Showing results by narrator "Sophie Aldred" in All Categories

Step inside Marietta’s Magic Dress Shop! There are hundreds of beautiful dresses in every colour of the rainbow, sewn with magic thread. Take a look, try one on and wait for the magic to whisk you away... Ava is looking for her cat when she finds Marietta’s mysterious shop. She tries on a perfectly-fitting gold and emerald princess dress and whizzes through a secret mirror - to fairyland! Will she get there in time to be a bridesmaid at Cinderella’s wedding?

Here are two of a series of stories about the riotous children who live in Paradise House.

Rae's dad has found Riff Raff Ltd some work at an Elizabethan fayre. When Mr Rabble researches the costume of the period, he discovers that his skinny calves won't be up to it, so he devises a calf-enhancer, with hilarious results.

Lizzie, Max and Dan have never liked their neighbours, the Potwards, so when it appears that Lizzie's magic potion may have made them move house the children are delighted. Their glee, however is short-lived as they worry about who will move in.

Step inside Marietta’s Magic Dress Shop! There are hundreds of beautiful dresses in every colour of the rainbow, sewn with magic thread. Try one on and wait for the magic to whisk you away... Ava has just discovered Marietta’s special shop. Now she can’t wait to try on a twinkling tutu with matching ballet slippers and pirouette back to Victorian times. Once there, she finds she has an important part to play in making a girl’s ballerina dreams come true!

A warm, funny adventure about sticking up for your friends, and the adventures that can be had along the way. When the McIntyre family moves in next door, Eva is intrigued - it is the first interesting thing to happen for ages. But her ever protective Dad - even more protective since Eva's mum died - does not agree. Eva gets to know Jamie McIntyre a bit better, and when he is accused of vandalising the local park, Eva is sure he didn't do it – but she has to prove it…

The death of a nameless traveller on a flight to the volcanic Hedistic islands would seem to have been natural. But when his young friend starts her own murder investigation, she uncovers a plot which threatens the safety of the entire planet....

After 20 years as a struggling variety turn and then a prolific scriptwriter and television star, comic genius Marty Feldman found screen stardom with his very first Hollywood role in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein. With his wife, Lauretta, as the power behind the throne, his rise, fall and decline is relayed through bittersweet memories of the past and intoxicated infidelities in the present.

Life at the Heart of Power is a very personal portrait of life as a woman at the centre of power. As Brexit discussions rail on, Fall offers an intimate account of the preceding seminal political years from the viewpoint of the ‘staffer’ rather than the more traditional memoirs of the ‘principals’- David Cameron and George Osborne whom she worked alongside. Fall takes us through 11 years of the Cameron project. From its inception and battle to win the soul of the Conservative party, through to life at No 10 during the coalition years.

Smith makes her final call and hears two final adventures involving the East Finchley Satanic League and an incredible portrait heist from the National Gallery. These sensational stories are interrupted by an unexpected visitor. Smith tries to persuade the Brigadier she is simply a publisher after his tall stories and has innocently sent a courier. Munchausen is instead convinced it his mortal enemy come for the formula once more.

Things look bleak for the Brigadier as he is sent to the bottom of Davy Jones’ Locker by the merciless hands of Knight Supremacist, St. John Lawrence-Malcaster. He makes bold his escape with the help of some surprising sailors, an old flame and a couple of antique cannon balls. His revenge is swift and he takes on the might of the Fourth Reich with a combination of pluck, will and a new found love of artillery.

The Brigadier is deliberately vague on the circumstances of his recent death and the particular bargain he struck with a certain deity and instead focuses on his time in Canada which, as it turns out, is very much like heaven or hell depending on how you look at it. He brings down the notorious biker gang, Hell’s Loggers, with the help of some wolves but soon finds himself on much more dangerous ground at the hands of the last remaining branch of the Knights Templar who are intent on using Munchausen’s marvelous formula to revive the Master Race.

The brigadier escapes from peril in an ancient Russian forest with the help of an obliging bison. Eurasian mobsters, intent on human sacrifice using the world’s oldest tree, are in pursuit. As his enemies ride after him full-throttle, and with guns blazing, he relays a dizzying array of stories focused on astounding encounters with the animal kingdom. These unlikely anecdotes result in the firm conclusion that the brigadier’s luck is finally about to run out.

Smith’s gentle interrogations continue, and the young brigadier reveals his contribution to the fall of communism through a series of Elton John impersonations. His astonishing achievements don’t stop there. When his accidental discoveries aboard a Swedish science research ship lead to the invention of a secret formula, the world is at his feet. The world kicks back, however, and after a desperate climb up Notre Dame, he finds himself pursued by the police, an old friend and two well-known figures of darkness.

The charismatic and reclusive Brigadier Munchausen is visited, online, by the mysterious Smith. Has he written his pages? Munchausen obliges and reveals some extraordinary incidents from his early life: a boy on the run, a fight with a seven-foot sailor and a romantic affair involving a whale. These extraordinary events all serve to propel our hero into the realisation that he is destined to save the world. But who is Smith, and why has he been sent? Why does the brigadier fear email? And, most of all, what really happened to him in Raqqa?

When Mum gives her the notebook, Scarlet should be happy. It's beautiful, with its shiny scarlet cover and its blank pages full of promise. But Scarlet is absolutely not in the mood for a peace offering. Does Mum really think she can tear their family apart and expect Scarlet to be happy about it? And it's Dad's fault too. Why didn't he fight to keep them all together? Now Scarlet has to start a new life and none of it was her choice.

When Detective Inspector Joe Lazarus storms a Lincolnshire farmhouse, he expects to bring down a notorious drug gang; instead, he discovers his own body and a spirit guide called Daisy-May. She's there to enlist him to the Dying Squad, a spectral police force who solve crimes their flesh and blood counterparts cannot. Lazarus reluctantly accepts and returns to the Lincolnshire Badlands, where he faces dangers from both the living and the dead in his quest to discover the identity of his killer - before they kill again.

For Solstice Shorts 2021 we invited writers to respond to the growing climate crisis. From an exceptionally strong field we chose stories and poems that respond to the floods and droughts and fires all around the globe with tenderness, compassion, fear, grief and rage. Gaia is represented in all ther power and glory, and butterflies and plants sow seeds of hope, while other writers ask:. How do we stop it? How do we survive it? And how do we live beyond the catastrophe on our horizon?

Home alone with her eccentric home-brewing father and a Jack Russell, she is just getting her life back on track when her job at the local museum is threatened by her first love and nemesis, Councillor David Barton, who intends to sell the beautiful old building to a pub chain. But help is at hand from her colleagues: Jackie, a former Greenham Common warrior; Tish, a flamboyant historian; and Carol, mega-flirt. Plus newcomer and former campaigner Tom. Who happens to be a widower. And quite sexy.

Plenty of retirees have hobbies; Gloria's just happens to be murderous . . . An entertaining new crime thriller by the author of Bang Bang, You're Dead. At this stage of her life, Gloria Jones just wants peace, quiet, and as little stress as possible. But her habit of helping others in need is...