Showing results by narrator "Barnaby Edwards" in All Categories

A young girl called Tozi stands at the bottom of a pyramid, waiting to be led to the top where her heart will be cut out.... Pepillo, a Spanish orphan who serves a sadistic Dominican friar, is aboard the Spanish fleet as it sails towards Mexico.... This is the epic story of the clash of two empires, two armies and two gods of war. Five hundred desperate adventurers are about to pit themselves against the most brutal armies of the ancient Americas, armies hundreds of thousands strong.

Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-41 offers a penetrating insight into a series of momentous political decisions that shaped the course of the Second World War. The hurricane of events that marked the opening of the Second World War meant that anything could happen. For the aggressors there was no limit to their ambitions; for their victims a new Dark Age beckoned. Over the next few months their fates would be determined.

Terror stalks the hills, moors and marshes of Bernicia. Livestock and men have been found ripped asunder, their bones gnawed, flesh gorged upon. People cower in their halls in fear of the monster that prowls the night. King Edwin sends his champions, Bassus, Octa and band of trusted thegns, to rid his people of this evil. Bassus leads the warriors into the chill wastes of the Northern winter, and they soon question whether they are the hunters or the prey.

Beobrand has land, men and riches. He should be content. And yet he cannot find peace until his enemies are food for the ravens. But before Beobrand can embark on his bloodfeud, King Oswald orders him southward, to escort holy men bearing sacred relics. When Penda of Mercia marches a warhost into the southern kingdoms, Beobrand and his men are thrown into the midst of the conflict. Beobrand soon finds himself fighting for his life and his honour.

The Last Great Mountain tells the story of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga the third highest but reputedly the hardest mountain in the world. It was an astonishing achievement for a British team led by Everest veteran Charles Evans. Drawing on interviews, diaries and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey begins his story in 1905 with the disastrous first attempt on the mountain by a team led by Aleister Crowley, explores the three dramatic German expeditions of the the late 1920s and brings it all to a climax 50 years later with the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band.

Once upon a very badly behaved time, 511-year-old Ebenezer kept a beast in his attic. He would feed the beast all manner of objects and creatures, and in return, the beast would vomit him up expensive presents. But then The Bethany arrived. Now 10-year-old notorious prankster Bethany, along with her new feathery friend Claudette, is determined that she and Ebenezer are going to DE-BEAST their lives and do good. But Bethany finds that being a notorious prankster makes it hard to get taken on for voluntary work. And Ebenezer is secretly missing the beast's vomity gifts.

Oswald has reigned over Northumbria for eight years, and Beobrand has led the king to ever greater victories. Rewarded for his fealty and prowess in battle, Beobrand is now a wealthy warlord, with a sizable warband. Tales of Beobrand's fearsome black-shielded warriors and the great treasure he has amassed are told throughout the halls of the land. Many are the kings who bow to Oswald. And yet there are those who look upon his realm with a covetous eye. And there is one ruler who will never kneel before him.

Do we have free will? It's a question that has puzzled philosophers and theologians for centuries and feeds into numerous political, social, and personal concerns. Are we products of our culture or free agents within it? How much responsibility should we take for our actions? Are our neural pathways fixed early on by a mixture of nature and nurture, or is the possibility of comprehensive, intentional psychological change always open to us?

Sunday Times top 10 best seller by the author of Walking the Himalayas, winner of the 2016 Edward Stanford Adventure Travel Book of the Year award.

Walking the Americas chronicles Levison Wood's 1,800 mile trek along the spine of the Americas, through eight countries, from Mexico to Colombia, experiencing some of the world's most diverse, beautiful and unpredictable places.

Three years ago, Julian Norwood was the rising star of the political universe. As the co-founder of a wildly successful London-based political consultancy, Norwood and his colleagues used controversial tactics to help win the election for the American President and played a decisive role propping up odious governments around the world. But after a scandal broke, the company's reputation was shredded. All of a sudden, Norwood was toxic. People stopped returning his calls. Nobody wanted to work with him. In desperation, he fled to the Seychelles to escape the media spotlight.

For the Tenth Doctor, the festive season always brought adventure. In fact, he's saved Christmas across space and time more times than we ever knew. Join the Doctor (and Donna and Martha and Rose, and other friends old and new) for incredible tales of daring and danger. From Daleks plotting to save humanity to Sycorax working to exploit it...from star-narwhals massing on the Moon to a toy factory in space. Because even in the jolliest of seasons there's a world or two to save.

John Porter, hero of the original Strikeback novel and TV series, returns in an exciting adventure when old enemies attack the SAS. It's 1999. A bitterly cold morning in the Brecon Beacons, and the soldiers trying out for SAS Selection are preparing to face their toughest test yet. Overseeing the soldiers is John Porter: once a promising young Blade, now a broken man and a drunk, seeing out his days in the Regiment Training Wing. But before the Fan Dance can begin, six masked gunmen carry out a devastating attack.

If the end of the war was supposed to have brought 'freedom' to countries that suffered under Nazi occupation, then for millions it did not really end until the fall of communism. In the summer of 1945 many of the countries in Eastern Europe simply swapped the rule of one tyrant, Adolf Hitler, for that of another: Joseph Stalin. Why this happened has remained one of the most troubling questions of the entire conflict and is at the heart of Laurence Rees' dramatic book.

Emma, I have scratched out the beginning to my father, for I think I can write more easily to you. This is my last farewell to all, the last you will ever hear or see of an unworthy friend and son. I have failed in life; I am quite broken down and disgraced. I pass under a false name; you will have to tell my father that with all your kindness. It is my own fault. -- with Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson.

Utterly is found washed up on the shores of the Autumn Isles and taken in by the mysterious Watcher of Wildsea. When her guardian is drowned, Utterly is thrust into the role of Watcher, but can she keep the island safe from the threat of the terrifying Gorm? Mysteries lie beneath the oceans surface and adventure beckons. Utterly will unearth secrets about the sea, her parents and life itself.

Today's world is in flux. Competition between the great powers is back on the agenda and governments around the world are turning to secret statecraft and the hidden hand to navigate these uncertain waters. From poisonings to electoral interference, subversion to cyber sabotage, states increasingly operate in the shadows, while social media has created new avenues for disinformation on a mass scale. This is covert action: perhaps the most sensitive—and controversial—of all state activity.

December 1348: With the country in the grip of the Black Death, brothers John and William fear that they will shortly die and go to Hell. But as the end draws near, they are given an unexpected choice: either to go home and spend their last six days in their familiar world or to search for salvation across the forthcoming centuries - living each one of their remaining days 99 years after the last. John and William choose the future and find themselves in 1447, ignorant of almost everything going on....

Ebenezer Tweezer has spent the best part of 512 years doing whatever he wanted, but that all changed when he met Bethany – a rude, snotty-nosed prankster. Ebenezer has come to care for this strange, slightly smelly little scowler more than he has cared about anyone or anything before. It’s just as well, because when this story begins, Bethany needs a friend. She has just discovered that her parents Augustus and Gemima were dreadful criminals before they died in an only slightly more dreadful fire. Except – it seems her father did NOT die at all.

Cambridge, 1994. Professor Don Lamb is a revered art historian at the height of his powers, consumed by the book he is writing about the skies of the Venetian master Tiepolo. However, his academic brilliance belies a deep inexperience of life and love. When an explosive piece of contemporary art is installed on the lawn of his college, it sets in motion Don's abrupt departure from Cambridge to take up a role at a south London museum. There he befriends Ben, a young artist who draws him into the anarchic 1990s British art scene and the nightlife of Soho.

A threat to Holmes' life, murders on Hampstead Heath and a deadly phantom lady lead Holmes and Watson into the most dangerous investigation they have ever undertaken.... An encounter which brings them face to face with evil itself, embodied in Count Dracula, the Lord of the Undead.