Showing results by narrator "Lucy Rayner" in All Categories

Holly's family move to the old house so her dad can do his job: bulldozing the ancient trees to make way for a housing estate. But there's something haunting the old house. Something old, and angry, that doesn't want the trees cut down. Something alive....

Ellie and Amina are best friends. But when Amina decides to start wearing the hijab, it attracts the attention of the bullies. Now Ellie’s loyalties are being tested. Has Amina changed? Does it matter if best friends have different beliefs? Is she ready to stand up for Amina? A thought-provoking story about friendship, religion and modern life.

Robert: Left on the steps of a church as a baby, Robert was often hungry but never stole food like the other orphans in town. Introverted and extraordinarily intelligent, he knew all the Latin prayers and hymns by heart by the time he was five years old. Georgette: Her own mother died in childbirth, leaving Georgette with a father who, seventeen at the time, had neither experience nor aptitude as a nurturing parent, and a brother known in town as Le Fuer - The Spitfire - for his terrible temper.

Mo hates her new school and her new town. She has no friends and home life is awful. So when a nice-looking guy friends her on Facebook, she’s happy to accept. Darko’s messages keep her going while life just gets worse. Then he invites her to meet him. And Mo decides to take a risk....

Everyone knows that you don’t go into Ma Jessop’s woods. Everyone but new boy Josh. He’s not scared by spooky stories about a wild old witch who drinks human blood. To prove his point to Ella and her friends, Josh goes into the quarry at the heart of the woods and steals a souvenir. But suddenly, terrible things start to happen. Can Ella and Josh find a way to appease Ma Jessop before anyone gets really hurt? Or is the horror only just beginning...

Where is Wendy? Leading a labor strike against the Lost Boys, of course. In Jane Yolen's first full collection in more than 10 years, discover new and uncollected tales of beloved characters, literary legends, and much more. A Scottish academic unearths ancient evil in a fishing village. Edgar Allan Poe's young bride is beguiled by a most unusual bird. Dorothy, lifted from Kansas, returns as a gymnastic sophisticate. Emily Dickinson dwells in possibility and sails away in a starship made of light. Winner of the 2018 World Fantasy Award.

Greta knows two things to be true. The first: Trolls don't venture into the forest, especially during the day. The second: Kings don't save peddlers' daughters from those trolls, and they certainly don't deposit them atop royal horses and personally escort them home. But sometimes, they do. And sometimes afterward, life gets very complicated....  

Our enduring love of vampires - the bad boys (and girls) of paranormal fantasy - has persisted for centuries. Despite being bloodthirsty, heartless killers, vampire stories commonly carry erotic overtones that are missing from other paranormal or horror stories. Even when monstrous teeth are sinking into pale, helpless throats - especially then - vampires are sexy. But why? Author Violet Fenn takes the listener through the history of vampires in "fact" and fiction, their origins in mythology and literature, and their enduring appeal on TV and film. 

This audiobook presents a fundamental reinterpretation of changes to crime control in the age of the new police. It breaks new ground by providing a highly detailed, empirical analysis of everyday crime control in Victorian provincial cities - revealing the tremendous activity that ordinary people displayed in responding to crime - alongside a rich survey of police organization and policing in practice. 

Alice has always been haunted by the women from her husband’s past. As an MP and now a TV personality, George Bell’s reputation as a ladies’ man precedes him. But when Alice falls pregnant, her unease becomes an obsession. And there’s one ex in particular she can’t get out of her head: a beautiful student George dated in his first year, who went missing before they finished university. Ruth. When Alice sees a woman who looks just like Ruth, she can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to her disappearance than George has been telling her.

A terrifying monster of a beast has captured Gervais's lady love, and he will stop at nothing to save his beauty. Posing as a gardener, the brave and strong Gervais attempts to study the beast that he longs to kill. Isabelle Mercier is the only woman he has ever cared for. When he sneaks his way inside the castle, Isabelle refuses to come with him. Could she have fallen for the beast? Is it too late for Gervais to save her?

Kids change your life, they said. Things will never be the same again, they said. Isn't it wonderful, they said. But no one knows what to say now. My husband wants to take the kids. My husband thinks the accident was my fault. My husband thinks I need help. But I think he wants rid of me.

A dark, breathless, beautifully-written gothic thriller of murder, madness and a mysterious island… London, 1894. Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever...

Orla has always been the sidekick, never the hero. Until, that is, she secures a funded place at an elite drama course and puts her own dreams first for once in her life. Suddenly, Orla is center-stage and loving it! But the drama crowd are experienced performers and their parents have shelled out a fortune for them to be on the course. Orla can't help but feel left out—she has to earn her pocket money and her responsibilities at home can't just be ignored.

In 1940s Italy, Ottie’s life is defined by family loyalty and the demands of her domineering father. Sent to work in a British munitions factory near Positano, she finds herself drawn to Hal, a soldier grappling with the horrors of war. As their forbidden love grows, Ottie is forced to confront the expectations of her family and the brutal realities of a country at war.

Epic poetry and tragic drama provide us with some of the richest ancient Greek depictions of women who are married to soldiers. In tales of the Trojan War, as told by Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, we encounter these mythical warriors' wives: Penelope, isolated but resourceful as she awaits the return of Odysseus after his lengthy absence; the war widow Andromache, enslaved and displaced from her homeland after the fall of Troy; the unfaithful and murderous Clytemnestra; and Tecmessa, a war captive who witnesses her partner's breakdown and suicide in the aftermath of battle. 

Ryszard loves Saxonia and desires to save the kingdom from the evil king. The miller's daughter, Galiana Mueller, agrees to help expose the king's terrible, selfish ways. As Ryszard spins gold for her to tempt the king with, he cannot help falling in love with her himself. The king soon demands Galiana's hand, wishing for more straw-spun-gold, more wealth, and more power. As he becomes corrupt entirely, Ryszard must utilize a power stronger than his magic, that of love or perhaps hope.

The kingdom knows their princess as Snow White, but the Queen Francesia, her stepmother, sees her for what she truly is, a monster. None other than the queen can see beyond the illusion of beauty. None see that she appears to be bone and ashes. No one else realizes that the child drinks blood and even kills. As the child grows, so does her thirst. Francesia knows she must stop Bone Ash, lest the princess devastate the entire realm. One will be the harbinger of the other's death, but who will survive?

Considered to be one of Virginia Woolf's most popular novels, Mrs. Dalloway follows one high-society woman as she goes about her day planning a splendid party for her acquaintances. As she goes about her day, she ponders on the life she could be living had she not married the reliable Richard Dalloway and instead sought the enigmatic Peter Walsh. At one point, she muses on the fact that she had not the option to be with a close female friend of hers. The novel then takes a turn to follow Septimus Smith, First World War veteran plagued with deferred traumatic stress.

When Mab and Nessa's mother died and their father disappeared to New Zealand, their lives changed forever. But the loss of their parents wasn’t the only thing that cast a shadow over their childhood… Twenty years later, when Mab and Nessa receive the news of their estranged father’s death, it stirs up a storm of long-buried memories and emotions.