Showing results by narrator "Adjoa Andoh" in All Categories

Glorious short stories from international bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, in a collection written especially for World Book Day. There are times when ladies must use all their wisdom and good sense to face life's problems and mysteries. Mma Ramotswe, owner of the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, keeps her wits about her as she looks into why the country's star goalkeeper isn't saving goals.

Based in the little town of Bridgeford, High-Lites salon boasts the most misanthropic hairdresser in Britain: sharp-tongued, mean-minded Bev. With the help of her soft-hearted (though slightly dim) assistant, Shirley, she tends to the tresses of a motley crew of local characters. As she cuts their hair, she finds out everything that's going on in their lives - and wastes no time in spreading some gossip of her own.

As teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love in a Nigeria under military dictatorship. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where Obinze hopes to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?

From the sumptuous private drawing rooms of 18th-century Paris to the decadent estates and chateaus of the French countryside, La Marquise de Merteuil and Le Vicomte de Valmont hatch a long-distance plan of vengeance and seduction. Valmont is determined to conquer the famously pious Madame de Tourvel, whose husband is abroad on business. However, Merteuil has other plans.

Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior", is the type of behavior that results in elimination.

Abie follows the arc of a letter from London back to Africa to a coffee plantation that now could be hers if she wants it. Standing among the ruined groves she strains to hear the sound of the past, but the layers of years are too many. Thus begins the gathering of her family's history through the tales of her aunts - four women born to four different wives of a wealthy plantation owner, her grandfather.

Mma Ramotswe has a deft hand in delicate cases, and never allows an act of injustice to pass unanswered. So, when it comes to her attention that a matter involving dubious motives has arisen, and that it will require the utmost discretion to resolve, she has no choice but to lend her skills in the arts of detection and reconciliation. She is, after all, head of Botswana’s premier detective agency, but that doesn’t mean she can’t use the help of Mma Makutsi and Mma Potokwane.

Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of 'traditional build', is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea made by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle.

An intensely moving account of George III's doomed attempt to create a happy, harmonious family, written with astonishing emotional force from a stunning new history writer. George III came to the throne in 1760 as a man with a mission. He wanted to be a new kind of king, one whose power was rooted in the affection and approval of his people. And he was determined to revolutionise his private life too - to show that a better man would, inevitably, make a better ruler.

In Asmara, Eritrea, Yonas Kelati is born into a world of turmoil. At the same time, on the same day, Jude Munroe takes her first breath in London, England. Blacklisted in his war-ravaged country, Yonas has no option but to flee his home. After a terrible journey, he arrives on a bleak English coast. By a twist of fate, Yonas’ asylum case lands on Jude’s desk. Opening the file, she finds a patchwork of witness statements from those who met Yonas along his journey: a lifetime the same length of hers, reduced to a few scraps of paper.

The latest instalment of the irresistibly charming, perennially best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Precious Ramotswe has always idolised her father, the late Obed Ramotswe. She feels that she knows all about his life - but does she? Sometimes our parents surprise us, and we discover that things were not quite what we thought them to be.

Well before Precious Ramotswe founded her Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, as an eight-year-old girl she was already solving mysteries. Here in this delightful, new, enchanting tale for children, we see how the young Precious became the crafty and intuitive private investigator we all know and love!

Grace Makutsi’s husband, Phuti, is in a bind. An international firm is attempting to undercut his prices in the office furniture market. Phuti has always been concerned with quality and comfort, but this new firm seems interested only in profits. To make matters worse, they have a slick new advertising campaign that seems hard to beat. Nonetheless with Mma Ramotswe’s help, Phuti comes up with a campaign that may just do the trick.

Mma Ramotswe knows she is very lucky indeed. She has a loving family, good friends and a thriving business doing what she enjoys most - helping people. But the latest mystery she is called upon to solve is distinctly trickier than it initially appears, and, of course, there's plenty to handle in her personal life between Charlie and his new bride and Mma Makutsi and her talking shoes. In the end, Mma Ramotswe's patience and common sense will win out, and, without a doubt, all will be the better for it.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales read by Tom Baker, Joanna Page, Adjoa Andoh, Ingrid Oliver, Anne Reid, Dan Starkey, Sophie Aldred, Rachael Stirling, Samuel Anderson, Nicholas Briggs, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Yasmin Paige, Michelle Gomez, Paul McGann and Andrew Brooke.

Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behaviour becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that the truth is revealed and the shocking details of the disastrous marriage she has left behind emerge.

Following on from the brilliant The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Tears of the Giraffe charts the further adventures of Mma Ramotswe, Botswana's only female private detective. It's going to take all her intuition and eminent sensibility for Mma Ramotswe to crack her hardest case yet: the decade-old disappearance of an American on the edge of the Kalahari.

The spectacular debut novel nominated for every major science fiction award in 2014, Ancillary Justice is the story of a warship trapped in a human body and her search for revenge. Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Nebula Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, a James Tiptree Jr. honour and a Kitschie. Currently shortlisted for the Hugo Awards. They made me kill thousands, but I only have one target now.

A beautifully written story about two children trying to find their way in a world that's grey and cold, and what happens when the sky turns blue. "I've put this story together from the diaries I kept when Zac and I were children. I wrote them because I felt we were almost invisible and I wanted to make sure our story was told, and also in the hope that life would get better for the small unloved girl that was me, and my even smaller unloved brother. And if life didn't get better or at least more interesting I was going to make it up...."

As Botswana awaits the familiar blessing of the rains and their eternal cycle, upheaval is taking place at the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Not only is Mr J. L. B. Matekoni attempting to reform himself into a modern husband but, following her marriage to Phuti Radiphuti, Mma Makutsi has joyful news.With the arrival of an heir to the Double Comfort furniture empire and Mma Makutsi busy with motherhood, cobras and a senior aunt, Mma Ramotswe must grapple alone with tea-making, detective work and a new uncertainty.