Showing results by narrator "Fiona Hardingham" in All Categories

Anna Shepherd is a straight-A student with a lot going on under the surface: She’s struggling with her mom’s death, total friend drama, and the fallout from wasting her time on a very attractive boy. She’s looking forward to skipping town after graduation - but then a zombie apocalypse majorly disrupts the holidays season. It’s going to be very hard to graduate high school without a brain. To save the day, Anna, her friends, and her frenemies will have to journey straight to the heart of one of the most dangerous places ever known: high school.

Serena Meadows and her twin sister, Luna, are identical in appearance - but the similarity ends there. Luna always had a mean streak and, as a teenager, her selfishness culminated in an almighty betrayal from which Serena thought she’d never recover. Years later the twins are reunited by tragedy and Luna is a changed woman. The arrogance and spite of her youth are gone and, at a time when Serena really needs support, Luna sets aside her own life to come to the rescue. But her generosity is not what it seems and before long she does something devastating.

In 2019, the AIs went to war. Three days later, hundreds of nuclear missiles were launched. The electromagnetic pulse destroyed the machines, but the radiation and famine nearly destroyed humanity. By 2039, civilization had regressed to the age of steam, but newer technologies were on the horizon. The future looked bright until the warlords swept through Europe. Villages and towns were laid waste, the few thousand people who'd hacked out a life in the continental wasteland were butchered. It was only when the barbarians reached the British garrison in Calais that they were stopped.

Alina yearns for freedom. She and her husband, Liviu, are teachers in their 20s, living under the repressive regime of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the Socialist Republic of Romania in the 1970s. But after her brother-in-law defects, Alina and Liviu fall under suspicion and surveillance, and their lives are suddenly turned upside down - just like the glasses in her superstitious aunt Theresa's house that are used to ward off evil spirits.

As an expert baker, Rosaline Palmer is a big believer in always following the recipe. She's lived her life by that rule - well, except for when she dropped out of college to raise her daughter, Amelie. Now, with a paycheck as useful as greaseproof paper and a house crumbling faster than biscuits in tea, she's teetering on the edge of financial disaster. But where there's a whisk there's a way...and Rosaline has just landed a spot on the nation's most beloved baking show.

In the long hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war. But on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind: Mrs Petty, the widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds against a background of mounting national anxiety, it becomes clear though that this is no ordinary find.

When accident-prone Helen Grey finds a thong stuffed into the pocket of her boyfriend's best work trousers, it's time for her to move on. His excuse that he needed to dust the photocopier and just thought that it was a rag sounds like a lame excuse. Helen's life is propelled in an unexpected direction after her best friend, Ayshe, sets her a fourteen-day, life-changing challenge. Helen receives a task everyday which she must complete without question.

Late in the twenty-first century, drought and wildfires prompt an exodus from southern Europe. When twelve-year-old Caleb is separated from his mother during their trek north, he soon falls prey to traffickers. Enslaved in an enclave outside Manchester, the resourceful and determined Caleb never loses hope of bettering himself. After Caleb is befriended by a fellow victim of trafficking, another road opens. Hiding in the woodlands by day, guided by the stars at night, he begins a new journey - to escape to a better life, to meet someone he can trust, and to find his family.

Since the tragic loss of her parents, Enid has lived alone in a coastal cottage in Jersey. But this year someone new has come into her life: Fred, who truly gets her, and who knows how to make her happy. The only problem is that Enid has Asperger’s and doesn’t like to leave her comfort zone - and Fred lives in Australia. Like Enid, Fred has survived heartbreak and is searching for a way to start again. Could a stranger on the other side of the world really bring new meaning to his life, or is he just setting himself up for another fall?

Virginia St. George - of the dragon-slaying St. George dynasty - has the brains and bloodline that define her family's legacy, but she's never been good at following in their footsteps. She doesn't have the powerful magic every St. George is born with or the sword-wielding skills of the paladins - like her sister, Celeste - who bravely combat their fire-breathing foes. Even worse, a past tragedy has left Virginia with a crippling fear of dragons...and facing arranged marriage to an aging nobleman eager for heirs.

Stranded with an inn-full of travelers, Jenny Prydd finds herself embroiled in Emily Pellering's reluctant elopement. When she realizes that Emily's having second thoughts Jenny finds it impossible not to interfere. With the help of her fellow travelers - enigmatic Peter Teverley and his nephew Dominic - Jenny foils a fortune-hunter's plans. That should be the end of it, but when they reach London matters grow more complex: the fortune-hunting Adrian Ratherscombe still has his eye on Emily. Dominic Teverley has a tendre for Emily, but she only has eyes for Peter.

During a semester in the wilderness, 16-year-old Sib expects the tough outdoor education program and the horrors of dorm life, but friendship drama and an unexpected romance with popular Ben Capaldi? That will take some navigating. New girl Lou has zero interest in fitting in, or joining in. Still reeling from a loss that occurred almost a year ago, she just wants to be left alone. But as she witnesses a betrayal unfolding around Sib and her best friend Holly, Lou can't help but be drawn back into the land of the living.

When siblings Hedy and Spencer are forced to spend time with their reclusive and eccentric grandfather, they find themselves on a quest to solve the mysterious disappearance of their grandmother decades earlier. Searching for clues, they'll uncover dangerous secrets from their grandfather's past as a magician, because in the house of a magician you never know what - or who - you will find. Soon they will discover that, like Grandpa himself, the house possesses not only secrets, but also real magic.

A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story for ever. Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, a Black punk artist before her time. Despite her unconventional looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her one night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together.

Young and beautiful Violetta may be of royal blood, but her kingdom is in shambles when she arrives in London on a mysterious mission. Her journey has been long and her adventures many, but it is not until she meets the playwright William Shakespeare that she gets to tell the entire story from beginning to end. Violetta and her comic companion, Feste, have come in search of an ancient holy relic that the evil Malvolio has stolen from their kingdom. But where will their remarkable quest - and their most unusual story - lead?

The Crim family is full of notorious criminals. Notoriously inept, that is. Uncle Knuckles once tried to steal a carnival. Great-Uncle Bernard held himself hostage by accident. Aunt Drusilla died slipping on a banana peel. But Imogen is different. She was born with a skill for scandal. A knack for the nefarious. A mastery of misdemeanors. Despite her natural talent for all things unlawful, Imogen got out of the family business years ago. But when the rest of the Crims are accused of pulling off a major heist - which seems doubtful, to say the least - Imogen is forced to step in.

The year is 2113. In Jenna Strong’s world, ACID - the most brutal controlling police force in history - rule supreme. No throwaway comment or whispered dissent goes unnoticed - or unpunished. And it was ACID agents who locked Jenna away for life, for a horrendous crime she struggles to remember. But Jenna’s violent prison time has taught her how to survive by any means necessary. When a mysterious rebel group breaks her out, she must use her strength, speed, and skill to stay one step ahead of ACID and try to uncover the truth about what really happened.

Ben Ansell is researching his family tree when he disappears. As his sister Holly begins a desperate search, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to an ornate antique mirror and to the diary of Lavinia, a 19th-century courtesan who was living at Ashdown House when it burned to the ground over 200 years ago. Intrigued, and determined to find out more about the tragedy at Ashdown, Holly’s only hope is that uncovering the truth about the past will lead her to Ben.

When Anikka Lachlan's husband, Mac, is killed in a railway accident, she is offered - and accepts - a job at the Railway Institute's library and searches there for some solace in her unexpectedly new life. But in Thirroul in 1948, she's not the only person trying to chase dreams through books. There's Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war but who has now lost his words and his hope. There's Frank Draper, trapped by the guilt of those his medical treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom.

Hot on the trail of their missing father, Daisy and Freddie Linden step off the airship Iris in San Francisco de Asis. At the moment they discover their best clue to Papa’s whereabouts, an earthquake levels the city—and a disaster is the best time for a political coup. The forces of evil have two targets: May Lin, the river witch, and Carlos, the country’s handsome young ruler. She is sucked alive into a crevasse, having never told the prince she loves him. Carlos is abducted—with Freddie the only witness.