Showing results by narrator "Gareth Richards" in All Categories

Cara Cooper’s third Christmas starts out as the best she’s ever known. As the daughter of a kitchen maid, she’s just old enough to be really excited. When a kind stranger appears and takes Cara to a beautiful house filled with toys and Christmas treats of every description, she is thrilled. Little does the toddler know that the kind stranger, Edna, has an ulterior motive. Now kidnapped, Cara’s life is set on a collision course with tragedy.

Olive Wickes knew a better life once. Before their old master died, her family lived in comfortable servants' quarters beside a garden where birdsong echoed through the day. But the new young master turned them out, and now Olive, her parents, and her five-year-old brother Jimmy are struggling to get by. In their cold and desolate tenement, Olive sings to Jimmy about the birds of the garden, trying to cling on to hope.

I died a great mage, protecting my people. A millennium later, I wake to find true magic dead, completely replaced by gadgetry. It appears that my descendants require a lesson in true sorcery. But first I need to find out something—who wants me dead badly enough to try killing me twice?...

Analyzing the way in which horror has been used throughout history to articulate the fears and taboos of the current generation, Darryl Jones considers the continuing evolution of the genre today. As horror is mass marketed to mainstream society in the form of romantic vampires and blockbuster hits, it also continues to maintain its former shadowy presence on the edges of respectability, as banned films and violent internet phenomena push us to question both our own preconceptions and the terrifying capacity of human nature. 

London. 1854. For years, Fern Hall has lived in an orphanage in the East End of London. It’s a brutal life of endless chores and punishments for even the smallest infractions. She’s able to escape it for a time when she’s hired out as a temporary maid to the wealthy Hawk family, but a servant’s lot is little better. Gerard Hawk, the second son of the prosperous merchant, is drawn to Fern from their very first meeting when she comes to work for his parents.

In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our "digital age" is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support.

In 2020, guitar expert John Stubbings released a limited-edition book on the American acoustic guitar that sold out in days. Now, The Devil Is in It returns with additional research and subject matter for a new generation of listeners. Stubbings traveled the country and met with guitar makers, players, collectors, and historians to unravel the long and rich history of the acoustic guitar, its evolution, and the music it has made over the last hundred years.

Spicy never wanted anything more than to spend his days in the goblin library as the sage’s apprentice. But his sister Thistle already had the job. Spicy’s dreams are shattered when a human army burns down his village. His sister is abducted and the sage vanishes.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Paul Slack takes a global approach to explore the historical and social impact of plague over the centuries, looking at the ways in which it has been interpreted and the powerful images it has left behind in art and literature.  

Who are you when you dream? Rick isn't sure anymore.... Is he Rick, living in the here and now? Working a boring job, married to Cath. Or is he Dan, living 600 years and half a galaxy away? Exploring an alien planet with Vanessa by his side. Two worlds, one man. While he's awake in one place, he's asleep in the other. Simple enough, until people from Dan's world start turning up in Rick's life. Confusing? But then it gets worse. Dan is accused of a crime he didn't commit. Ricks wife leaves him and both realities are falling apart. Which life is real? Will either go back to how it was?

King Alfred never achieved his dream of uniting the disparate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into one Perfecta Saxonia. The man destined to fulfill Alfred's dream is his grandson, Athelstan, as the spark of unity begins in the Saxon kingdom of Wessex. Abandoned by his father and raised by his uncle, young Athelstan faces numerous adversities on his way to becoming a mighty warrior and diplomat. But can he overcome the odds to transform England from an insignificant island off the Western European mainland, into the leading centre of 10th-century diplomacy and learning?

Thistle will go to any lengths to get payback on the humans who murdered her family and to ensure that such a tragedy will never happen again. Leading the goblins is the warrior Noe. Her solution to the human problem? Kill them all, or at least drive them away from the goblin homeland. As Thistle will discover, the world has changed since the goblins isolated themselves in the hills north of the Inland Sea.

When I'm honorably discharged from the British Army on medical grounds following a brutal tour in Afghanistan, I use my skills as a combat medic to continue to save lives as a paramedic. I'm confident there's no situation I can't handle . . . until I'm teamed up with chirpy Grace Newton. She's everything I'm not—young, idealistic, and brimming with sunshine. Everything about her rubs me the right way, stirring wants and desires I thought were long dead. She should be off-limits—after all, I'm her mentor and work colleague. But one kiss has me wanting Grace's healing hands all to myself.

I seek out monsters and slay them to grow stronger. To my shock, I recognize some as my own creations from the distant past. Even more perilous than monsters are the dark secrets that devour all who draw too close. Yet no matter what disguise evil may wear—once it falls away, truth kills...

In 45 BCE, the Roman statesman Cicero fell to pieces when his beloved daughter, Tullia, died from complications of childbirth. But from the depths of despair, Cicero fought his way back. In an effort to cope with his loss, he wrote a consolation speech—not for others, as had always been done, but for himself. And it worked. Cicero's Consolation was something new in literature, equal parts philosophy and motivational speech.

A group of unlikely heroes are all that stand in the way of humanity's demise as the zombie apocalypse engulfs the kingdom in this high fantasy adventure set in the world of Zombicide: Black Plague.

If one looks too long into the abyss, the abyss looks back. Drangar Ralgon has been avoiding the abyss's gaze for far too long and now he turns to face it. For 100 years the young kingdom of Danastaer has thrived in peace. Now their northern neighbor, mighty Chanastardh, has begun a cunning invasion. Thrust into events far beyond his control, the mercenary Drangar Ralgon flees his solitary life as a shepherd to evade the coming war and take responsibility for his crimes. In Dunthiochagh, Danastaer's oldest city, the holy warrior Kildanor uncovers the enemy's plans for invasion.

The zealot army is coming. The winter raid has earned the goblins an enemy they can’t hope to beat. Eris, the leader of a reclusive goblin village, promises he can deliver them. But as Spicy and Thistle soon discover, this charismatic newcomer is maneuvering goblins and men alike towards a disastrous showdown.

In the filth-ridden streets of East End in London, Young Elsie Griggs knows little more than grueling poverty and constant hunger. When Mama becomes ill, Elsie must get a job to support the family. But working as a personal maid in Whiston Manor proves a constant challenge for Elsie. The only good thing about the manor is Mrs. Whiston's grandson, the kind and charming Andrew - who is out of bounds to Elsie. She has no way of knowing a series of tragedies are barreling toward her that will rip her entire world apart, setting her on a new path. But will this new path include Andrew?

The Ghost in the Telescope is an insider's account of the Herschel Space Observatory, which was launched to answer two of the biggest questions in astronomy: How were the stars and galaxies born? Written in an engaging manner for a general audience, this book tells the stories of the telescope itself, the discoveries it made, and the engineers and astronomers who built and used it.