Showing results by narrator "Elaine Claxton" in All Categories

An exciting new animal series for children, set in the magical Blossom Wood... Join the Unicorns of Blossom Wood on their many adventures!

A year ago, Gemma met the love of her life, Danny. Since then, their relationship has been perfect. But one evening, Danny doesn’t return home. Gemma turns to the police. She is horrified by what she discovers – a serial killer is on the loose in Bristol. When she sees photos of the victims she is even more stunned...they all look just like Danny. Who would you believe? But the police are suspicious. Why has no one apart from Gemma heard from Danny in weeks?

With nothing but time on her hands, retired nurse Rose Lanyon finds herself drawn to the garden that had once been her husband’s pride and joy.

It may have started as a means of honouring her husband’s memory, but her little Cornish garden soon becomes so much more – a place where the lost and lonely can find solace, the forgotten can be remembered, and second chances take bloom. Because, as long as new life is growing, there will always be hope and new memories to make.

For many people, Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived. In this portrait-in-sound, actors’ readings combine with his music to reveal a titanic personality, both vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all heroic, as he comes to grips with perhaps the greatest disability a musician can suffer. No man’s music is more universal; few men’s lives are more inspiring. In every sense but one - his modest height - he was a giant. The great bonus of this audio-biography is that the development of Beethoven’s music can be heard in the context of his life.

Frédéric Chopin is the pianist-composer par excellence. Regarded as one of the most mesmerizing performers of his day, he lives on in his music – his waltzes, mazurkas, études, preludes, nocturnes, three piano sonatas, two piano concertos, and much more. Here, his life, from his birth in Poland, his famous affair with the French writer George Sand, to his death at the age of 39 in Paris, is told with his music featuring prominently. We think of Chopin as a "frail, sheltered genius" but this forthright portrait demonstrates he was far more boisterous than that.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the most astonishing child prodigy in the history of music, is felt by many people to be the greatest composer who ever lived. Dominated and shaped by a highly intelligent but frustrated and ambitious father, his story sees the development of a unique genius, from precocious and often endearing childhood to liberated fulfillment, unexpected poverty, and a tragically early death. Generously illustrated by Mozart’s music, from his fifth to his final year, this portrait-in-sound reveals a fascinating yet elusive character, drawing richly on the words of the composer himself and those who knew him.

Arden Beacon arrives in the salt-swept port of Vigil with a job to do. Tasked with using the magic in her blood to keep the lighthouse burning, she needs to prove herself worthy of her family name and her ancestors’ profession. But the coastline Arden must keep alight – battered by a sea teeming with colossal, ancient beasts – is far from the cultured, urban world she knows. It is a place of secrets, rumours and tight-lipped expectations of a woman’s place.

Guests are arriving to celebrate Christmas at Lady Holly's ball, and at the top of each guest's wish list is a last chance to find true love before the new year. Amid the sumptuous delicacies, glittering decorations, and swell of the orchestra, every duchess and debutante, lord and lackey has a hopeful heart.

2002, Australia. When Melissa discovers a postcard addressed to 'Desmond' among her recently deceased father's effects, she is determined to discover this person's identity and his relationship to her father. She soon embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...

Arden Beacon has nothing left to lose. Having fought monsters, the deep waters and the establishment to fulfil a promise the man she loved—she is no closer to peace. But against the odds, she has found Jonah once more and they are together now. She means to keep it that way. Jonah, Arden and Chalice are bound for Clay city. Warnings come that the scorned yet powerful Miah and Bellis have joined forces and turned their eyes to the capital, now following the direction of the slippery Mr Lindsay.

Join Katie, Eva and Alex on their adventures, as they're whisked away to a magical woods alive with animals, where they're no longer girls but animals. This collection contains the first six books of the series: A Magical Beginning, To the Rescue, Lost and Found, The Birthday Party, Save the Day and An Enchanted Wedding.

Erin, Amber and Kayla discover an enchanted collar that transforms them into adorable puppies and whisks them to the beautiful Blossom Meadow. This magical collection includes the first four books in the series: Fairy Friends, Mischief and Magic, Sprite Surprise and Dandelion Dance.

England, 1459: Cecily, duchess of York, is embroiled in a plot to topple the weak-minded King Henry VI from the throne. But when the Yorkists are defeated at the Battle of Ludford Bridge, Cecily’s family flee and abandon her to face a marauding Lancastrian army on her own. Cecily can only watch as her lands are torn apart and divided up by the ruthless Queen Marguerite.

Faith Lavender's funeral and the arrival of a stranger upsets the balance of Haverstock. Undercurrents of fierce emotion reach the surface while the tensions rise and the ladies of Haverstock find their actions motivated by mutual suspicion and fear.

Looking out from Moon Cottage, Susan Hill records the sights and smells, the people, gardens, animals, births, festivals and deaths that mark the changing seasons in the small Oxfordshire community.

Since losing her great love to the Queen of the Sainted Isles, Arden must fulfil an impossible promise before she can return home—she must complete the dangerous Rite that will return Jonah’s spirit to the abyssal Court of the Deepwater King. This sets her off on a journey far out at sea to find believers of the old religion on the oil-slick and mysterious islands beyond the horizon. But such a responsibility will not come without sacrifice, for the Deepwater folk who worship the king require the most desperate payments the soul.

Six stories starring Alison Uttley's best-known character, Little Grey Rabbit. Since their first publication over 80 years ago, Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit stories have become classics of children's literature. Enjoy the following adventures on this special audio collection: The Squirrel, The Hare and the Little Grey Rabbit, How Little Grey Rabbit Got Back Her Tail, The Story of Fuzzypeg the Hedgehog, The Great Adventure of Hare.

In the 1920s, three young girls enter a strict, cheerless convent school in a quiet London suburb. Six years later they leave, to change the world … Maureen was the movie star, whose role as Tarzan’s Jane helped rewrite the rules of cinema censorship. Sonia was the aspiring writer who became George Orwell’s wife and the guardian of his literary legacy. And Vivien was the actress as iconic as the roles she played, from Cleopatra to Scarlett O’Hara. Together their careers encompassed glamour and tragedy, triumph and scandal.

1075 and Dowager Queen Edith has died. Her niece Gunnhild longs to leave Wilton Abbey, but is her suitor, Breton knight Count Alain of Richmond, interested in her inheritance as the daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-Neck, or does he love her for herself? Is her own love for Count Alain an enduring love, or has she made a terrible mistake? The Swan Daughter is woven around a true 11th-century tale of elopement, love and courage.

Brahms is one of the best loved yet most controversial of all the Romantics. Almost uniquely, his works have never suffered the slightest period of eclipse. Profoundly emotional yet governed by an iron discipline, the music, like the man, is a fascinating, entertaining, often deeply moving blend of opposites. He had a gift for friendship and a capacity for love far beyond the ordinary, yet no man could be ruder or more hurtful.