Showing results by narrator "Des Powell" in All Categories

While her older sister is being presented to London Society for the season, Lydia Bramwell is sent to her Aunt Camilla in the Sussex countryside. High-spirited Lydia expects a very dull visit, but her sojourn to the village of Diddlington is not as idyllic as she anticipates . . . A charred and bludgeoned corpse is found in the woods, and suspicion falls on Lydia's aunt's suitor, an intriguing Frenchman. Convinced of his innocence, Lydia enlists the help of her new friend, John Savidge, to catch the real killer. 

Hereford's Diocesan Exorcist must encounter a legacy of evil within the crumbling walls of an old hotel along with memories of murder. A crumbling hotel on the border of England and Wales has long been linked with the possible origins of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles and his obsession with contacting the dead. Fascinating for young Jane Watkins, flushed with the freedom of her first weekend job. But the sinister side soon becomes apparent to her mother, Merrily, Diocesan Exorcist for Hereford.

Bookstore owner Rosa Lake is relieved that her divorce has been finalised. She hopes she'll be able to get on with her life now and to put the pain and uncertainty of the past decade behind her. Primary school teacher Henry Clay has moved to the picturesque Cornish village to start his new job at the local school. After a change of career, he's excited to embrace this fresh start.

Paris, Christmas 1933. The Strasbourg express crashes into a local train outside Paris, leaving wreckage and broken bodies strewn on the tracks. On board is Gilles Malroux. In the chaos and confusion, he swaps his identity papers with a stranger, steals a suitcase and vanishes. Gilles' sister...

A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR From one of our greatest living writers, comes a remarkable memoir of a forgotten England. 'The war went. We sang in the playground, "Bikini lagoon, an atom bomb’s boom, and two big explosions." David’s father came back from Burma and didn’t eat rice...

'A lovely, touching, uplifting read with a very likeable heroine and a dishy vet - and delightful dogs' Phillipa Ashley Welcome to your new cottage in the country - complete with grumpy vet, village gossip and a very muddy dog . . . City girl Ella wants to take refuge in the country, lick her...

In the immediate aftermath of the events of Winterkeep, Bitterblue and her entourage begin the journey back to Monsea with the only copies of the formulas for the zilphium weapon. Bitterblue must decide what she will do with her world-shaping power. But before they've even made it halfway home, storms drive their ship off course and then they wreck in the ice far north of the Royal Continent. The survivors must make a harrowing trek across the ice in order to make it back to Monsea.

Brought to you by Penguin. 'A warm and engaging read.' Trisha Ashley After the death of her father, El moves into his home just outside Tavistock in Devon. Fresh out of university and dangling on the precipice of adulthood she questions what it is she really wants from life. Although her...

We all make mistakes, but starting the Third World War would have been a rather large one. To this day, I still maintain it was not entirely my fault. But I'm getting ahead of myself. During the course of my life, I've barely escaped the wrath of an arms dealer in Hamburg, been strafed by a MiG during the Nigerian civil war, and landed during a bloody coup in Guinea-Bissau.

A man's body is found below a waterfall. It looks like suicide or an accidental drowning – until DI Frannie Bliss enters the dead man's home. What he finds there has him consulting Merrily Watkins, the Diocese of Hereford's official advisor on the paranormal.

A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).

India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who'll accept her - an enigmatic and mysterious man from America, a man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he's ill.

Dave seemed to have it all. A successful career, a loving family, the respect of everyone around him. But behind the polished surface, he was drinking in secret, convincing himself it wasn’t a problem. No arrests. No missed meetings. Just a few drinks to relax… The Double Life of a High-Functioning Alcoholic is a raw, memoir-style novel inspired by Howard Kane’s own sobriety journey. It takes you inside the hidden world of high-functioning addiction where success becomes a mask, denial runs deep, and every drink feels both normal and dangerous.

One family’s secret is written in stone. One man’s mission is to erase it. At eighty-one years old, Elias Thorne is done running. For decades, his family name has been tied to a buried prehistoric force hidden beneath a quiet New England valley—a sentient crystalline Lattice that feeds on human memory and genetic resonance. When a powerful global syndicate known as The Client arrives to weaponize the mountain’s mysterious energy, Elias is forced to return to the place he’s spent a lifetime trying to escape. But nothing is as he remembers. The abandoned mill now glimmers with violet glass.

Uneek is a science fiction fantasy about an unlikely friendship between a fabricated star-like entity, Uneek, and a prehistoric apatosaurs, Thunder. It is a story of healing, adventure, and mystery set in a backdrop of the eternal cosmos. Spawned from a distant nebula called Esoterica, Uneek is on a mission to planet Earth to ascertain why Earthlings are lagging behind in their evolution. Arriving on Earth, Uneek meets Thunder, a living, breathing survivor of the prehistoric Cretaceous Era, suspended in a space time warp for the past 66 million years.

Quinn the unicorn of Keyfaetuun has just been the ring bearer at his longtime friend Vaino’s fae wedding. It’s a lonely time for the only unicorn in the world. Taking Vaino’s advice, Quinn leaps over to Fortune Island to see the fae oracle, the Mother of All Seasons. She has foreseen a convergence between worlds. The time is now, and only through this convergence and taking the journey will Quinn find what he seeks. Furthermore, the Mother of All Seasons declares that another lonely heart, a sarcastic and curse cawing raven named Kirby shall go with Quinn.

The Harrisons were always a close-knit family. But with the grandchildren fast becoming adults and elderly Pamela struggling to adapt to widowhood, the four children of the middle generation find themselves equally lost in a changing world. As preparations for 42-year-old Cassie's long-awaited wedding gather pace, sibling and marital bonds are stretched to breaking point. Adultery, an unwanted pregnancy, and shadows of past losses threaten to turn their year of celebration into one of upheaval . . .

Elizabeth Thornton has every reason to want to escape from home — a ramshackle farm in the middle of nowhere on the wilds of Dartmoor. Since her father's death, she's been trapped here, in the clutches of her lascivious uncle. When a position opens up at Rosebank Hall, she jumps at the chance. She will be a domestic drudge at the beck and call of the house's cantankerous master.

From the ancient civilizations along the banks of the Indus to the vibrant, modern democracy that thrives today, India’s history is a rich saga told through diverse cultures, monumental achievements, and profound spiritual insights. Explore the dawn of Indian civilization, witness the rise and fall of mighty empires, from the Maurya and Gupta dynasties to the majestic Mughal Empire, each leaving an indelible mark on the subcontinent’s cultural and architectural heritage.

Written by Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea, The History of the Church is the pioneering fourth-century work which details the chronological history of early Christianity from the time of Christ to Constantine. This monumental work of Christian history stands apart from other contemporary histories as the first full-length record of early Christianity from a Christian point of view. While sometimes criticized as biased and inaccurate, The History of the Church nevertheless provides an indispensable perspective upon the foundations of the Christian church and religion.