Showing results by narrator "Charlie Sanderson" in All Categories

I have a gardener's inherent belief in the natural order of things. Soft-petalled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer. Children who don't die before their parents. A community in shock. When eighteen-year-old Rosie Anderson disappears, the idyllic village where she lived will never be the same again.

Elvira Carr is 27 and neuro-atypical. Her father - whom she suspects was in the secret service - has passed away and, after several Unfortunate Incidents growing up, she now spends most of her time at home with her overbearing mother. But when her mother has a stroke, Elvira is suddenly forced to look after herself or risk ending up in sheltered accommodation. Armed with her Seven Rules, which she puts together after online research, Elvira hopes to learn how to navigate a world that's full of people she doesn't understand.

I was brave. She was reckless. We were trouble. Best friends Caddy and Rosie are inseparable. Their differences have brought them closer, but as she turns 16 Caddy begins to wish she could be a bit more like Rosie - confident, funny and interesting. Then Suzanne comes into their lives - beautiful, damaged, exciting and mysterious - and things get a whole lot more complicated. As Suzanne's past is revealed and her present begins to unravel, Caddy begins to see how much fun a little trouble can be.

Fierce Fragile Hearts is the stunning companion novel to Sara Barnard's YA bestseller Beautiful Broken Things. It is about leaving the past behind, the friends who form your future and learning to find love in all its forms. Two years after a downward spiral took her as low as you can possibly go, Suzanne is starting again. Again. She's back in Brighton, the only place she felt she belonged, back with her best friends Caddy and Rosie. But they're about to leave for university.

In the final part of this thrilling trilogy, Maggie Blue finds herself in the Dark World alone and marooned with a strange and unknown baby that refuses to be parted from her. The world has become dominated by climate disasters, wars are breaking out around them between the surviving people and the witches. Maggie has a single quest she must fulfil, but at what cost—to her and her friends, Hoagy, the irascible talking cat, Joan and Ida, Oz and the umons, who are desperate to save her?

Harper can't wait for her second year of Spectacular training, where a song can send you on a rollercoaster, a dance can lift you into the air, and you can send notes to your friends via a mechanical dragon.

Flick is a magician out of tricks. Every attempt to find her father has so far failed. Now the police have accused him of stealing the Crown Jewels—and they want Flick's help to work out how he did it. Flick and her best friend, Charlie, travel to Cornwall, where they believe her father may be hiding in an abandoned museum of magic. There they find master illusionist the Great Fox, also hot on the trail. But something else is hidden at the heart of the museum—the Bell System, the most dangerous magic trick the world has ever seen.

This is a must-listen for Christmas and animal lovers. A play on the Christmas classic 'A Christmas Carol', meet Ben, The Chatchits and Marley the cat on this festive adventure.

Clemmie absorbed all of her ancestor's ancient power from her coven's tapestry. But being the only witch full of stars is tough. As the only young hag of both the Merlyn and Morgan covens with any power, Clemmie decides to keep her magic a secret. She tries to dodge her clamouring family to focus on finding out what's really happening to her. After months of struggling, Clemmie is suddenly full of power. Just when she doesn't want it.

Nina has the most magical job in the world, matching customers with their perfect Christmas tree. Working at Christmas Tree Farm is always fun and full of laughter but the weight of past tragedy bears down on her. Her admirer is a great distraction, but is he the right man for her? Holly is just trying to be a normal teenager, having to deal with the mean girls in her class. But then the most handsome boy at school takes an interest in her. Have all her Christmases come at once?

Talking to your teenager shouldn't be hard, but sometimes it's the most difficult thing in the world. Healthy, open, non-judgemental conversations with young people can be - literally - life-saving. From minor matters (tidiness, homework, sleep) to big and important ones (relationships, mental ill health, drugs and alcohol), teenagers and their parents often struggle to talk to each other. A well-timed conversation, a listening ear, a non-judgemental and receptive attitude - all these can make an enormous and lasting impact on how safely and happily a teenager navigates this crucial stage.

Doggerland was the prosperous and powerful kingdom that connected Britain to Europe eight thousand years ago. But from great beginnings it now lies drowned, lost forever far below the cold waves of the North Sea. Who were the people who lived in Doggerland? And what happened to those who survived the tsunami that caused the kingdom’s disappearance?

Thirteen-year-old Clementine Merlyn lives with her mom, her aunts, and her cousin Mirabelle at Number 15 Pendragon Road. The Merlyns are a family of witches, but because of an ancient falling out with the other branch of the family, the Morgans, they only have powers for a single month of the year: October. And this October may be the one that Clemmie gets her magic. It should be exciting, except that magic is the reason that Mirabelle never talks to her anymore, Aunt Flissie leaves at the end of every September and doesn't come back until November, and Aunt Temmie...well, is long gone.

Eleven-year-old Norah lives in temporary accommodation, relies on foodbanks for dinner, and doesn't have a mum. But she's happy enough, as she has a dad, a pet mouse, a pet spider, and a whole zoo of rescued local wildlife to care for. Eleven-year-old Adam lives with his parents in a nice house with a big garden, a private tutor, and everything he could ever want. But his life isn't perfect. He's recovering from leukaemia, and questioning his dream of becoming a champion swimmer. When a nest of baby birds brings them together, Norah and Adam discover they're not so different after all.

Berlin, 1961. Anja and Monika are best friends–they even share a cat called Otto. When a huge barbed wire fence is built between their apartment blocks, everything changes; their city and family are divided by the Berlin Wall. In the West, Anja is sure it will be taken down, but Monika is afraid. Her world is changing: neighbours keep disappearing, others become spies and shadowy threats lurk around every corner.

Eleven-year-old Bella Bright has just moved into Darkling House in Castleton. On her first day at her new school, she is spotted by a pair of manipulative mean girls, Skylar and Regan. They push her into inviting them to a Halloween sleepover. Another much friendlier girl, Lex, comes to Bella's rescue and offers to join the sleepover to support Bella, who is delighted to be making a real friend. On Halloween night, things start getting spooky for the four girls, when the huge front door appears to shut itself, and their mobile phones lose signal.

No witch is excited about gloomy magic-free November apart from young hag Clemmie who is relieved to finally be done with October's magical mess. But if there's no more magic, then where are all the armour-clad knights coming from? When even their enemy coven, the Morgans, don't have any answers, the Merlyns are on the run. Neither the Morgan or Merlyn covens want to burn so they will have to work together to solve the mystery of where the witch-hunting knights and the all-engulfing flames are coming from. Will Clemmie be able to find her voice in time to save her family?

Princess Katie's greatest wish is to have a kitten of her own to care for. So when she discovers a litter of kittens in the forest, it's a dream come true! Follow Katie and her kittens on five royally fabulous adventures in this brilliant audio collection with kittens Pixie, Bella, Suki, Poppy and Ruby.

Meet the Unreliable Nature Writer: a macabre product of late capitalism, climate anxiety and personal loss. Finding herself alone at a wedding, tailed by an unctuous and infatuated fellow guest, she proceeds to have her fun—plunging us into a potpourri of disturbing, darkly funny visions of a near future. Aloof, evasive and sardonic, she will be our guide; her stories will bare truths about how the world we’re changing so violently might affect us in turn.