Showing results by narrator "Jane Collingwood" in All Categories

In the first century AD, during Domitian's reign, Flavia Albia is ready for a short break from her family. So in July she returns to Rome, leaving them at their place on the coast. Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, who is now retired as private informer, has taken up her father's former profession, and it's time to get back to work. The first order of business, however, is the corpse found in a chest sent as part of a large lot to be sold by the Falco family auction house.

As lead vocalist for the iconic rock band Queen, Freddie Mercury's unmatched skills as a songwriter and his flamboyant showmanship made him a superstar and Queen a household name. But despite his worldwide fame, few people ever really glimpsed the man behind the glittering facade. Now, more than 20 years after his death, those closest to Mercury are finally opening up about this pivotal figure in rock 'n' roll. Based on more than a hundred interviews with key figures in his life, Mercury offers the definitive account of one man's legendary life in the spotlight and behind the scenes.

Get some headspace is the ultimate guide to improving your life with just 10 minutes of meditation each day. Now founder of Headspace, Andy Puddicombe, teaches you how to remain mindful during pregnancy, childbirth and the early days of parenthood. The Mindful Pregnancy is the concise and practical guide to achieving and maintaining mindfulness throughout every stage of having a baby.

She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn’t their Lena. The little girl who escaped the woods with her knows things she isn’t sharing, and Lena’s devastated father is trying to piece together details that don’t quite fit. Lena is desperate to begin again, but something tells her that her tormentor still wants to get back what belongs to him.

City dweller Gwen feels like she’s living a secondhand life. She’s thirty-eight, perpetually single, and in dire need of a dentist’s appointment. Her friends are busy procreating in the country, and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around hedge borders and the trash pickup schedule. Above all she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone? Then she’s let go from a job she drifted into a decade ago and never left, and Gwen realizes it’s time to make a change, starting with cleaning out her apartment.

A man falls to his death from the Tarpeian Rock, which overlooks the Forum from the Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome. While it looks like a suicide, one witness swears that she saw it happen and that he was pushed. Normally, this would attract very little official notice, but this man happened to be in charge of organizing the imperial triumphs demanded by the emperor. Normally, the investigation would be under the auspices of her new(ish) husband, but worried about his stamina following a long recovery, private informer Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, steps in.

Sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and her sidekick and fellow orphan Tiger Prawns have been driven to the tip of the UnUnited Kingdoms - Cornwall - by the invasion of the Trolls. Their one defence is a six-foot-wide trench full of buttons, something which the Trolls find unaccountably terrifying (it's their clickiness). Worse than being eaten by Trolls is the prospect of the Mighty Shandar requisitioning the Quarkbeast and using him to achieve supreme power and domination.

In the first century, under Domitian's reign, strange and brutal goings on are nothing new in Rome. Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, has taken over her father's business as a private informer but she tries to shy away from the brutal, the complicated, and the political—because nothing good comes of any of them. Unfortunately, she's not very good at turning them down. This time a commission shows up on her doorstep—someone is staging brutal murders in some of the most beautiful buildings in Rome, each staging different.

When Cassie Fitzgerald was at school in the late 90s, she and her friends killed a fellow student. Almost twenty years later, Cassie is a happily married mother who loves her job—as a police officer. She closely guards the secret she has all but erased from her memory. One day her husband finally persuades her to go to a school reunion. Cassie catches up with her high-achieving old friends from the Manor Park School—among them two politicians, a rock star, and a famous actress.

Mustique is in a state of breathless calm as tropical storm Cristobal edges towards it across the Atlantic. Most villa owners have escaped the island but a few young socialites remain, unwilling to let summer's partying end. American heiress Amanda Fortini is one such thrill-seeker - until she heads out for a morning swim and doesn't return.

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Kane Chronicles: The Throne of Fire, read by Joseph May and Jane Collingwood. Ever since the gods of Ancient Egypt were unleashed on the modern world, Carter Kane and his sister, Sadie, have been in big trouble. As descendants of the magical House of Life, they command certain powers.

Flavia Albia, daughter and successor of private informer Marcus Didius Falco is twiddling her thumbs with no clients during the December festival of Saturnalia. But that doesn't mean all is quiet. Her husband Tiberius and the Fourth Cohort are battling organized crime interests that are going to war over the festival nuts. A series of accidental poisonings, then bloody murders of rival nut-sellers, and finally a gruesome warning to Tiberius from the hidden criminal powers to back off.

The Dark Angels and the Night Lords fought one another to a bloody stalemate during the Thramas Crusade and, though the Lion eventually claimed victory, it left both Legions scattered and under-strength. Jago Sevatarion, First Captain of the Night Lords, languishes in a gaol cell in the heart of Ultramar. Far from a spent force, the Night Lords must consider where their loyalties lie, and what path they will take in the days and months to come.

First-century Rome is not the quiet, orderly city that it pretends to be. Over on the Quirinal Hill, a naive young girl has died, and there's a suggestion that she was poisoned by a love potion. Looking into the matter, Flavia Albia, daughter of Marcus Didius Falco, soon discovers the young girl was a handful, and her so-called friends were not as friendly as they should have been. When a friend of Albia's is murdered, things take an even more serious turn.

Carter and Sadie Kane, descendants of the magical House of Life, are in pretty big trouble. Despite their bravest efforts, Apophis, the giant snake of Chaos, is still threatening to plunge the world into eternal darkness. Now the Kanes must do something no magician has ever managed - defeat Apophis himself. No pressure there then. Battling against the forces of Chaos, their only hope is an ancient spell - but the magic has been lost for a millennia. Will they find the serpent’s shadow, or will they be led to their deaths?

Twelve-year old twins, Mika and Ellie, live in a future behind a wall - safe from the plague animals beyond. Or so they've been told. But when one of them disappears, and the other takes part in a sinister virtual reality game, they begin to discover their concrete world is built on lies. Determined to find each other again, they go in search of the truth. And as a strange sound in their heads grows to a roar, they find out that children and the planet have never mattered more.

When Clytemnestra marries Agamemnon, she ignores the insidious whispers about his family line, the House of Atreus. But when, on the eve of the Trojan War, Agamemnon betrays Clytemnestra in the most unimaginable way, she must confront the curse that has long ravaged their family. In Troy, Princess Cassandra has the gift of prophecy, but carries a curse of her own: No one will ever believe what she sees. When she is shown what will happen to her beloved city when Agamemnon and his army arrives, she is powerless to stop the tragedy from unfolding.

One woman must make the hardest decision of her life in this unforgettably moving story of resistance and faith during one of the darkest times in history. Told from alternating perspectives, While Paris Slept reflects on the power of love, resilience, and courage when all seems lost.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, here shows the ways in which science is being constricted by assumptions that have, over the years, hardened into dogmas. Such dogmas are not only limiting, but dangerous for the future of humanity. According to these principles, all of reality is material or physical; the world is a machine, made up of inanimate matter; nature is purposeless; consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain; free will is an illusion; and God exists only as an idea in human minds.

Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a detective constable. When she’s called to the scene of a murder, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine is dead. Cat and her team suspect Alice’s husband, until she receives a phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland 18 years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her father wasn’t telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance.