Showing results by narrator "Charlie Sanderson" in All Categories

After a summer of meeting handsome French boys and getting a tiny bit sunburnt. OK, fine - a lot sunburnt, Lottie's heading off on a week-long residential school trip. A whole week away from embarrassing parents and Toby's tasty air biscuits! But the trip soon turns into a total disaster. The other girls staying at the camp are MEGA-MEAN, best friend Jess is spending all her time with new girl Isha, and Lottie's diary gets stolen! Who knew a school trip could cause so much DRAMA?!

Lottie Brooks is back for spring term at secondary school and ready to face anything. No more trying to impress mean girl Amber. And absolutely no more being nicknamed Cucumber Girl. A lead role in the spring musical gives Lottie a chance to dazzle her mega-crush Daniel with her talent as a singing crab but it's not all singing and dancing at Kingswood High. Lottie's friendship with Molly and Jess seems to be falling apart no matter how hard she tries to keep her BFFs together.

Daniel and Lottie finally have their first date. A trip to a fancy gelato in Brighton. But how do you eat ice-cream in front of your crush and is Lottie ready for her first kiss? I mean he's nice and all but boys are still a bit gross, right? The school holidays are looming, and with Lottie off camping to France for two weeks and Daniel spending most of the summer on a fancy Greek island, it looks as if the young lovebirds will be cruelly ripped apart. But then Lottie makes friends with a French boy called Antoine.

Lottie Brooks is 11 ¾, and her life is already officially over - not only is she about to start high school without any friends or glamorous swooshy hair, she's just discovered she's too flat-chested to wear a bra! She might as well give up now and go into hibernation with her hamsters Sir Barnaby Squeakington and Fuzzball the Third.

Just when Lottie thought life might be going back to normal, everything goes wrong again! Amber’s hanging out with the Ultra Mean Girl Gang at school and is completely ignoring the Queens of Eight Green. Mum’s gone back to work and expects Lottie to ‘help around the house more’, Bella keeps biting everyone and Pot Noodle will not stop sniffing every dog’s bum. DISASTER!

On her own wedding night, beautiful and complicated Evie White leaps off a cliff to her death. What drove her to commit this terrible act? It's left to her best friend and her husband to unravel the sinister mystery. Following a twisted trail of clues leading to Evie's darkest secrets, they begin to realize they never knew the real Evie at all.

Bronte Mettlestone's parents ran away to have adventures when she was a baby, leaving her to be raised by her aunt Isabelle and the Butler. She's had a perfectly pleasant childhood of afternoon teas and riding lessons - and no adventures, thank you very much. But Bronte's parents have left extremely detailed (and bossy) instructions for Bronte in their will. The instructions must be followed to the letter, or disaster will befall Bronte's home. She is to travel the kingdoms and empires, perfectly alone, delivering special gifts to her 10 other aunts.

At long last Lottie and Daniel are an official couple and everything seems to be going super well (except for Amber being increasingly mean and jealous, but what's new there?). Amber decides it's ludicrous that Lottie has a boyfriend and she doesn't so she decides to hand out applications forms at school and audition the most eligible Bachelors for the role. Jess also decides to reveal to the rest of the group that she might be gay, and that she might also have a crush on someone at school.

Barbara was 12 when she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital Aston Hall in 1971. From a troubled home, she'd hoped she would find sanctuary there. But during her stay, Barbara was systematically drugged and abused by its head physician, Dr Kenneth Milner. Somehow, eventually, she started to campaign for answers. This is a shocking account of how vulnerable children were preyed upon by the doctor entrusted with their care.

Christmas is complete chaos this year! The whole Brooks family are visiting for the festive break, there's a Secret Santa to organise AND Lottie has to prepare for her big performance in the Christmas play as the back-end of a reindeer. Will she survive the festivities intact?

Widow Dilly Carey has struggled out of poverty to make a life for herself. Dilly should be content, but she is troubled by the one secret she must never share: the true parentage of her daughter, Olivia, whom Dilly gave away at birth. It's time for Dilly to make her peace with the choice that she was forced to make, but will she also find a way to a new happiness - and a new love?

As the much doted-on daughter of the local doctor Violet Stroud had a comfortable, happy childhood - despite a distinct lack of love from her cold-hearted mother. But when her father unexpectedly dies, Violet's life is turned upside down. As secrets about the family come to light, Violet finds herself homeless and with no one to turn to apart from Edie, the family's gentle and loving housekeeper.

When little orphan Annie finds herself liberated from the workhouse and taken to a smart home on Swan Lane, she thinks her fortunes might finally be turning around. While grateful to the Lilburn family, she soon realises they have problems of their own. Grieving the loss of their young daughter a number of years earlier, Maggie Lilburn adopted two children from the workhouse: a newborn baby, who she thought would be the answer to her family's woes, and Annie.

The next magical and brilliantly funny instalment in the House at the Edge of Magic series. Nine and her friends have cured the house's hiccups and are off to the strange and utterly unpredictable Back of Beyond in search of Professor Dish – Spoon's best friend and partner in all things alchemy....

Gracie Thompson has a job, a loving family, a twin brother who drives her insane and a great friend. A chance meeting introduces her to the love of her life. But the storm clouds are gathering, Europe is teetering on the verge of war and threatening to destroy everything Gracie holds dear. When war arrives her family are split up, her younger siblings evacuated, her brothers join up to serve, her boyfriend, Charlie, is in daily danger and her life is threatened.

Nine and her friends have broken the curse on their marvelous, magical House, and are free to travel the worlds once more! Their first stop: The Wizarding Hopscotch Championships. There's only one problem: the House is nervous about traveling—and gets the hiccups! Bouncing from world to world with every "HIC!", they finally land at the championships, only for Flabberghast to have an unfortunate run-in with square number seven, and find himself faced with the terrible Tower at the End of Time.

Growing up in extreme poverty in London, Pearl thinks life can get no worse. But when her parents discover there's yet another baby on the way, they have to tighten the belt even further. Pearl's mother decides to send her and her younger sister, Eliza, to the workhouse, where they are forced into a new life of hardship and struggle.

Hidden in the depths of 18th-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious 12-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Lily Moon, the local miner's daughter, spends her days as a parlour maid for Lord and Lady Bellingham at Oakley Manor, on the outskirts of Nuneaton. She's always been happy with her lot in life, and never expected more. But one day, everything changes when she temporarily becomes lady's maid to the Bellingham's daughter, Arabella, who is pregnant with the illegitimate child of her lover, and about to be unhappily married off to a man double her age.

Anthony Shackleford had long been acquainted with the word duty. Indeed, since the moment he could walk, it had been drummed into him every Friday between the hours of two and four in the afternoon, accompanied by tea and apple cake. His mother had always been especially partial to apple cake. The essence of his obligation was this. The Duke of Blackmore could not be expected to keep his in-laws into their twilight years. Despite the fact that his sisters had all made extremely advantageous marriages, as the only son, it was his job to ensure his parents a comfortable dotage.