Showing results by narrator "Emma Fenney" in All Categories

In this bleak fairytale, a kind and good-natured learned man on vacation sends his shadow to investigate a balcony across the street. When his shadow never returns, he notices that he has grown a new one and figures all is well. However, five years later, he meets his original shadow, and it is now corporeal - but it doesn’t share his principles. As the shadow grows in strength, the man weakens, raising the question of whether good always triumphs over evil.

In The Red Shoes, a peasant girl named Karen is adopted by a rich old lady and grows up vain and spoiled. She is so enamored of a new pair of red shoes that she wears them to church in spite of a warning to only wear black shoes there. She soon learns that ignoring that warning was a bad idea: a mysterious old soldier at the church charms the red shoes with a tap of his hand. This cautionary tale has been adapted for various media including film.

In The Leap-Frog, a flea, a grasshopper, and a frog arrange a contest to see who can jump highest. The King offers the hand of the princess to the victor. The flea and the grasshopper, victims of their own vanity and ambition, are matched against the patient, wise and humble frog. The short tale is a fable about the perils of high self-regard.

In The Swineherd, a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, a prince who disguises himself as a swineherd woos an arrogant princess. Sending her a nightingale and a rose, the princess rejects the humble gifts preferring the man-made over the real. The prince/swineherd creates a musical pot and charges the princess 10 kisses for it. The princess trudges through the mud to pay 100 kisses for his next creation, a musical rattle. A parable about the shallowness of earthly things.

In The Story of a Mother, a mother, watching over her sick child, briefly closes her eyes, and Death comes. Rushing outside to pursue Death, she encounters various spirits who offer conditional advice. When she finally finds her child, Death offers her a terrible choice. First published in 1847, this story has been adapted for film several times.

In The Happy Family, a pair of snails live inside a burdock forest near an old manor house. They remember the old days when their kinfolk were served on platters in the old house and suspect the house has since been abandoned. Deciding to grow their family, they adopt a common snail and must arrange a marriage for their new child.

In this fable about what happens to liars and boasters, a gentleman’s collar decides to marry and proposes to various female objects, embroidering his accomplishments and good qualities at every turn.

In The Naughty Boy, an old poet welcomes a wet and shivering boy into his home to warm up, not realizing that the boy has an ulterior motive - and a bow and arrow. This short tale ruminates on the naughtiness and ubiquity of Cupid.

When 40-something Nicola Eagles goes on the holiday of a lifetime to the Maldives, she never dreams she'll fall in love - she's too shy, too set in her ways. But then she meets someone who changes her life forever. Just when things seem to be going right for Nicola, though, she disappears without a trace. Was it a voluntary disappearance, or was she abducted - or murdered?

In this parable about the transience of earthly things, a mysterious bell is heard by the inhabitants of a village. They search the forest but are unable to find the source. When a prince and a child eventually discover it, they realize that it is as mysterious and old as nature itself.

In "The Elderbush", a boy arrives home with a cold. His mother whisks him off to bed and prepares some elderflower tea to warm him up. A kindly older neighbor stops by to visit the boy, who asks for a fairy tale. The old man struggles to think of one, but becomes inspired by the aroma of the elderflower tea. A story about how real life can provide subjects for some of the most wonderful fairy tales.

In "The Dream of Little Tuk", a little boy named Tuk interrupts his studying to help an old woman carry water. Later, when he goes to sleep, he puts his geography book under his pillow in the hopes that its knowledge will be magically transmitted into his brain. In his dreams, the old woman appears and repays his earlier kindness.

In "The Emperor's New Clothes", two weavers tell the emperor that they can make him a new suit of clothes that is invisible to people who are unfit for their positions or who are stupid or incompetent. Con men, the two weavers actually outfit the emperor in nothing, but will anyone be willing to tell the emperor that he is naked? As an idiom, the story's title refers to things that are accepted as common knowledge in spite of being obviously untrue.

Conor and Dean are on the run with four-year-old Rosie. When they turn on one another, Conor takes drastic action to protect Rosie. He decides to keep her with him rather than leave her behind and risk getting caught. His only option is to return to his childhood home in Ireland, passing her off as his daughter. Sylvia, who witnessed the robbery, has her own secrets to hide. She becomes obsessed with Rosie and will stop at nothing to find the child.

Formula One driver Remy Sabatino is leading the Drivers' Championship, in a car that is the quickest of the season by far. But that also means Sabatino's Russian teammate is the fastest too.... Their rivalry couldn't be more toxic ahead of the Grand Prix in Moscow. TV viewers around the world are about to witness the most catastrophic crash in Formula One history. Was this caused by the acrimony between these drivers? Matt Straker, former Royal Marine and corporate intelligence director, is again called in....

When Anna Broinowski learned that fracking had invaded downtown Sydney, she had a brilliant idea: she would seek guidance for a kryptonite-powerful, anti-fracking movie from the world's greatest propaganda factory - apart from Hollywood. After two years of trying, she was allowed to make her case in Pyongyang and was granted full permission to film. She worked closely with the leading lights of North Korean cinema, even playing an American in a military thriller.

As a bored, moody teenager, Emma Beddington came across a copy of French ELLE in the library of her austere Yorkshire school. As she turned the pages, full of philosophy, sex and lipstick, she realized that her life had one purpose and one purpose only: she needed to be French. Instead of skulking in her bedroom listening to The Smiths or trudging to Betty's Tea Room to buy fondant fancies, she would be free and solitary, sitting outside the Cafe de Flore with a Scottie dog at her feet....

On the eve of her 27th birthday, Josie Goodwin is feeling harassed. Her boyfriend, Will, has become a donkey-loving hippy, and her best friend, Lara, has baby brain. She desperately needs to find the perfect location for a film shoot, or her career may implode. Her eccentric grandma has always said that Josie will inherit a book of spells on her birthday, but since she doesn’t believe in magic, nothing will improve; or will it?

Since walking out on her life at sixteen, Lamb has lived alone in the gaps between other people's lives. Secretly inhabiting the cellar of an elderly man for whom she cleans, she keeps herself to herself, her life a precarious balancing act - until she meets Doggo, a young criminal on the run. Both strangers to the concept of truth, Doggo and Lamb are drawn together, glimpsing in one another the possibility of finding solace and maybe even love.

The wonderful first novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Sleeper and The Sisterhood. It's New Year's Day and the year isn't kicking off well for Tansy: her mother's dead, she's a cocaine addict and her boyfriend has just left her. A trip around the world seems like the only option except that she's not interested in seeing the world, just escaping from it, and the last people she wants to hang out with are backpackers.