Showing results by narrator "Steve West" in All Categories

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.

The locker rooms of winning teams are crowded with coaches, family, and fans. Reporters flock to the athletes, brimming with victory and celebration, to ask, "How does it feel?" In contrast, the locker rooms of the losing teams are quiet and awkward, and reporters tend to leave quickly, reluctant to linger too long around loss. But, as sports journalists Mary Pilon and Louisa Thomas argue, losing is not a phenomenon to be overlooked, and in Losers, they have called upon novelists, reporters, and athletes to consider what it means to lose.

Violet Young is a hugely popular journalist-turned-mommy-influencer with three children, a successful husband, and a million subscribers on YouTube who tune in daily to watch her everyday life unfold. But one day she disappears from the online world - her entire social-media presence deleted overnight, with no explanation. Has she simply decided that baring her life to all online is no longer a good idea, or has something more sinister happened to Violet?

From the New York Times and internationally best-selling authors of The Illuminae Files comes a new science fiction epic.... It's 2380, and the graduating students of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Tyler Jones has been a star pupil who hopes to recruit the squad of his dreams but ends up with a mixed and volatile crew. And Ty's squad isn't even his biggest problem - that'd be Aurora Jie-Lin O'Malley, the girl he's just rescued from interdimensional space.

Luke Kanowski is a young playwright - intense, magnetic, and eager for life. He escapes a disastrous upbringing in the northeast and, arriving in London, meets Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer, and the beautiful, fiery Leigh Radley, the woman Paul loves. The three set up a radical theater company, living and working together; a romantic connection forged in candlelit rehearsal rooms during power cuts and smoky late-night parties in Chelsea's run-down flats.

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.

As a boy, Nero's royal heritage becomes a threat to his very life, first when the mad emperor Caligula tries to drown him, then when his great aunt attempts to secure her own son's inheritance. Faced with shocking acts of treachery, young Nero is dealt a harsh lesson - it is better to be cruel than dead. While Nero idealises the artistic and athletic principles of Greece, his very survival rests on his ability to navigate the sea of vipers that is Rome. Most lethal of all is his own mother, Agrippina, whose only goal is to control the empire.

Monsieur Perdu is back! In this novel from Nina George we return to Jean Perdu's beautiful barge on the Seine, his Literary Apothercary. He's spent many years still prescribing just the right book for his customers in the exact time they need it. His beloved books are his medicine: books that will comfort, guide, envelop and the perfect book to the customer that he know will guide them.

First, the bad news: an ancient evil - you know, your standard consume-all-life-in-the-galaxy deal - is about to be unleashed. The good news? Squad 312 is standing by to save the day. They've just got to take care of a few small distractions first. Like the clan of gremps who'd like to rearrange their favourite faces. And the cadre of illegit GIA Agents with creepy flowers where their eyes used to be, who'll stop at nothing to get their hands on Auri. Then there's Kal's long-lost sister, who's not exactly happy to see her baby brother and has a Syldrathi army at her back.

Rob has always loved Anna, but she never wanted him. He paints her portrait over and over again. Now one night, she phones him, desperate for help. He rushes to her place, but when he gets there she's dead—sprawled across her living-room floor, a crimson gash in her chest. Now he’s the prime suspect for her murder. Her face on his canvas. Her kiss goodbye on his lips. Her blood on his hands. No one believes him, and does he even trust himself?

Marian Halcolmbe finds and marries her true love, Theo Camlet. But when Theo’s first wife, who everyone believed to be dead, reappears, Marian and her brother-in-law, Walter, must delve into the darkest and most dangerous corners of London to save Theo from accusations of bigamy and murder, as well as the hangman’s noose. Victorian literature's most exciting heroine, Marian Halcombe, stars in Brenda Clough’s thrilling and romantic sequel to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White.

There's a lot Jean hasn't said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with accusing glares and anonymous harassment. Now her husband is dead, and there's no reason to stay quiet. People want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them there were secrets. There always are in a marriage. The truth - that's all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything.

A damp, dark cellar holds two cages. And for the women behind the bars, their worst nightmares are about to come true. When Louise Russell goes missing from her home, D.I. Sean Corrigan from South London's Murder Investigation Unit immediately senses foul play. For Corrigan's own dark childhood has given him the ability not only to recognize evil in those who prey upon the innocent, but also to see a crime scene from the eyes of the perpetrator.

Everyone knows Hawkins is not the reporter his father - a famous war correspondent - was. Hawkins’s fondness for drink disqualifies him from the kind of reporting that is his birthright. But with a father like his, the newspaper cannot let him go. Instead, the board has asked him to write a biography of his father - a fluff project designed to keep Hawkins out of trouble. But the assignment leads to unsuspected, shocking revelations.

With the beautiful and cunning Poppaea at his side, Nero Augustus commands the Roman Empire, ushering in an unprecedented era of artistic and cultural splendour. Although he has yet to produce an heir, his power is absolute. But in the 10th year of his reign, a terrifying prophecy comes to pass and a fire engulfs Rome, reducing entire swaths of the city to rubble. Rumours of Nero's complicity in the blaze start to sow unrest among the populace - and the politicians.

Luke Kanowski is a young playwright: Intense, magnetic, fleeing a disastrous upbringing in the North East. Arriving in London, he meets Paul Driscoll, an aspiring producer, and beautiful, fiery Leigh Radley, the girl Paul loves. Luke, Paul and Leigh set up a radical theatre company, living and working together, forging a connection in the smoky late nights of Chelsea’s run-down flats and damp rehearsal rooms above pubs, candlelit during power cuts, where a new generation of writers and directors is fighting for its place.

Selly has salt water in her veins. So when her father leaves her high and dry in the port of Kirkpool, she has no intention of riding out the winter at home while he sails to adventure in the north seas. But any plans to follow him are dashed when a handsome stranger with tell-tale magician's marks on his arms commandeers her ship under cover of darkness. He is Prince Leander of Alinor, and he needs to cross the Crescent Sea without detection so he can complete a ritual on the sacred Isles of the Gods.

A six-year-old boy in the British immigrant community of Whitechapel believes he has discovered a unicorn for sale at the market. Though it looks to most people like a white goat with a bump on its head, young Joe is certain it will make the dreams of his friends and neighbors come true - a reunion with his father in Africa, a steam press for a tailor shop, a ring for a girlfriend. Others may be skeptical of the unicorn’s magic, but with enough effort, Joe believes he can make it all real.

In 1924, the English mountaineer Ashley Walsingham dies attempting to summit Mount Everest, leaving his fortune to his former lover, Imogen Soames-Andersson - whom he has not seen in seven years. Ashley’s solicitors search in vain for Imogen, but the estate remains unclaimed. Nearly eighty years later, new information leads the same law firm to Tristan Campbell, a young American who could be the estate’s rightful heir. If Tristan can prove he is Imogen’s descendant, the inheritance will be his.

An epic collection of fantasy stories from true masters of the genre, including a never-before-published Song of Ice and Fire novella by George R. R. Martin. Fantasy fiction has produced some of the most unforgettable heroes ever: Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné, Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Classic characters like these made sword and sorcery a cornerstone of fantasy fiction and an inspiration for a new generation of writers spinning their own magical adventures.