Showing results by narrator "Joe Eyre" in All Categories

During a New Year’s Eve party on a large, luxurious cruise ship in the Caribbean, the ship’s dancer, Lola, goes missing. Two weeks later, the ship is out of service, laid up far from land with no more than a skeleton crew on board. And then more people start disappearing....

Human sleep as we know it today evolved hundreds of thousands years ago, to suit a hunter–gatherer lifestyle. It’s not always compatible with our modern lives, but remains an essential function, vital for our health, well-being and daytime functioning. In this groundbreaking new book, Dr Merijn van der Laar investigates the origins of sleep based on archaeological findings and anthropological studies in contemporary hunter-gatherers, looking at the major discrepancies between our primordial bodily needs and our current sleep-inhibiting behaviour.

When Yaz and her dog Herc find a dead man on a bench along the canal with chicken bones lying around him, she immediately calls Louise – and the police. The case is odd: a chicken bone has been forcibly rammed down the victim’s throat, and the last person to see him was their friend – and Pack-mate – Claire. When the police take Claire into custody, the Pack mobilize, determined to find the real killer.

On honeymoon in Bali, you hit it off with another newlywed couple and celebrate your last night at a fancy cliff-side restaurant. No one predicted the evening would end with a dead body. But it was an accident, right? A tragic accident. The honeymoon may be over but it soon becomes clear that there's another side to this story...and your life depends on uncovering it. Many marriages can survive anything – but when it starts on a lie is it really 'til death do us part?

This exciting collection is brimming with adventure and magic! From a pixie painting flowers to the moon falling out of the sky, there's something for everyone in these short stories from Enid Blyton, the world's favourite storyteller. Each story stands alone and is the perfect length for bedtime or in the classroom.

It's the proudest moment of Jack's life – his debut as a professional footballer. Now he has a chance to achieve his dream of playing for his country. But it's 1914 and the world is at war. Talk of sportsmen's cowardice leads to the formation of a Footballers' Battalion and Jack has little choice but to join up. The promise of a Cup in Flanders offers a glimmer of hope, but Jack and his teammates will have to survive a waking nightmare if they are ever to play again.

No other life form on the planet has generated a brain like ours. How did a bundle of cells weighing just 1.2 kg give rise to conscious, self-aware beings capable of understanding time, language, mathematics and music, of exploring outer space and sequencing their own DNA? The answer to such questions is a seven-million-year saga. How the Mind Changed is the definitive audiobook on human brain evolution: a sweeping natural history.

When the body of Kieran Deveney is found on Devil’s Rock, two islanders confess to the killing. Both claim they acted alone, and neither can be convicted while the other stands by their story. The team is relying on CSI Ally Dymond to uncover the evidence that cracks the case. What she finds is a community awash with secrets. Shortly after she arrives, the island is hit by a storm that prevents anyone from leaving. But it’s not the treacherous weather that Ally fears, it’s the people she’s trapped with…

Whoever holds the Egg controls the ancient animals of power: kraken, wyvern, and dragon. Whoever cracks the Egg unleashes these monsters on the world, unrestrained and beyond the control of anyone alive…Three young Torra Altans, Caspar, Brid, and Hal, are closing in on the immemorial hiding place of the Egg. Strange wild beasts that sense their purpose follow close behind. From Yew Wood to Lake of Tears, spices and enemies pursue them. The Mother Goddess has promised that once the Egg is brought to their ancient home in the North, the starving hordes of Vaalakans will be driven back.

The world is currently experiencing the lowest levels of democracy we have seen in over thirty years. Autocracy is on the rise, and while the cost of autocracy seems evident, it nevertheless remains an attractive option to many. While leaders like Viktor Orbán disrupt democratic foundations from within, autocrats like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin do so from abroad, eroding democratic institutions and values and imperilling democracies that appear increasingly fragile.

Zofia's son, Janek, has vanished without a trace. Leaving behind her native Warsaw, she arrives in London, determined to uncover the truth - and she's certain that a celebrated writer called Steve holds the key to Janek's disappearance. To fund her DIY investigation, Zofia takes on a string of cleaning jobs - a professional trajectory she finds very much beneath her. Armed with little more than her stubborn resolve and a second-hand detective manual, Zofia gathers evidence.

Torra Alta is under attack. Threatened by a new ice age, the barbaric tribes of the vast Northern Trunda join forces under the bloody rule of warrior chief Morbak to form the Vaalakan army. As they set out to achieve dominion of the world, only the frontier castle of Torra Alta stands in their way. For a thousand years Torra Alta has stood triumphant and unconquerable, perched on a pillar of rock where dragons once had their lair. As Baron Branwolf prepares his defences, ominous sounds emerge from the labyrinth of dragon-built tunnels beneath the castle.

Caspar travels South into Belbidida with his companions Hal and Brid, straight into the heart of the New Faith, the enemy of Brid’s Goddess. The trio trail Vaalakan spies, seeking out the Druids Eye – the Egg- in all its glory. The Eggs power alone can keep the fortress of Torra Alta safe. But in the land of the Inquisition, all trace of ancient lore has been stamped out, including a sect of mute priestesses known as the Keepers. As the fate of Torra Alta hangs in the balance, Caspar must race to find the Lost Runes the Keepers guarded, or the Eye may never be found …

Magee was given a key to the Baldpate Inn so he might write in solitude, but he soon discovers that he is not the only person with a key. In fact, he is only one of seven! And the other guests, including a young woman who catches Magee’s eye, are all there on a mission to find a mysterious package with a large sum of money.

For most of us, John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon of English literature, a grim puritan, sightlessly dictating his great work to an amanuensis, removed from the real world in his contemplation of higher things. But dig a little deeper and you find an extraordinary and complicated human being. Revolutionary and apologist for regicide, writer of propaganda for Cromwell's regime, defender of the English people and passionate European, scholar and lover of music and the arts - Milton was all of these things and more.

Leonard is an outsider, a 17-year-old uncomfortable in his own skin who is forced to endure a family camping holiday in the South of France. Tired of awkwardly creeping out of beach parties after only a couple of beers, he chooses to spend the final night of the trip in bed. However, when he cannot sleep due to the sound of wild carousing outside his tent, he gets up and goes for a walk. As he wanders among the dunes, he sees Oscar, one of the cooler kids, drunk in a playground, hanging by his neck from the ropes of a swing. Frozen into inaction, he watches Oscar struggle.

Jemma has always loved books. Fiction, non-fiction, the dictionary. She has lived a thousand lives apart from, maybe, her own. Her favourite book is a romance called Too Good to Be True. She’s got a first edition and all the special editions, but it doesn’t stop her from taking it out from the library whenever she can. Except recently someone keeps taking it out too and she’s forever on the waiting list for it. And worse still, one day there is a note from the mystery borrower – scolding her for bending the cover!

In this brilliant work of political satire, Henry Morris presents fourteen years of Conservative (mis)rule in the only form in which such misfortunes could be portrayed: as a Shakespearean play. In five acts that take in five prime ministers, The Tories: A Tragedy is a captivatingly realised Jacobean tragedy, replete with Machiavellian manoeuvrings, hilarious mechanicals and poignant verse.

Orphaned as baby, Pip is raised by his sister to live the simple life of a blacksmith’s boy. But a chance encounter in a graveyard and a visit to a ruined mansion set him on a different path. When a secret benefactor pays for him to become a gentleman, Pip’s life takes a greatly unexpected turn …

Winter 1943. Teenagers Frank, Joseph and Stephen are Royal Navy recruits on their first mission at sea during the Second World War. Their ship is part of an Arctic Convoy sailing to Russia to deliver supplies to the Soviets. The convoys have to navigate treacherous waters, sailing through a narrow channel between the Arctic ice pack and German bases on the Norwegian coast. Faced with terrifying enemy attacks from both air and sea, as well as life-threatening cold and storms, will all three boys make it home again?