Showing results by narrator "Charlotte" in All Categories

Being able to detect black magic isnt all tea and crumpetsand for Theodosia Throckmorton, it can be a decidedly tricky business! When Sticky Will drags Theo to a magic show featuring the Great Awi Bubu, she quickly senses there is more to the magician than he lets on, setting in motion a chain of events she never could have bargained for.

Three BBC radio adaptations of famous novels by the prolific 19th-century author Mrs Oliphant - plus an episode of Reading Aloud, with extracts from her autobiography. Sometimes called ‘the feminist Trollope’, Margaret Oliphant wrote more than 100 works of fiction in a wide variety of genres, ranging from novels of small-town life to historical tales and supernatural stories. Included here are three of her best-loved works, brimming with dry wit, perceptive irony and flawed but fascinating heroines.

From the second I saw her, I knew she’d be my ruin. Sitting all alone at the bar, she looked like an angel. Eurydice in human form; her beauty eclipsed by demons. Now, I’m one of them. The ghost she’s tried for years to escape. Thinking I wouldn’t be able to find her. But I never stopped trying, and now that I have, her past sins should be the least of her worries.

Being different can be dangerous. Wilde is afraid strange things are happening around her. Are the birds following her? Is she flying in her sleep? Moving to live with her aunt seems to make it all worse. Wilde is desperate to fit in at her new school, but things keep getting stranger. In a fierce heatwave, during rehearsals for a school play telling the old local legend of a witch called Winter, 'The Witch' starts leaving pupils frightening letters cursing them. Can Wilde find out what's happening before everyone blames her? Or will she always be the outcast?

Exhausted and on deadline with a story that could make or break her career, investigative journalist Georgia Ross is on the verge of a meltdown when a cancelled flight leaves her stuck overnight in a city with no hotel rooms to be had. But when a familiar face appears—the older brother of her childhood friend—and offers help, Gigi finally seems to have caught a break. Alec Kim is handsome, humble and kind—exactly the sort of man that Gigi has forgotten existed after her own painful heartbreaks.

In 2015, Juno Carey left her job as a midwife, burnt out, frustrated and looking for a better way to deliver care to women. And then she found work that she loves, that brings her satisfaction and the knowledge of helping women, directly and fundamentally, every day. Working in an abortion clinic is not easy, but it is a necessary kindness: Juno's work changes and even saves lives. In this book she shares the stories of the patients she helps there, young and old, single and married, vulnerable and stoical.

Seuls les êtres extraordinaires ont leur place au royaume d’Ilya. Seuls ceux qui disposent d’un pouvoir ont le droit de vivre. Paedyn fait partie des Ordinaires, chassés et tués pour préserver cette société d’Élites. Son existence même est un crime. Pour survivre, Paedyn se prétend Médium et mène une vie de voleuse dans les bas-fonds. Elle parvient à faire profil bas, jusqu’au jour où elle sauve sans le savoir l’un des princes d’Ilya.

The discovery of Gemma Whiting's bludgeoned body within spitting distance of her family home, opens a new case for DI Sally Parker, one that quickly embroils her in Gemma's feud with male family members. The more Sally digs, the longer her suspect list grows. Frustrated after months of investigation, yet another young woman is attacked close to where Gemma's body was found. Sally begins to wonder if she's been looking in the wrong direction for the killer.

Grace, Meg and Daphne, all in their 70s, are minding their own business while enjoying a cup of tea in a café when 17-year-old Nina stumbles in. She’s clearly distraught and running from someone, so the three women think nothing of hiding her when a suspicious-looking man starts asking if they’ve seen her. Once alone, Nina tells the women a little of what she’s running from. The need to protect her is immediate, and Grace, Meg and Daphne vow to do just this. But how? They soon realise there really is only one answer: murder.

The crew of the Capricious seems to leave a trail of devastation wherever they go. But with powerful enemies in pursuit and family and friends under attack planetside, there's no time to worry about all that. Ensnared by the legend of Origin, humanity's birthplace, and a long-dead form of magic, the Capricious takes off on a journey to find the first colony ship...and power that could bring down gods.

Everything changed the night our eyes met across the room. His green gaze upon me prickled my skin with uncustomary warmth while my peek beneath his cuff - of a riot of color on his wrist - sparked my insatiable curiosity. Tall and mysterious, Kader was a man whose secrets I longed to know. Little did I realize that the night we met was only the beginning - the beginning to the end of the existence I knew. What will happen as his assignment becomes our obsession?

For 15 years Ani and Bram have agreed on exactly one thing: they can't stand each other - until one night when their anger gives way to passion. Yet even as Ani and Bram begin to secretly seek comfort in one another's arms, they remain emotionally worlds apart. When Ani's life takes a dramatic turn and she realizes she needs more than Bram can give, their fragile no-strings relationship unravels. One way or another, Ani is determined to survive. But when Bram finally admits his true feelings, he may discover Ani has moved on.

From the bestselling author of Room comes a delicious tale of secrets, betrayal and forbidden love The Sealed Letter is a page-turner with a jaw-dropping ending’ Stylist. Helen Codrington is unhappily married. Emily ‘Fido’ Faithfull hasn’t seen her once-dear friend for years. Suddenly, after bumping into Helen on the streets of Victorian London, Fido finds herself reluctantly helping Helen to have an affair with a young army officer.

Jenny Diski was a fearless writer, for whom no subject was too difficult, even her own cancer diagnosis. Her columns in the London Review of Books - selected here by her editor and friend Mary-Kay Wilmers, on subjects as various as death, motherhood, sexual politics and the joys of solitude - have been described as ‘virtuoso performances’ and ‘small masterpieces'. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? is a collective interrogation of the universal experience from a very particular psyche.

No matter where she runs, rodeo clown Tonya Waters's stalker always finds her. Now he's managed to track her down on the rodeo circuit. If bull rider Seth Starke hadn't saved her, she'd be dead. But when the handsome cowboy is injured in the ring and Tonya rescues him, Seth seems more determined than ever to keep her safe. But can she risk staying at his Tennessee ranch and bringing danger to his family? As her stalker gets more violent, Tonya and Seth vow to outsmart him before he makes good on his ultimate threat: if he can't have her, no one will.

I'm the girl with a broken heart. I've spent years making sure no one got too close to me, but one night changed everything. The men that I love have sent me away, where they say I'll be safe. They couldn't protect me from getting hurt and it gutted them. Now, someone else is out there, watching me. Waiting to attack. They thought they were protecting me, but they were wrong. Because we're stronger together. And once I go back to the Devil's Regents MC, I'm never leaving their sides again.

Christmas 1926: the Forbes family are hosting a celebration at Eden Hall. Eighteen-year-old Daisy is preoccupied by a sense of change. Overnight, her relationship with Stephen Jessop, the housekeeper’s son, has shifted, and every encounter seems fraught with tension. Before the festivities are over, Daisy has received a declaration of love, a proposal and a kiss - from three different men. Unable to bear the confusion, she flees to London. By the following summer, Daisy has bowed to the persistence of the man who proposed to her.

Is a week of passion enough to warrant changing my life forever? He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. An enigmatic French businessman with red hair, blue eyes, and an intensity that stirred something deep inside me that hadn’t yet been awoken. I wanted him instantly. And for some reason, he seemed to want me too. Only, he wasn’t mine to have. He was older, wiser, and infinitely richer, with a sophisticated girlfriend back home and no time for a holiday affair.

As we near the end of our mission, my father's assassin makes a reappearance. He helped me through my first traumatic heat, then avoided me for years. But the night our mission takes us to his doorstep, my omega side rears her needy head. I'm going into heat again, and the only ones who can tend me are the stepbrothers I don't trust… or the ruthless assassin who cut me out of his life.

Ten years later, I'm back on the island for my best friend's wedding as her maid of honor. Who's the first person I literally stumbled into? Riley Dixon. Even worse? He's the groom's best man and a self-made billionaire to boot. Being forced to spend an entire week together for wedding festivities quickly leads to more—hot hate sex, late nights of sneaking out, and unexpected revelations. The boy I knew a decade ago is gone, and the hate becomes… something else entirely. And I begin to wonder if Riley is hiding some secrets of his own.