Showing results by narrator "Aoife McMahon" in All Categories

Ireland, 1011 AD. The mortal kingdoms rise up against High King Brian Boru as they seek to wrest his crown from him. Yet the real struggle is between the two magical races of Ireland, the Fomorians and the Descendants, eternal enemies who both now seek dominion over the mortal world. Gormflaith, queen of King Brian, remains unmasked as the powerful Fomorian she is. Gormflaith plans to establish control over Ireland and destroy the Descendants in one fell swoop... but she cannot do it alone.

In a small town where everyone knows everyone, Emma O'Donovan is different. She is the special one - beautiful, popular, powerful. And she works hard to keep it that way. Until that night.... Now she's an embarrassment. Now she's just a slut. Now she is nothing. And those pictures - those pictures that everyone has seen - mean she can never forget. For fans of Caitlin Moran, Marian Keyes and Jodi Picoult. The award-winning, best-selling novel about the life-shattering impact of sexual assault, rape and how victims are treated.

Hare's Landing, West Cork. A house full of mystery.... Rachel Lambert leaves London afraid for her personal safety and determined to uncover the truth behind the sudden death of a homeless man with links to a country house hotel called Hare's Landing. New York-based crime reporter Caroline Kelly's career is threatened by a lawsuit, and she needs some thinking space away from her job. But almost as soon as she arrives, Hare's Landing begins to reveal its own stories - a 30-year-old missing-person's case and the mysterious death of the hotel's former owner.

Maud Drennan - underpaid carer and unintentional psychic - is the latest in a long line of dogsbodies for the ancient, belligerent Cathal Flood. Yet despite her best efforts, Maud is drawn into the mysteries concealed in his filthy, once-grand home. She realises that Cathal, and the junk-filled rooms, are opening up to her. With only her landlady and a troop of sarcastic ghostly saints to help, Maud must uncover what lies beneath Cathal's decades-old hostility and the strange activities of the house itself.

The simple fact of the matter is that Iris loves life. Maybe she’s forgotten that. Sometimes that happens, doesn’t it? To the best of us? All I have to do is remind her of that one simple fact. Monday morning starts like any other – until Terry discovers her best friend Iris has gone missing. Finding her takes Terry, Iris and Terry’s confused father Eugene, into an extraordinary journey – one that will change all of their lives.

Dublin 1966. When Joan Quinn, a factory girl from the Cranmore Estate, marries Martin Egan, it looks like her dreams have come true. But all is not as it seems. Joan lives in the shadow of a secret—the couple's decision to give up their first daughter for adoption only months before. For the next three decades, Joan's marriage and her relationship with her second child Carmel suffer as a consequence. Then one day in 1996, a letter arrives from their adopted daughter.

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s too kindhearted to collect his debts. They face poverty until Miryem hardens her own heart and takes up his work in their village. Her success creates rumours she can turn silver into gold, which attract the fairy king of winter himself. He sets her an impossible challenge - and if she fails, she’ll die. Yet if she triumphs, it may mean a fate worse than death. And in her desperate efforts to succeed, Miryem unwittingly spins a web which draws in the unhappy daughter of a lord.

An enchanting and nostalgic tale of Ireland in the 1950s by Ireland’s favourite writer, Alice Taylor. The Phelans have owned Mossgrove for generations. The small, rural Irish farm has been the pride of them all until Ned's wife, Martha, arrives and begins to undermine generations of hard work and happiness. She resents the deep history of the place and sets about making it her own, shutting out what is left of Ned's family. She is particularly jealous of Ned's sister, Kate, a local nurse and doting aunt to Martha's children.

Sent away to convent school at the age of six, Irini McGuire has never really known her celebrated archaeologist mother, Bridget, who lives on the paradise island of Santorini. So, when Irini receives news that Bridget has been injured at a dig and is in coma she knows it is time to return to the island of her birth. Discovering her mother's notes, and driven by rumours that her mother's injury was no accident, Irini starts to reveal the dark secrets behind her family's separation. Can she unearth the truth about her parents and her past before it is too late?

Delphie is enjoying her brother's wedding. Her surprise last-minute Plus One has stunned her family - and it's also stopped any of them asking again why she's still single. But when she sees all the missed calls that evening, she knows it can't be good news. And she's right.

Life is good for university friends Sarah, Ruth, Charlotte and Kathy - it's summer, exams are over and they're escaping to a cabin by the Blue Pool. But then Sarah disappears without a trace. Twenty-five years later, a man walks into a police station claiming to know something about the missing girl. Suddenly the three women - now estranged - all become suspects. For not everything was as it seemed, and the greater the secret, the deeper it lies....

As temperatures soar across Europe during the hottest summer for 40 years, a series of hoax terrorist attacks is generating panic in London. Then a bus blows up on Oxford Street, and the hoaxes have suddenly become real. Student Brioni O’Brien has been desperately trying to contact her older sister since she unexpectedly returned early from travelling, so when Marissa’s bag is found near the site of the explosion, she fears the worst.

Tess Morgan has finally made her dream of restoring beautiful Kilfenora House and Gardens into a reality. But during rehearsals for the play that forms the opening weekend's flagship event, her dream turns into a nightmare as those around her begin to fall victim to terrible accidents. Could someone be closing in on Tess herself? Clarissa Westmacott, ex star of stage and screen, certainly believes so, particularly when she learns that purple-flowered aconite has been picked from the Poison Garden.

When Louisa arrives at Temple House, an elite catholic boarding school, she quickly finds herself drawn to sophisticated fellow pupil Victoria and their young bohemian art teacher, Mr Lavelle. The three of them form a bond that seems to offer an escape from the repressive regime of the nuns who run the cloistered school. Until Louisa and Mr Lavelle suddenly vanish. Years later, a journalist with a childhood connection to Louisa determines to resolve the mystery.

DS Katie Maguire is one of Ireland's best detectives. There's no mystery she can't crack with her killer instinct and hunger for justice. Until now...

Fans of Abi Elphinstone and Katherine Rundell will adore this fantasy adventure trilogy about witches and forbidden magic from a beloved and award-winning Irish writer. In the second book in The Wild Magic Trilogy, the queen and her raggedy witches have fled, but the kingdom is not yet healed. The castle is haunted by memories of its brutal past. The ghosts are angry, and one of them in particular possesses a magic which may be too much for even Mup and Mam to handle.

Laura lives an isolated life with her father, alone in a castle in the Austrian wilderness. When the mysterious Carmilla, a strange and beautiful lady, arrives in the night, no one suspects the supernatural occurrences that follow. But still more unsuspected is the tempestuous romance that blooms between the two young women, and Carmilla’s nightmarish secret. Written 26 years before Stoker’s "Dracula", Carmilla is the original vampire novel. Sheridan Le Fanu combines a chilling Gothic atmosphere with horrifying episodes, boldly exploring the sexual desires of his heroines, and establishing the image of the female vampire.

Ava, newly arrived in Hong Kong from Dublin, spends her days teaching English to rich children. Julian is a banker. A banker who likes to spend money on Ava, to have sex and discuss fluctuating currencies with her. But when she asks whether he loves her, he cannot say more than 'I like you a great deal'. Enter Edith, a lawyer. Refreshingly enthusiastic and unapologetically earnest, Edith takes Ava to the theatre when Julian leaves Hong Kong for work. Quickly, she becomes something Ava looks forward to. And then Julian writes to tell Ava he is coming back to Hong Kong....

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume One is a continent-hopping, century-spanning collection of 10 of the greatest classic novels ever written, from British, Irish, American, and German authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Joanne Froggatt, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Keeble, David Rintoul, and many more.

Lorna Byrne says we all see angels when we are young children but are gradually conditioned to screen them out. Here, for the first time, she has written stories, inspired by real life, of seven children whose lives were transformed and made better by their interaction with their guardian angels. Among these, there is a story of a little girl called Suzy, paralysed from birth and unable to play with other children.