Showing results by narrator "Dan Stevens" in All Categories

In the eighth book in the number-one best-selling Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, Alex meets international do-gooder Desmond McCain. But a simple card game between them rapidly leads to a duel to the death - one that could result in the destruction of an entire country.

Calcutta, May 1916. Lieutenant Peake pauses for breath outside the ruins of Jheeter's Gate station knowing that he only has a few hours to live. Inside his overcoat he is sheltering two newborn babies - twins, a boy and a girl. Peake runs at full tilt to the house of Aryami Bose, to whom he entrusts the children. In 1932 we meet the boy, Ben, and his group of friends the night before they are due to leave St Patricks orphanage.

The Jersey Devil is a legendary creature said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of South New Jersey. The Devil is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there have been several variations encountered by many eyewitnesses over the last 300 years. In 1735, a woman known as Mother Leeds gave birth to her 13th child on a stormy night surrounded by friends (who some claim were witches) who exclaimed "May it be the Devil."

 Paperback Hell takes a wry look at well-known genres riding high in the publishing charts and mercilessly lampoons them to hilarious effect. Featuring choice chapters culled from titles that bear a striking resemblance to something you've read before, it's the book show that seems determined to destroy the good name of literature. 

The world’s most famous detective. The most brilliant mind in fiction. But before he became the great detective, who was young Sherlock Holmes? The year is 1868, and Sherlock Holmes is 14. His life is that of a perfectly ordinary army officer’s son: boarding school, good manners, a classical education – the backbone of the British Empire.

In Beirut, a brilliant young Sky TV reporter Katie Dartmouth has been captured by a ruthless gang of Hezbollah terrorists. She is to be executed live on television unless British troops are withdrawn from Iraq. A nation holds its breath and the government is tottering on the edge of collapse.

When two young apprentice dragonologists, Beatrice and Daniel Cook, are taken into his care to attend his Dragonology summer school, all sorts of trouble ensues. The three must deal with wayward dragons, missing diaries and the evil antics of the terrible Ignatius Crook, who is intent on stealing the dragon's eye, and claiming the title of Dragon Master for himself.

England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself.

'Once there was a widow with three sons, and their names were Black, Brown and Blue. Black was the eldest; moody and aggressive. Brown was the middle child, timid and dull. But Blue was his mother's favourite. And he was a murderer.' Blueeyedboy is the brilliant new novel from Joanne Harris: a dark and intricately plotted tale of a poisonously dysfunctional family, a blind child prodigy, and a serial murderer who is not who he seems.

Following the acclaimed first novel comes the second instalment of the adventure in which Daniel and Beatrice continue their secret and dangerous dragonological studies; Dr Drake searched for dragonological treasures and visits old friends in India and China; Alexandra Gorynytchka's wicked plans are laid bare; dragons the world over are in terrible danger of extinction; and Ignatious Crook plots a horrible revenge.

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers—characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

A Week in December is Sebastian Faulks's first wholly contemporary novel. Set in London, it's a brilliant social satire, structured like a thriller, that takes place over the course of a single week at the end of 2007. It brings together an intriguing cast of characters, each apparently in his or her own world but - as gradually becomes clear - ultimately intricately related.

Small-time private investigator Ray Lovell veers between paralysis and delirium in a hospital bed. But before the accident that landed him there, he had promised to find Rose Janko. Rose was married to the charismatic son of a travelling gypsy family, Ivo Janko. When Ray starts to investigate her disappearance he's surprised that her family are so hostile towards him.

Now, in 1949, employed as an extra in a war film that echoes his real experience, Alfred Day begins to recall what he would rather forget.

It's 1919, and Britain is realising that it is no longer at war. Now, Nadine and Riley, Rose, and Peter and Julia, must try to regain a sense of normality. But long shadows cast by the war dim the potential joys of peacetime, and matters of the heart prove arduous and bewildering. Normality doesn't seem to exist the way it did, and there is no ‘going back' to anything. What must give, for happiness to stand a chance? For those who fought, those who healed, and those left behind, 1919 is a year freighted with perilous beginnings, unavoidable realities, and gleams of indestructible hope.

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books, and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city's underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.

For 15-year-old Gemma, it is already too late. Her body is found in the nave of a church in Ealing, West London. At first, all the signs point to suicide. But then the autopsy suggests it was not, and Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia and the Barnes murder squad are called in.