Showing results by narrator "Bea Holland" in All Categories

Two years ago, Ben Fenton went camping for the night with his brother Leo. When Ben woke up, he was covered in blood, and his brother had gone. Days later, Ben was facing a charge of murder. Ben's girlfriend Ana has always sworn he was innocent. And now, on the hottest day of a sweltering heat wave, a body has been unearthed in Ana's village. A body that might be connected to what really happened between Ben and Leo that fateful night. 

A horrific car crash in Belize has devastated Helen Pengilly’s family, leaving her daughter in a coma and her husband Michael missing. Alone and terrified, Helen’s memory is dragged back to that day 22 years ago. To protect their family, Helen and Michael both said they would forget what happened. But now it seems that there is someone who will stop at nothing to make them remember.... 

From Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Kernick - the UK's answer to Harlan Coben - come two electrifying novellas and three gripping short stories published in book form for the very first time. Fans of David Baldacci, Stuart MacBride and Peter James will not be disappointed.

London 1949. The lives of three very different women are about to collide. Like most working-class daughters, Caroline Wilby is expected to help support her family. Alone in a strange city, she must grab any opportunity that comes her way. Even if that means putting herself in danger. Star of the silver screen, Ursula Delancy, has just been abandoned by the man she left her husband for. Already hounded by the press, it won’t be long before she’s making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

In a crumbling old mansion in the English countryside, 11 people gather, each one famous in their field. They have been invited for a three-day house party, to celebrate the launch of a groundbreaking virtual reality game that promises to unite the worlds of technology, politics and the environment. DCI Marten Jansen has been summoned to join the house party. His instructions are to offer police protection in case of an outside attack. Instead, he finds simmering tensions, long-buried secrets - and a murderer in their midst.

It is 1937 in a northern mill-town and a class of 12- and 13-year-old girls are writing about their lives, their world and the things that matter to them. They tell of cobbled streets and crowded homes, the Coronation festivities and holidays to Blackpool, laughter and fun alongside poverty and hardship. They are destined for the cotton mill but they dream of being film stars. Class of '37 uses the writing of these young girls, as collected by the research organisation Mass Observation, to rediscover this lost world.

Fern Carlile has a lot on her plate. It's a good thing she loves her big, imperfectly perfect family, because she's the one who washes their pants, de-fleas the dog and runs her own business. A hearty meal is the one thing that brings the Carliles together - but over the course of a year, the various courses also pull them apart. Around the table sits an eight-year-old militant feminist, a pair of teenage accidental parents, and a cantankerous OAP. Fern's husband needs an extra seat for his spectacular midlife crisis.

In the aptly named borough of Foulsham, Grandfather Umbitt Iremonger has found a way of making everyday objects assume human shape, and turning real people into objects. Lucy Pennant has been discarded as a clay button, abandoned in the Heaps. Meanwhile, Clod has been turned into a gold coin and is being passed as currency through the town. Everywhere people are searching for Clod, who, it is believed, has the power to bring the mighty Umbitt down.

Foulsham has been destroyed. Darkness lies heavily over the city; the sun has not come up for days. Inside the houses throughout the capital, ordinary objects have begun to move. There are rumours of a terrible contagion. From the richest mansion to the poorest slum, people have disappeared. The police have been instructed to carry arms. Someone has stolen a certain plug. Someone is lighting a certain box of matches. All will come tumbling down. The Iremongers have come to London.

The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, living in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items. A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destroy Clod's world.

A hilarious, heartwarming listen perfect for fans of Shirley Valentine and You've Got Mail. Could the worst thing that's ever happened to Hannah Pinkman also turn out to be one of the best? She and her husband, Dan, have reached the end of the line. Bored with the same gripes, the same old arguments - in fact, bored with everything - they split up after a trivial row turns into something much more serious. Now Hannah has to make a new life for herself, but that's not easy.

Your wife has lied since the day you met. So has your brother. You love them both, but can you trust them? Twelve years ago, Nick’s brother Rob was caught in a storm out at sea and drowned. His body was never found. When Nick met Susie at his brother’s funeral, he thought it was destiny at play. Then Rob suddenly appears on television. He is a hero. He has brought down a terrorist who opened fire on dozens of restaurant diners. Everyone wants to know who Rob is, but he’s vanished a second time, without a word.