Showing results by narrator "Harrie Dobby" in All Categories

Fifteen-year-old girl gamer Casey Henderson is obsessed with smash-hit game SkyWake - and she’s good at it, too. Little does she realize it’s actually an alien training tool created by an evil extra-terrestrial race. When the aliens swoop down on a national gaming tournament, Casey and her teammates discover they’re abducting the best gamers to fight in a distant alien war across the galaxy. And they’ve got her brother. Casey’s gaming skills are her best hope of stopping the aliens - but first she and her online teammates must learn to work together in real life.

Melody Bird has discovered an old, abandoned building on the edge of town.... It's a dark, creepy place, but she can't resist its pull. When she goes to explore, she finds a boy hiding out there. Hal tells Melody that he is a spy-in-training, using the house as a base for his undercover surveillance of a nearby suspected criminal. He's very secretive about the details, but Melody trusts him and starts bringing him blankets and sneaking him food.

I look at where the woman was sitting. There’s a scrap of paper tucked into the gap between the seats. With shaking hands, I pick it up. The note reads: Help me. At first glance, the couple on the train look normal. She’s dressed smartly, a floral patterned bag on her lap. But her hands are clenched, her fingers white. The man with her has his arm looped through hers, but not in a comforting way. He’s holding her too tightly.

Returning to Pipley following her FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) training, Olive is eager to step up her involvement in the war effort. Her pigeons are being conscripted to aid the Belgian resistance, and it’s up to Olive to choose the best birds for the mission. To protect the secrecy of their work, she must also continue the ruse of being romantically involved with her superior. But perhaps the greatest challenge of all comes when an instructor at Station XVII, the top-secret training school housed at Brickendonbury Manor, is found dead in Balls Wood by a troop of Girl Guides.

‘If you want everyone you love to stay safe, you must walk away…’ The fortune teller told me my fate. But I ignored her. I married the man of my dreams. We made a family. A life that’s beautiful, safe and happy. I’ve pushed it to the back of my mind: what she said about the tragedy that lay ahead for me. I want to believe that we are in charge of our own fate. Looking at my two perfect, beautiful children, I refuse to believe things could go wrong for us. But as strange things begin to happen, I begin to wonder… could there be any truth behind what the fortune teller told me that day?

On a crisp winter evening, Detective Nikki Gill is taking a peaceful stroll through New College Oxford grounds before starting her new job at Kidlington Criminal Investigations unit the following day. But when she hears a blood-curdling scream coming from one of the buildings, she discovers the lifeless body of Professor Brian Allerton in his office and his wife kneeling by his side.

When Ellie tells me she has a new boyfriend, I am absolutely thrilled and can’t wait to meet him. She finally seems so happy and in love. But there’s a catch. Ellie has never met him in person. In fact, he doesn’t even live in the same country. Our home is in England, but Daryl is in Los Angeles.

Alice and Sonny's family yacht is in Egypt, ready to pick up famous actress Estelle Fortune, and take her to London to film her next blockbuster movie. But just before the boat leaves, Alice discovers that Estelle has vanished! In her room is a note, threatening that unless a large amount of money is paid in Malta in a few days' time, Estelle will be thrown overboard. As the Lady Rose sets sail, Alice, Sonny and their new friend Winnie must work out who is threatening Estelle, but can they save her?

The Scarmados are the most famous family in Britain, notorious for throwing lavish parties funded by their media and shipping empire. Now, head of the family Mattia is about to retire, and he's taken his four children and his new young wife Belle on the maiden voyage of one of his luxury cruise ships. The tabloids are buzzing: is he about to announce his successor?

Tilly dreams of having a pony of her own. One that only she can ride to stardom. Will her wishes come true when she joins Silver Shoe Farm Stables? Tilly is off on the trip of a lifetime to the Kentucky Horse Trials. She’s so excited. While she's there she meets Free Spirit, a wild mustang, with whom she feels an instant connection, that she knows will last forever.

Jess knows it's time to move on from her best friend's couch, where she's been crashing since her boyfriend emptied out her heart, and all her savings. But when she responds to an ad in the newspaper for a lodger on a quiet Notting Hill street, Jess has no idea how life's about to change. Joan has spent too long alone with her memories of the man she walked away from one Manhattan evening years ago. Passing a bedroom door she can't bear to open, she decides to advertise for a lodger. When Jess meets Joan, she recognises a woman left behind by the world, and so she suggests a switch.

It's Christmas Eve eve, and the holidays are not off to a good start for, er, Eve. After the surprise and shock of catching her boyfriend cheating, Eve—totally devastated—reacts by throwing the gifts she’s selflessly bought and wrapped for HIS family out of the window. But while doing so she discovers her own present from Chris under the Christmas tree: an engagement ring, bought at the jeweler’s where she works. What the jingle bells is going on? And what was he thinking?

Beaten, tortured and shot 17 times, Maggie the little street dog should have given up on the world. But the world didn't give up on her. With the help of her human friends, Maggie begins her long road to recovery and starts to spread joy everywhere she goes. This is the inspirational true story of a little dog who learned to be loved just as she is.

Born in Germany in 1922, Colin Anson's (Claus Ascher) childhood was marked by the trials of Nazism. His father was arrested by the Gestapo in 1937 and transported to Dachau, where he died shortly after. Colin, aged just seventeen, escaped to Britain in the Kindertransport. As soon as he was old enough, Colin volunteered in the Pioneer Corps. Then, in 1942, he was recruited for the elite commando unit X-Troop. Colin took part in the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943, where he sustained a near-fatal injury. But just months later, he returned to duty.

Steffi seems to have everything. She lives in a gorgeous house with her fiancé, Tom, his young daughter and their sweet little baby. But she hasn’t told anyone about the unfortunate accidents that keep happening. That she’s terrified to go upstairs in her own house. Or that her old imaginary friend has come back, whispering instructions on how to look after the baby. And she can’t tell Tom that she’s struggling. Not after what happened to his first wife.

London, 1940. When nurse Elsie offers to send a reassuring letter to the family of a patient, she has an idea. She begins a book of last letters: messages to be sent on to wounded soldiers’ loved ones should the very worst come to pass so that no one is left without a final goodbye. London, present day. Stephanie has a lot of people she’d like to speak to: her estranged brother, to whom her last words were in anger; her nan, whose dementia means she is only occasionally lucid enough to talk.

Tilly dreams of having a pony of her own. One that only she can ride to stardom. Will her wishes come true when she joins Silver Shoe Farm Stables? Tilly witnesses the beginning of a lifelong bond between a young autistic boy, Edward, and a sweet pony called Rusty. To have a good friend, you need to be a good friend.

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.

Chris Harcourt is dying. At just 51, cancer is claiming his life, but not before his wife Jess delivers a final, devastating blow. On the day of his death, she reveals the secret she’s been hiding for decades: she slept with each of his closest friends, in cold, calculated revenge for his long-ago affair with her best friend. Now, the once-tight foursome is fractured beyond repair… and someone is making sure it stays that way.

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.