Showing results by narrator "Harrie Dobby" in All Categories

When Detective Nikki Gill is called to the crime scene of Charlotte Winspear, she finds the woman’s body in a secluded woodland at the top of a hill, her feet encased in heels without a speck of mud. Charlotte disappeared from a college party in an exclusive Oxford manor house the night before, and Nikki’s instincts tell her she didn’t die at this spot. So why did the killer bring Charlotte here?

Heidi is a work of children's fiction published in 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning and Heidi: How She Used What She Learned. It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her paternal grandfather's care in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children" (as quoted from its subtitle).

The Baron is a short story by Katherine Mansfield: "Who is he?" I said. "And why does he sit always alone, with his back to us, too?" - "Ah!" whispered the Frau Oberregierungsrat, "he is a Baron." - She looked at me very solemnly, and yet with the slightest possible contempt - a "fancy-not-recognising-that-at-the-first-glance" expression.

"The Lady's Maid" is a story by Katherine Mansfield: Eleven o'clock. A knock at the door... I hope I haven't disturbed you, madam. You weren't asleep - were you? But I've just given my lady her tea, and there was such a nice cup over, I thought, perhaps...

"Bank Holiday" is a story by Katherine Mansfield: A stout man with a pink face wears dingy white flannel trousers, a blue coat with a pink handkerchief showing, and a straw hat much too small for him, perched at the back of his head.

In a city that has been struck off the map, cursed to wander forever by the famed map magician Baba Yaga, a young girl called Siya accidentally finds the lost pieces of the magical map that will reunite her city with the rest of the world. Always overlooked as the magic-less daughter of a powerful magician, she believes this is her moment to prove her worth. But instead of being celebrated, she is now hunted by powerful forces threatening the city.

Greta Thunberg, author of No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, has directed the attention of adults and her peers alike to issues crucial to the future of the planet, and the heads of even the youngest children have been filled with questions. Global warming, the greenhouse effect, fossil fuels - what do they all mean? What are biodiversity and sustainable development? Who is studying the changes that are taking place here on Earth? Which sources are reliable? What action can I take?

Clara and her younger brother, Stephen, are taken by their father to stay with their aunt and uncle in a remote house in the hills as their mother recovers from an accident. At first, they see it as a summer to explore. There's the train set in the basement, the walled garden with its secret graves and beyond it all, the silent loch, steady and waiting. Auntie has wanted them for so long - real children with hair to brush and arms to slip into the clothes made just for them.

Romance is the last thing on Charlotte Alexander's mind. Her perfume business is flourishing. And a glamorous new life in New York awaits. Just one more thing is needed: a supply of artisan lavender for her trademark scent. But when Charlotte stumbles across the infuriating and infuriatingly handsome Alessio Rossini, her plans begin to fall apart. With New York finally in reach...should she follow her dreams or her heart?

Nine-year-old Frankie Appleton likes to count gates. One day she hopes to design the perfect gate - a gate to keep the bad things out. Little does she know that the bad things have already got in. Now her mother is dead, and the only other person with a house key has disappeared. Frankie thinks she knows who it is. But first she has to prove it. A delicately brutal exploration of what lies behind closed doors and of the secrets and lies that form the fabric of every family, The Weight of Small Things is as charming as it is chilling.

Periods, sex and online shaming. An extraordinary verse novel from a bold new voice in YA fiction. During astronomy-lover Frankie's first sexual experience with the quiet and lovely Benjamin, she gets her period. It's only blood, they agree. But soon a graphic meme goes viral, turning their fun, intimate afternoon into something disgusting, mortifying and damaging. As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, Frankie begins to wonder: is her real life over? 

Gary Budden's debut collection blends the traditions of weird fiction and landscape writing in an interlinked set of stories from the emotional geographies of London, Kent, Finland and a place known as the Hollow Shore. The Hollow Shore is both fictional and real. It is a place where flowers undermine railway tracks, relationships decay and monsters lurk. It is the shoreline of a receding, retreating England. This is where things fall apart, waste away and fade from memory.

Sara Robinson – gambling addict, liar, thief – lived a hand-to-mouth existence in a dingy flat in London. Now she's running for her life after the chance to make some easy money went horribly wrong. She has three things which might save her - a passport in someone else’s name, a ticket to Australia and a suitcase full of cash....

One Girl Began entwines the stories of three women, separated by history but connected by the same building. For Ellen in 1909, it is a box factory where she finds work and a transformative circle of friendship when her family fall on hard times. For Frances in 1984, it is a derelict ruin, where she joins a group of squatters and is drawn into a coercive relationship. And for Amanda in 2020, it is a gentrified conversion, where she finds herself trapped in a tiny flat and grappling with new motherhood as the pandemic looms into view.

Marie has big dreams. Of course, a rocky road lies ahead. Lion Tamer Memoir: How It All Turned Out precisely captures the reality of human hope, depth, and folly as Marie learns the truth about neurotic attachments and herself.

Failing antibiotics have shifted society online. As big tech companies begin to dominate life, the boundaries between real and virtual have blurred. At 14, Jess is attending school for the first time. Meeting other children and making real friends is something she's dreamed of for years. But Jess misses her family, especially her sister Chloe, who is in poor health. With Chloe's sickness worsening and her medication getting more expensive, Jess turns to the digital world to fix things.

Caught up in an alien war on a distant galaxy, Casey and her team are fighting for their lives—but which side should they be on? The second in an exciting and original debut sci-fi adventure trilogy for the gaming generation. Casey and hundreds of other SkyWakers are now stuck on the planet Hosin, thousands of miles out in space, forced by the Red Eyes to fight the elusive Squids.

Twelve-year-old Bea lives with her mother Ula and her owl Pip in a cottage on the wild moors. Since the day the dreams disappeared, and an affliction of nightmares began sweeping across the lands, everyone is leaving and their settlement is being abandoned. But when Ula grows sick with the affliction, she won’t leave – and she’s keeping a secret from Bea. Just as Bea begins to despair, the mysterious Night Train steams across the moors, bringing a stranger who offers her the chance to save her mother. 

The last time Joey Walker watched Josh Reynolds leave Pepper Bay was three years ago. She decided there and then that the next time he visited she would never in a million years, even if her life depended on it, sleep with him ever again. She was done with secretly being in love with him. She couldn't keep falling into his arms every time he was around. Josh was never going to see her as anything more than a holiday fling, or a sure thing. She had made her decision and had happily stuck to it, but only because he wasn't around. 

Tessie Sparrow and Nate Walker have everything a relationship can have, except intimacy. Neither of them want to add it into the mix, for fear of ruining their friendship. It's not easy for them to stay apart when they are growing so close, and Tessie's secret plan to help save Nate's farm might destroy them forever.