Showing results by narrator "Ciaran Saward" in All Categories

What’s it like to live forever? Alicia is about to find out... Just because you don’t grow old, it doesn't mean you won’t die a violent death at the hands of your broodmates. Or the Queen who laid your egg. From the moment she hatches in the Derwent Sídhe, Alicia is fighting. For her life. To gain position. To become an adult. And then, the moment she drops her wings and emerges, the fun really starts.

Run. Don’t look back. When a young teenager is stabbed to death at a busy fairground, Detective Mark Turpin is assigned the task of finding the boy’s killer. But this was no random murder. Mark knows the victim, and the man who ordered his death. As he sifts through the young victim’s final days, he uncovers a powerful crime syndicate that will do anything to protect its interests. Then tragedy strikes, and suddenly Mark isn’t just trying to solve a murder–he’s fighting for his own survival.

Seth Beauman can’t sleep. He stays up late, calling strangers from his phone book, hoping to make a connection, while his wife, Maeve, sleeps upstairs. A crossed wire finds a suicidal Hadley Serf on the phone to Seth, thinking she is talking to The Samaritans. But a seemingly harmless late-night hobby turns into something more for Seth and for Hadley, and soon their late-night talks are turning into daytime meet-ups. And then this dysfunctional love story turns into something altogether darker when Seth brings Hadley home.... And someone is watching....

The last time Conrad was unemployed, he got a visit from the Allfather. Look where that got him.... And now the Gnomes of Lakeland want him to be the new Commissioner. A simple job: Sort out the Assessors and put the Grand Union on a stable footing. They’re even willing to pay for an assistant to help him with the difficult magick stuff. What could possibly go wrong?

Conrad Clarke is about to get married. Could life get any better for the Lord Guardian of the North? The Codex Defanatus is sealed away, peace has been cemented in the Lakeland Particular and as far as he knows, no one is out to get him. Time to relax....If only.

Conrad and Mina take a time-out from trouble in Spain. It’s their own little Garden of Eden, until a Tarot reader tells him that his troubles have barely begun. Expelled from Paradise, Conrad and the team have to chase the trail of a new source of Alchemical Gold. A source that already has Dwarves, Gnomes, and human Mages at each other’s throats.

Torwyn burns as Sanctan Egelrath tightens his grip on power. The Draconate Ministry has gathered its forces, determined to eradicate the Guilds, but Rosomon Hawkspur still stands in their way. Her only hope could lay with Lancelin Jagdor, sent to gather allies in their struggle against the usurper. Can even the greatest warrior in Torwyn hope to succeed with so many adversaries determined to stop him? Tyreta returns home with newfound strength and mysterious sorcerous abilities, only to discover it is not the land she left behind.

Conrad needs a rest. The universe has other ideas. He had planned the perfect weekend in the English Lake District - tie up some loose ends before spending the night with his girlfriend. Simple. What could possibly go wrong? Everything is the answer. An innocent man is murdered to cover up magickal misdeeds, and before they can draw breath, Conrad and his partner in magickal crime-fighting, Vicky Robson, are on the trail of a mage who hides behind dark magick to kill at a distance.

The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl Schlögel, one of the world's leading historians of the Soviet Union, presents a spellbinding epic that brings to life the everyday world of a unique lost civilization. A museum of—and travel guide to—the Soviet past, The Soviet Century explores in evocative detail both the largest and smallest aspects of life in the USSR.

Mina’s Bollywood extravaganza is a huge hit–especially when a surprise celebrity makes a dramatic entrance. While everyone queues for a selfie, Conrad is wondering why a Fae Princess has descended on him. It turns out she has a problem, and her problem is about to become Conrad’s problem: amidst the dark Satanic mills of Lancashire, something is attacking the Fae.

Emily dreams of one day owning a house where her son, Josh, and the little one on the way can grow up, but when her husband, Aidan, insists on leaving his lucrative job as a luxury car salesman, she senses something more is afoot - even while she harbours a secret of her own. What is Aidan hiding, and will it jeopardize their young family’s future?

For generations, treasure hunters have targeted a rundown mansion in the Scottish Highlands, intent on plundering its hidden riches. When the Adventurers arrive for Uncle Logan’s surprise wedding just days away, the clock is ticking to unravel Hideaway’s ancient secrets and save the estate from ruin.

We are entering a new technological age in which artificial intelligence and immersive media will transform society at all levels. If managed well, this could unleash a new age of abundance. If managed poorly, this technological revolution could easily go astray, deeply compromising our privacy, autonomy, agency, and even our humanity. In Our Next Reality, two industry veterans provide a data-driven debate on whether the new world we're creating will be a technological utopia or an AI-powered dystopia and gives guidance on how to aim for the best future we can.

When auctioneer Felicia Grant’s best friend, Stamford Mayor Cassandra Lane, talked her into helping with the town’s annual Georgian Fair, she expected the worst she’d have to endure was the corset. But when the fair’s headline speaker turns up dead in the hook-a-duck pool, and more murders follow in quick succession, she finds herself investigating a serial killer for the second time in less than a year – and this time the stakes are even higher.

In Clerkswell, the great and the good assemble for a Samhain party. In Manchester, mages prepare for the Warden Hustings. But on a tree in the Furness Peninsula hangs the body of a man. Someone thinks they have settled a score, but all they’ve done is start a feud. A storm is brewing, and Conrad has to stop it turning into all-out war. Fate has dealt him a difficult hand—another new partner, the implacable opposition of the Lakeland Mages, and having to shield the members of his non-magickal team. So Conrad does what he does best: grits his teeth and rides into the storm.

Britannia - AD 60. When her husband dies, Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, expects Rome to enter into a new power-sharing agreement with her people. However, when Rome reneges on the agreement and her daughters are raped by Roman soldiers, Boudicca raises an army to fight back against the occupation. The Britannic tribes rise up and join her in a campaign against their oppressors, and soon her enormous army is sweeping across Britannia in an unstoppable campaign of brutality.

Britannia 43AD. The last unconquered stronghold of the Celts and a land of gold and slaves. A dangerous place of men without fear, led by mystical Druid warriors, yet still to face the might of Rome in the unrelenting expansion of the empire. Four Roman legions have assembled in Gaul undertaking final preparations for the invasion of Britannia. Two young men are posted to a training cohort under the sadistic tutorage of a battle scarred veteran, Remus. The training is brutal, but eventually the trainees find themselves involved in their first campaign. The invasion of Britannia.

50 AD. The invasion is over, and Roman Legions spread throughout the land, a blood red stain on Britannia. Caratacus has fled south to rebuild his army, and warriors flock to his banner. In the north, a disgraced legionary grasps the chance to regain his honour and joins the Exploratores, the elite Roman unit operating behind enemy lines. Soon he is tasked with disrupting the plans of Caratacus, but deep inside he nurtures a deeper mission, the chance to fulfill an oath made six years earlier.

Find out what Conrad (and especially Vicky) get up to when they’re not cracking the big cases in this collection of novellas from Mark Hayden’s King’s Watch universe: Byways, the less travelled roads of magick.

A mysterious curse has stricken Kexley Castle for generations ever since Egyptian treasure was transported to Cornwall by a 19th Century explorer. Can four young adventurers reveal the secrets that have been hidden for over a hundred years? Join Lara, Rufus, Tom, and Barney in their first exciting adventure together as they unravel the mystery and race to find Captain Jack Kexley’s hiding place.