Showing results by narrator "Joan Walker" in All Categories

Melissa Craig is absolutely delighted with her new life in an old crumbling cottage, spending her days pruning the primroses and getting to know Binkie, the ginger cat next door. She only wishes she had made the move to the countryside sooner. But when a knock at the door brings news of a shocking discovery, she suddenly finds herself thrown in to the middle of a baffling mystery: the bones of a young woman have been found in the woods just behind her new home. Perhaps the little village of Upper Bembury is not as idyllic as it first seemed? Strange phone calls in the night convince Melissa that the police are barking up completely the wrong tree, so she can’t resist doing a little digging of her own. From the bingo hall to the beauty salon and beyond, her search ruffles a few feathers and uncovers many of the village’s most scandalous secrets, but gets her no closer to finding the culprit.

Melissa couldn’t be happier that summer has arrived. She’s delighted to have her mother back by her side, and she is extending her beloved Hawthorn Cottage so her new family can live together. Meanwhile, Melissa’s mother, Sylvia, is back in good health and enjoying a brief stay at a stately retirement home. She loves getting to know the residents, until first a dog and then his owner are both found dead in the dining room. Like mother, like daughter, Sylvia decides to do a little investigating of her own.

There is a scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception. Research has shown that the extraordinary sensory powers of our animal friends can help us better understand the same powers that lie dormant within us....

Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He isn't as young as he used to be. He drives a Saab. He points at people he doesn't like the look of. He is described by those around his as 'the neighbour from hell'.Every morning he makes his inspection rounds of the local streets. He moves bicycles and checks the contents of recycling bins, even though it's been years since he was fired as Chairman of the Residents' Association in a vicious 'coup d'état'.

Experience Macbeth as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.

It's 1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.

An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character - vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin, she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him, the young Jewish scholar hidden in a sarcophagus until safe passage to England is found, the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation, and more.

In November 2014 Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, father and sister to death with a hammer. Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Arla will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation. King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five witnesses and Arla herself as he questions whether Arla's responsibility for the massacre was a diminished as her legal team made out.

Written for the five-year-old son of her former governess, The Tale of Peter Rabbit was Beatrix Potter's first literary offering. Immensely popular upon its release in 1902, The Tale of Peter Rabbit featured a mischievous bunny who encounters a cranky old gardener and his cat.

Years ago, archaeologists excavating near Pompeii unearthed a hoard of Roman treasures, among them a bowl depicting a woman with thick, curly hair and sporting an elephant-scalp headdress. For decades, theories circulated about her identity―until, at last, she was ascertained to be Cleopatra Selene, the only surviving daughter of Roman Triumvir Marc Antony and Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII. Using this discovery as her starting point and creating a narrative from mere fragments in the archaeological record, historian Jane Draycott reconstructs the exceptional life of this woman.

Taking inspiration from numerous fairy tales and weaving them into a wholly original story, Into the Woods is a whirlwind of a novel, full of imaginative happenings, dastardly deeds and thrilling adventure. Our guides are sisters three: Storm, Aurora and Anything Eden. Accidentally orphaned and left to fend for themselves in a decaying mansion on the edge of the wilds, they come to the very much unwanted attention of the sinister Dr DeWilde: a scar-faced gentleman with a pied waistcoat and an unhealthy interest in rats.

I know many things about Larissa. I know what she eats, which must-have brands she applies to her face, and the price of each carefully selected ‘piece’ in her multi-million-pound home in Belgravia. Because Ris, as she is known to her many followers, likes to share. And now I’m here, in her home, watching her every move. Entrusted with her secrets and running her diary from the bijou basement flat, I’m on hand to fulfil Ris’ every need. Her right-hand woman. But what she doesn’t know is why I’m really here.

Experience Henry V as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.

Nothing ever happens in August, so Kate goes off on a long-overdue holiday to Whitby to visit her friend Alma who works there as a fortune teller. She's been looking forward to a relaxing seaside sojourn, but, upon arrival, she discovers that Alma's daughter, Felicity, has disappeared, leaving her mother a note and the pawn ticket for their only asset: a watch-guard. What makes this more intriguing is that the jeweler who advanced Felicity the 30 shillings is Jack Phillips, Alma's current gentleman friend.

Jess knows it's time to move on from her best friend's couch, where she's been crashing since her boyfriend emptied out her heart, and all her savings. But when she responds to an ad in the newspaper for a lodger on a quiet Notting Hill street, Jess has no idea how life's about to change. Joan has spent too long alone with her memories of the man she walked away from one Manhattan evening years ago. Passing a bedroom door she can't bear to open, she decides to advertise for a lodger. When Jess meets Joan, she recognises a woman left behind by the world, and so she suggests a switch.

In a quiet provincial Danish town, something is afoot. The volunteers of the local second-hand shop keep dying. Since they’re all OAP's, the police can’t see the problem. It’s the inevitable – if unfortunate – circle of life. However, resident busy-body, and force-to-be-reckoned-with, Anne-Maj Mortensen is not so sure. She may be newly retired herself, but she still has her wits about her and knows when something needs a little investigating. Scandi crime, but not as you’ve ever seen it before.

This audiobook helps people to master English pronunciation and intonation and helps to make their speech clear and easy to understand. It is instrumental in overcoming the barrier to speak English.

The dashing gentleman and the determined lady both pursue the secrets of the Black Rose Society. But what they discover is forbidden passion and a dangerous desire.

The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men; its longest-serving editor, James Murray, devoted 36 years to the project, as far as the letter T. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By the time it was finished in 1928 its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from archaeologists and astronomers to murderers, naturists, novelists, pornographers, queer couples, suffragists, vicars and vegetarians.

When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies she leaves behind an extraordinary body of work - but for her family there is a legacy of secrets and painful revelations. To her children she is both curse and blessing, as they cope with the inheritance of her passions - and demons. Only their father's gift of stillness can withstand Rachel's destructive influence and the suspicion that her family came second to her art.