Showing results by narrator "Samantha Bond"

When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway's latest novel, she has little idea it will change her life. She's worked with the revered crime writer for years, and his detective, Atticus Pund, is renowned for solving crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. As Susan knows only too well, vintage crime sells handsomely. It's just a shame that it means dealing with an author like Alan Conway.... But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems.

With her hotly anticipated third instalment, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Fielding introduces us to a whole new enticing phase of Bridget's life set in contemporary London, including the challenges of maintaining sex appeal as the years roll by and the nightmare of drunken texting, the skinny jean, the disastrous email CC, total lack of twitter followers, and TVs that need 90 buttons and three remotes to simply turn on. An uproariously funny novel of modern life, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is a triumphant return of our favourite Everywoman.

Pod, Homily and Arrietty are a family of tiny people who live beneath the floor, behind the grandfather clock in the old rectory. They own nothing - everything they have is borrowed from the 'human beans' who don't even know they exist. Arrietty's father, Pod, is an expert borrower. He can scale curtains using a hatpin and bring back a doll's teacup without breaking it. Girl's aren't supposed to go borrowing, but as Arrietty is an only child, Pod breaks the rules.

From the moment Judi Dench appeared as a teenager in the York Mystery Plays, it was clear that acting would be her career. Trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama it was her performance in her twenties as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's memorable Old Vic production that turned her into a star. In the theatre since she has played every classic role from Titania (three times, most recently in 2010) to Cleopatra.

8.45 P.M. Realise there have been so many times in my life when have fantasised about going to a scan with Mark or Daniel: just not both at the same time. Before motherhood before marriage Bridget with biological clock ticking very, very loudly finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at the eleventh hour: a joyful pregnancy which is dominated however by a crucial but terribly awkward question - who is the father?

Under the watchful eye of Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton, Anna is given her first case. But is it a full-blown murder investigation or purely a missing person's case? An ominous pool of blood and no victim lead Anna on a desperate hunt for a man who has disappeared without trace.As Anna becomes obsessed with seemingly irrelevant details, Langton fears that she is losing control of the case. They still have no body and Anna is under increasing pressure to make an arrest....

Rose Woodrowe is getting married to Tyler Masson - a wonderful, sensitive man who is head over heels in love with her. The only problem? This isn't the first time for either of them, and their five grown-up children have strong opinions on the matter.... Who to listen to? Who to please? Rose and Tyler are determined to get it right this time, but in trying to make everyone happy, can they ever be happy themselves?

When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud identifies her as a serious danger to his flock especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial. War is declared as the priest denounces the newcomer's wares as the ultimate sin.

Here is a collection of the Oscar Wilde's famous fairy tales, read by a cast of leading British actors. Additional narrators include Geoffrey Palmer O.B.E., Sir Donald Sinden, and Elaine Stritch. Music: 'Reverie De Sebastian' by Steve Davies.

Sue Johnston, John Hannah and Eddie Marsan are among the stars of this spellbinding, hilarious and uplifting comedy drama. Set entirely at a series of weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, these 13 episodes also feature Rebecca Front, Paul Kaye, Julia Deakin and Samantha Bond.

Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and Annie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolate shop. Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the door. The wind has stopped, at least for a while. Then into their lives blows Zozie de l'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, and everything begins to change.

As a little girl Katherine of Aragon was betrothed to Arthur, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII of England, and was raised in the palace of the Alhambra, knowing that she would be queen of England. In 1501, the teenage Spanish princess arrives in her new kingdom, but the future is turned upside down with the death of her handsome young husband - only six months after the wedding. Transformed from beloved bride to superfluous widow, Katherine endures hardship and loneliness as the Tudor court slowly squeezes her out of royal circles.

What silently waits in the shadows at night? What's under your bed, keeping just out of sight? Do you ever hear strange, creaking noises at night? Ever wonder what makes those noises? Lucy Dungston always did. Until, one morning, Lucy discovers that all the grown-ups have disappeared - as if into thin air. Chaos descends as the children in Lucy's town run riot. It's mayhem. It's madness. To most kids, it's amazing!

Framed as a first-person narrative from the eponymous horse, this much-loved family classic follows Black Beauty's journey from a well-born colt to a painfully overworked cab horse. Brimming with vivid detail and relatable characters, each chapter of Black Beauty's long and varied life communicates an important message about kindness, sympathy and understanding.

It is late at night on a notorious council estate in east London. A van - garishly painted with a grinning clown's face on the side - is being driven erratically. When the police pull over the driver to question him, they discover, inside the van, the body of a young woman. A murder suspect . . . an arrest . . . a confession . . . A case done and dusted? But their suspect claims his victim is not his first, but his third.

A Richard and Judy Summer Read Selection.
Written as a "report into the circumstances surrounding the decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen", this is a novel that is made up of e-mails, letters, diary extracts, records of the prime minister's Question Time, interviews, and chapters from the memoirs of a fantastically weaselly Peter Mandelson-type figure.

The story of Lady Chatterley and her love for her husband's gamekeeper outraged the sensibilities of Edwardian England. Lawrence had already been dismissed as a purveyor of the obscene for the attitudes to sex that he had shown in The Rainbow, which had been fiercely suppressed on its publication in 1915. Chatterley, written in several versions around 1928 in Italy in the final part of Lawrence's life, was a deliberate choice on the author's part to address sex head on.

Sonea knew that she'd face a tough time training within the Magicians' Guild but she little realised the level of animosity she would face from her fellow novices. The sons and daughters of the most powerful families in the realm, her classmates seem determined to see her fail - at whatever cost. But in accepting the protection of the guild's high lord, Sonea may have embraced an even bleaker fate. For High Lord Akkarin harbours a secret that is far darker than his magician's robes. 

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Popular Fiction Award, 2007.
At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious and fatally attractive headmaster, Hengist Brett-Taylor, hatches a plan to share the facilities of his school with Larkminster Comprehensive, known locally, as 'Larks'.

Orley Farm, described as a “[B]rilliantly choreographed legal thriller” ( Mail on Sunday), centres on the pathos of the main character, Lady Mason. Youthful marriage choices, middle-aged marital crisis, love and loss revolve around the legal action and the complex portrayal of Lady Mason, who is both sympathetic and wily.