated and Havana becomes a threatening place.

1956. A celebrated Russian author is writing a book, Doctor Zhivago, which could spark dissent in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, afraid of its subversive power, ban it. But in the rest of the world it’s fast becoming a sensation. The CIA plans to use the book to tip the Cold War in its favour. Their agents are not the usual spies, however. Two typists - the charming, experienced Sally and the talented novice Irina - are charged with the mission of a lifetime: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago back into Russia by any means necessary.

While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale, is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul's fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul's plan is not what it seems-and neither is Claude's employer, the Bank of Torabundo, which inflates through dodgy takeovers and derivatives-trading until-well, you can probably guess how that shakes out.

Frida Liu is a struggling mother. She remembers taking Harriet from her cot and changing her nappy. She remembers giving her a morning bottle. They'd been up since four a.m. Frida just had to finish the article in front of her. But she'd left a file on her desk at work. What would happen if she retrieved it and came back in an hour? She was so sure it would be okay. Now, the state has decided that Frida is not fit to care for her daughter. That she must be re-trained. Soon, mothers everywhere will be re-educated. Will their mistakes cost them everything?