Showing results by narrator "Steve West" in All Categories

Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don't sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life - eating, drinking, and reproducing - the purpose of sleep remained elusive.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in–she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this? Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret–and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm - that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict. Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon.

Mia and Finn are busy turning a derelict house into their dream home when Mia unexpectedly falls pregnant. But just when they think the house is ready, Mia discovers a shocking message scored into a skirting board: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. Following the clue up into the eaves, the couple make a gruesome discovery: their home was once a real-life murder house, with the evidence still concealed within the four walls.

Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. A stable, if unexciting marriage. But one thing’s for sure: absolutely nothing is what it seems. The pair are far from normal, and one of them just may be a killer. When the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due.

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

Sasha Pierce hasn’t had a single dream since she was a child...until she accepts a substitute teaching position in the charmingly witchy village of Old Middleton. Her first dream in twenty-five years ought to be enchanting, but her wonder quickly turns to shock when she realizes that it’s not a dream at all, but an entirely different sort of magic. Catapulted through an ancient portal into the fairytale kingdom of Between, Sasha’s astonishment is swiftly upgraded to panic when she accidentally performs a supposedly impossible feat and is declared the True Queen of Between.

Paul’s just here to help, or so he claims—sent by a charity for vulnerable people to do odd jobs for elderly widow Gwen. But for Gwen’s daughter Connie, there’s just something about Paul that rings alarm bells from day one. He’s a little too kind, a little too involved…Worse still, Gwen seems to have fallen under his spell.

On Mars, Var Delex fights for the survival of Antares Base, while the Argus Space Station hurls towards the red planet. And she knows whomever, or whatever, trashed Earth is still aboard. Var must save the base, while also dealing with the first signs of rebellion. And aboard Argus Station, Alan Saul’s mind has expanded into the local computer network. In the process, he uncovers the ghastly experiments of the Humanoid Unit Development.

Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution.

The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning. By his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.

For thousands of years, there has been a cycle: a Demon King rises and conquers, and a Hero is reborn a hundred years later to defeat him. Each time, civilizations are ground to dust beneath the Demon King's hordes, but humanity has remained secure in the belief that a Hero of legend will always save them. There's just one slight problem. It's only been 23 years since the Demon King's latest rise, and this time, he's already conquered more than half the world. If humanity simply waits for the Hero's return, there may be no world left for him to save.

Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone—even the lowborn—a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders. Now, they are both rising stars in the new regime, despite backgrounds that couldn't be more different. Annie's lowborn family was executed by dragonfire, while Lee's aristocratic family was murdered by revolutionaries. Growing up in the same orphanage forged their friendship, and seven years of training have made them rivals for the top position in the dragonriding fleet.

The eldest of the Frobisher brothers, known as the lord of the privateers, Royd expects to execute the final leg of the rescue mission his brothers have been pursuing. What he does not expect is to be pressured into taking with him his emotional nemesis, childhood sweetheart, ex-handfasted bride, and business partner, Isobel Carmichael. But is it Isobel doing the pressuring, or his own restless, unfulfilled psyche? Isobel, unstoppably resolute and determined, has a mission of her own: find her cousin Katherine and bring her safely home.

The aristocratic Pathfinder Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard, Radovan (Pathfinder's answer to Sherlock Holmes and Watson), return for their fifth standalone novel. When Varian is bequeathed a dangerous magical book by an old colleague, he and Radovan are pulled into a mystery that will set them on the path of a powerful necromancer seeking to become the new avatar of an ancient and sinister demigod - one of the legendary Runelords. But in saving the world, will Varian and Radovan lose their souls?

Alex and his friends from Artimé are stranded on a newly discovered island after barely surviving a storm that destroys their ship. And it turns out they're not alone... Back in Quill, Aaron's power base grows as he aligns himself with an unlikely ally. Together,the two enact a drastic, risky plan to conquer Artimé at last--a plan that could ultimately leave everyone in both Artimé and Quill in far more danger than Aaron realizes.

When Selly and Leander began their treacherous voyage to the Isles of the Gods, the captain’s daughter and the playboy prince were strangers. But amid talk of war and a deadly attack on their ship, the unthinkable happened. They fell in love. Leander’s ritual at the island temple was meant to prevent a war between the gods. Instead, it nearly cost him his life, and drew the goddess Barrica back from exile. Now, as her Messenger, Leander is imbued with her deadly magic, and only Selly’s presence can stop it from consuming him.