Showing results by narrator "Daphne Kouma" in All Categories

The new arrivals are checking in to the Ionian Escape hotel on the sun-soaked island of Kefalonia, and they're all hoping for a complete break from their everyday lives. But some of them are bringing quite a lot of baggage . . .

After twenty-four years on the throne, it is time for Bersun the Brusque, emperor of Orrun, to bring his reign to an end. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders will compete to replace him. Trained at rival monasteries, each contender is inspired by a sacred animal - Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, and Hound. An eighth - the Dragon proxy - will be revealed only once the trials have begun. Eight exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists - the best of the best.

In a beautiful old apartment block, deep in the backstreets of Paris, secrets are stirring behind every resident’s door. The lonely wife. The party animal. The curtain-twitcher. The secret lover. The watchful caretaker. The unwanted guest. There was a murder here last night. Who holds the key to the mystery of apartment three?

Renowned gamester and the first to admit that he is entirely void of a romantic disposition, Max Ravenscar regards all eligible females with indifference and unconcern. But when he meets the woman his young cousin Adrian is bent on marrying - the beautiful Deborah Grantham, mistress of her aunt's gaming house - he finds that none of his experience in risk and gambling has prepared him for such a worthy opponent.

While on a walking holiday through the beautiful, deserted hills of Crete, Nicola Ferris stumbles across a critically injured Englishman, guarded by a fierce Greek. Nicola cannot abandon them and so sets off on a perilous search for their lost companion - all the while being pursued by someone who wants to make sure none of them leave the island....

Cressida’s hopes for a relaxing journey are dashed when a gunshot resounds through the carriages. Industrial tycoon Lewis Warriner has been shot dead in his cabin. And as this train has been racing through the countryside, the culprit must be among Cressy’s fellow passengers. Teaming up with Detective Andrews of Scotland Yard, also on his way back to London, they work their way through the suspects. Did Warriner’s mistress, a famous dancer, see his death as her ticket on to the silver screen? Or was it the mysterious man who can’t take his eyes off Lewis’s close companion?

Christmas Eve, 1925. The Honourable Cressida Fawcett is delighted to attend an exclusive ball at London’s glamorous Mayfair Hotel. When she steps out into the moonlit courtyard with her little pug Ruby wrapped in her furs, she is thrilled to see a dashing man propose to her best pal under the swirling snowflakes. But instead of squealing ‘yes’, Dotty lets out a terrified scream… Because floating in the fountain, with her long blonde hair rippling in the ice-cold water, is the body of their dear friend Lady Victoria Beaumont.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic and chilli peppers, creeping honeysuckle, and in the centre, growing through a cavity in the roof, a fig tree. The fig tree witnesses their hushed, happy meetings; their silent, surreptitious departures. The fig tree is there, too, when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, when the teenagers vanish.

Cressida Fawcett is heading to the English countryside for a weekend of cocktails and partying at her friend’s glamorous mansion, the location of a recent diamond heist. But just hours after her arrival, Cressida is woken by an almighty scream. Rushing to the landing, she looks down into the great hall to find a trembling maid standing next to the body of Harry, the friendly young chandelier cleaner. Everyone believes Harry’s death was an accident. But as Cressida examines the opulent hall and the beautiful grounds, she thinks something darker is afoot.

1926, Sussex. The Honourable Cressida Fawcett is delighted to return to her parents’ rambling mansion to introduce them to her pug Ruby’s puppies. But when the pups go running off with Cressida in hot pursuit, they lead her to a bubbling stream – Hell’s Ditch. And the body of Bob the gardener is floating there, his outstretched hand clutching a soggy cheese and pickle sandwich.

Elodie Fray wants to be more like her perfect sister, Ada, the one her parents are actually proud of. When she decided to quit her job and pursue her dream of becoming an author, she thought it would be her time to shine, but a year on nothing has happened. And she's getting desperate. When Elodie makes one small mistake on a drunken night with a friend, things quickly spiral and suddenly everyone believes she has a book deal. Unable to find a way back from her little lie, her perfect dream becomes a perfect nightmare - and desperate times call for desperate measures.

On the night when Caitlin and Olivia's parents leave them to go to a dinner party both girls are full of excitement about being old enough to stay home alone. What they don't see is the figure watching them through the open window. Who, after the girls have fallen asleep, will turn the handle of the unlocked back door. When their parents return, they will find Olivia's bed empty. Their eldest daughter gone. Never to return. Until now. But is the woman who claims to be Olivia really all she seems? And is everything Caitlin said she saw that night really the whole truth?

Eline is a mother, a wife, and a survivor. But her life is about to change dramatically. Following an act of horrific - if righteous - vengeance, Eline is blackmailed into the service of the Queen's Men. She knows it will be a hard life of violence and fear. But Eline will do what it takes to survive, and to protect her children . . . and if she's lucky, she won't die in the process.

Paris, 1940. Clutching a delicate silver dove-shaped brooch–the last gift from her beloved Otto, with a message of love engraved in the back–Lally flees her home in Paris. With her closest friend by her side, she dodges the Nazi gunfire echoing all around the city streets. But as they become more and more desperate during the darkest days Europe has ever known, one must make a terrible sacrifice for them both to survive…

Paris, 1941: Going against her mother’s orders, spirited Maggie devotes herself to the Resistance. Her life is a whirlwind of forged passports and secret midnight runs, helping Jews escape. Much to her high-society mother’s disapproval, she has fallen in love with Emil, a Jewish Resistance fighter who is wanted by the Nazis.

When Cressida Fawcett is invited to stay at Penbeagle House on the Cornish coast for a fancy-dress ball, she is looking forward to sipping rum cocktails clad as a pirate, watching the red-sailed boats go by, and relaxing in the sea air with her good friend Dotty. But before they can raise their glasses to toast Cressida’s former flame Lord Canterbury’s engagement, he drops dead in front of the horrified guests.

Everyone knew influencer Joy Maddison. Millions followed her perfect life online, envying her loving husband, adorable kids, and stunning home. Until the night Joy vanished without a trace. Five years later, Joy's dramatic reappearance sends shockwaves through the people she left behind. Unraveling the tangled truth about what happened to her will force Joy to confront a devastating secret from her past — a secret someone is determined to keep buried at all costs.

Even before they were transformed into Gorgons, Medusa and her sisters Stheno and Euryale were unique among immortals. Curious about mortals and their lives, Medusa and her sisters entered the human world in search of a place to belong, yet quickly found themselves at the perilous center of a dangerous Olympian rivalry and learned – too late – that a god's love is a violent one. Forgotten by history and diminished by poets, the other two Gorgons have never been more than horrifying hags, damned and doomed.

In this spellbinding new collection, Charlotte Higgins reinterprets some of the most enduring stories of all time. Here are myths of the creation, of Heracles and Theseus and Perseus, the Trojan war and its origins and aftermaths, tales of Thebes and Argos and Athens. There are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures, resourceful witches and the origins of birds and animals.

Cleopatra: the beguiling, legendary Pharoah and Queen of Egypt - the arch seducer who used her beauty to grasp for ever more power. But with her character only ever recorded by men who despised her, how can we be sure this was the real story? From the lauded author of Fair Rosaline: a powerful, unmissable untelling, unravelling Shakespeare's Roman plays to draw out the woman behind the myth.