Showing results by narrator "Charlie Sanderson" in All Categories

New Year dawns and something is rotten in Kingsleigh. With a body on the bypass and pet cats going missing, supermarket sleuths Ant and Bea have a new case. But juggling problems at work and home takes its toll and as they near the truth, more than one secret is going to come out.

Widow Dilly Carey has struggled out of poverty to make a life for herself. Dilly should be content, but she is troubled by the one secret she must never share: the true parentage of her daughter, Olivia, whom Dilly gave away at birth. It's time for Dilly to make her peace with the choice that she was forced to make, but will she also find a way to a new happiness - and a new love?

As the much doted-on daughter of the local doctor Violet Stroud had a comfortable, happy childhood - despite a distinct lack of love from her cold-hearted mother. But when her father unexpectedly dies, Violet's life is turned upside down. As secrets about the family come to light, Violet finds herself homeless and with no one to turn to apart from Edie, the family's gentle and loving housekeeper.

Bronte Mettlestone is 10 years old when her parents are killed by pirates. This does not bother her particularly: her parents ran away to have adventures when she was a baby. She has been raised by her aunt Isabelle, with assistance from the Butler, and has spent a pleasant childhood of afternoon teas and riding lessons. Now, however, her parents have left detailed instructions for Bronte in their will. Instructions that, annoyingly, have been reinforced with faery cross-stitch, which means that if she doesn't complete them, terrible things could happen!

From the Waterstones Book Prize shortlisted author of A Boy Called Hope and The Boy Who Sailed the Ocean in an Armchair. Mabel has a suitcase full of worries - it turned up just after her dad disappeared and before her mum started dating Gavin. She worries about big things and little things and shoves them into her suitcase until it’s so full it might explode....

As I stare at the girl, I feel my heart pound inside my chest. There she is, my daughter, right in front of me after all this time. I have to reach her, to hold her, before I lose her all over again. I have experienced what no mother should: I have lost my child. Many years ago, after my divorce, my daughter moved in with her father, and then went missing. For years, I searched everywhere for my darling girl, but she had vanished without a trace. But even on my darkest days, when my heart felt truly broken, I kept a hope alive inside—a hope that my little girl would find her way back to me.

Amelia is starring as Dorothy in her school production of The Wizard of Oz, and her friend Sam's puppy, Mac, is playing Toto; Amelia and Sam are helping out at Animal Ark when twin sisters come into the surgery with their pet hamster; a shy boy at Amelia and Sam's school is using his pet guinea pig to help him make friends - by taking his pet to school; and when Amelia and Sam start taking riding lessons, they meet a homeless rescue pony named Ginger and a big horse named Walnut who keeps throwing off his riders.

When sixteen-year-old Asha Kennedy discovers her older sister Maya's dead body in their home, her world falls apart. Desperate for answers, and to stay out of the hands of the social services she grew up in, Asha turns to her hacker friends for help. Her search leads her to Zu Tech, the hit games studio where Maya was a lead coder. As Asha begins to unravel the riddle of her death, she realises that the only way to uncover the truth is from the inside.

On her own wedding night, beautiful and complicated Evie White leaps off a cliff to her death. What drove her to commit this terrible act? It's left to her best friend and her husband to unravel the sinister mystery. Following a twisted trail of clues leading to Evie's darkest secrets, they begin to realize they never knew the real Evie at all.

It's 1988. Harper Richardson's mum and dad are divorced. Her mum got custody of her, the Mini and 500 tins of baked beans. Her dad got a mouldering cottage in a Midlands backwater village and plenty of free time to indulge his WWII obsession. What a Way to Go is a warm, wise and witty tale of one girl's mission to run headfirst into the middle of some of life's big questions - and to come out the other side with some reasonable answers.

The plan is simple: hop in her reliable camper van and cross the Channel, headed for a rendezvous with her best friend in Amsterdam. But when Verity stumbles across a decades-old postcard while preparing her cottage for its temporary tenants, her life takes an unexpected turn, and she finds herself on a ferry to Puffin Island instead. Verity’s childhood was filled with tales of adventures set on the picturesque island, but she’d always thought her beloved granny had made it all up. Now, knowing the stories and the setting were real, Verity is determined to find the postcard’s sender.

When Tessa Skye’s father is killed by order of a powerful conjurer, her world is turned upside down. As a locksmith’s apprentice with a magical amulet that lets her transform into a sparrow, Tessa is determined to do the impossible, bring him back.

High-flying lawyer Sara O’Neil had it all; the career, the money, the prestige. And then she jumped to her death. Cassandra Harlow never expected to see her friend fall from their office rooftop. Someone knows what really happened. But the only people who might know the truth are a secret women-only society, Inside, whose promise is to fast-track your career. But if Sara was part of it and they helped facilitate her rise to the top, could they also be the reason she came crashing down to earth?

Animal-mad Amelia is sad about moving house, until she discovers Animal Ark, where vets look after all kinds of animals in need. When they discover some baby kittens, Amelia and her new friend Sam are determined to help. But the kittens need their mum, and she's gone missing! Can Amelia and Sam track her down in time?

Manon Pawlak has just turned eighteen—a debutant at the start of The Virtue Season: a process which will result in a match with a suitable genetic mate. Her best friend, Agatha, has been decommissioned. Her seizures mean that she has been branded with a scar on the crest of her cheek which will forever sit at the corner of her vision, colouring the world in shades of mauve. This is the story of their ritual year. And the Council is watching...

Birdie dreams of becoming a professional artist, but the constraints of society demand she marries well. In order to fulfil her dreams, she makes a deal with her parents: to let her spend a year at the St. Agnes School of Art in Cornwall, after which she will return home and marry the insufferable but influential and wealthy Charles Bonham, as per her parents' wishes. Birdie however, has no intention of ever going back. Free of responsibility for the first time, she finds herself surrounded by a crew of bohemian artists who show her just how dizzying independence can be.

Amelia and Sam are bunny-sitting over the Easter holidays! Their friend's pet rabbit has had babies – and they all need new homes. One bunny is adopted by their classmate, Dominic, who wants to win the school talent show with his magic act. Can Amelia and Sam convince him to perform his tricks without a disappearing bunny?

Skuld, Hild and Trud are Valkyries. They are immortal, beautiful, and deadly super-warriors belonging to Odin, the Allfather himself. When a terrible prophecy threatens the royal family and their youngest son, who is the Crown Prince, in accordance with the Royal Kingdom’s traditions, the Allfather immediately sends his Valkyries to Midgard to investigate. When they arrive, they uncover chilling evidence that someone is trying to probe the magic city’s defenses, threatening the royal family and the magic kingdom itself.

London, 1951: Clem Fatale, the youngest crook in the city, is on a mission to find her dad. Jimmy Fatale, notorious jewel thief and leader of the Spider Gang, has gone missing and with him the greatest prize in London: the Fool’s Canary. Nothing, and nobody, will stop Clem from finding them.

Evelyn War is a Believer. She knows that long before the Time of Ice, the Masters fought a war with Them, great chitinous beasts that stalked the world and rended and killed. She knows the Masters sent fierce, doglike Aux like her to watch over their great sleep. Them were real. But in the frozen ruins of Berlin, Them have not been seen for many years. Now the Aux fight among themselves and say all that was just stories. They scorn Evelyn and mock her warnings. But the ice is melting, and the whistling calls of Them can be heard in the tunnels of the U-Bahn once more....