Showing results by narrator "Karen Bartke" in All Categories

Jack loves his childhood toy Dur Pig. DP has always been there for him, through good and bad. Until one Christmas Eve something terrible happens - DP is lost. But Christmas Eve is a night for miracles and lost causes, a night when all things can come to life...even toys. And Jack’s newest toy - the Christmas Pig (DP’s annoying replacement) - has a daring plan: Together they’ll embark on a magical journey to seek something lost and to save the best friend Jack has ever known....

Detective Lola Harris is persuaded to take a much-needed break in the remote Scottish Highlands. She’s expecting peace and quiet. But Ardaig Castle, an exclusive wellness retreat for the rich and famous, has its own dark secrets. Lola soon discovers that someone is sending poison pen letters to the staff. They’re growing more malicious each week. The latest reads: Why have you employed a killer among your staff?

A collection of radio readings of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s fiction - plus two bonus programmes. Over the years the BBC has broadcast readings of many of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels, novellas and short stories. This collection includes some of his most famous works alongside various lesser-known tales, including three 'lost stories' (first published in 2017 and with an introduction written by editor Anne Margaret Daniel).

Detective Lola Harris returns from a miserable solo holiday – an effort to get over her useless ex – only to find herself in charge of a high-stakes investigation. She rushes to a crime scene in the historic Gallowgate neighbourhood. The smell in the basement is thick and sweet, even through Lola’s forensic mask. The old wooden chair and the rope hanging from its arms are stained red. The earth below is saturated with blood. Six candleholders, their lights burned out, lend the scene an air of a completed ritual. And yet there is no sign of a body.

This curated collection travels through the beginnings of the Gothic Imagination, showcases the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto, before unveiling the male gothic in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk and the dawn of the female gothic in Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho. Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey showcases the Gothic Satire, and the collection concludes with Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time episode exploring the history of the genre and Gothic Legacy.

It’s 1964, and 22-year-old Trisha moves into a West Hampstead bedsitter to escape her controlling suburban parents and her boring fiancé, Keith. She’s determined to make it as a swinging, get-ahead girl-about-town, but finds herself struggling with homesickness, loneliness and the challenges of cooking a decent meal on a single gas ring. Then she rescues a grotty wardrobe from her landlady’s attic, and it yields a surprising treasure – a copy of Cooking in a Bedsitter, which becomes her bible.

On the first morning of her new job at Heartfield House, a care home for the elderly, Annie Jackson wakens from a terrifying dream. And when she arrives at the home, she knows that the first old man she meets is going to die. How she knows this is a terrifying mystery, but it is the start of horrifying premonitions...a rekindling of the curse that has trickled through generations of women in her family - a wicked gift known only as 'the murmurs'... With its reappearance comes an old, forgotten fear that is about to grip Annie Jackson.

Ever since being adopted as babies, twins Sinead and Orla have been the only family they've ever known. Orla’s got the big house in Glasgow, the supportive husband and teenage daughter, Molly Rose, while Sinead's struggles have taken her to some very dark places. But all of that changes when Sinead receives a call. Their mother, Janey, is back in their lives. But she's far from what they expected and when the siblings discover their mum is the head of a dangerous gangland firm, their lives are turned upside down.

This year's London Marathon is my last chance to win the final place on the Olympic team. The months of rehabilitation after my injury will feel worth it to cross that line. But I wasn't expecting the man who's been making my life a living hell to be there. Last I knew, my stalker was behind bars, but he says he's going to be at the race watching. I have 26 miles to figure out whether it's him, and what he wants, or I could lose more than just the race.

Five years after leading a strike at the sewing factory, newly pregnant Ellen is rushed off her feet at the Clydebank Clothing exchange, the heart of the community. Ellen is missing her husband James who is away with the Royal Navy, and worried about how to make ends meet. She desperately wants to confide in her best friend Sadie. However, Sadie is hiding a heart-breaking secret of her own which places strain on their friendship.

Hiding from the world in her little white cottage on the shores of a loch, Annie Jackson is fighting to come to terms with the world of the murmurs, a curse that has haunted female members of her family for centuries. While she is within the ancient, heavy stone of the old dwelling, the voices merely buzz, but the moment she steps outside the door they clamour to torment her all over again, bringing with them shocking visions of imminent deaths. Into this oasis comes her adoptive mother, Mandy McEvoy, begging for Annie's help. Mandy's nephew Damien has gone missing.

Detective Lola Harris is called to a local park where the body of a woman has been pulled out of the river. On the victim’s wrist is a tattoo. A dolphin and a heart. Lola knows who she is instantly – the woman half the Glasgow force have been searching for: missing juror, Kathryn Main. Kathryn was on the jury that convicted reality TV star Carter Craig of a double murder. Just weeks later, the verdict was overturned. Carter walked free. Three jurors were arrested for misconduct. A fourth, Kathryn Main, disappeared. Then, a witness comes forward with shocking new information.

Detective Lola is heading back over the river from a rare night out when she spots a crowd of people looking over the parapet. Someone’s gone in. A young man called Cammy witnessed everything. He swears it’s the work of the Clyde Pusher, but is terrified of the police. The Clyde Pusher is the stuff of urban legend. A hooded figure who throws men into the river to drown. Eight victims in five years. But according to the police, the Pusher doesn’t exist. There are no reliable witnesses, nothing to link the victims.

Forty years ago, the name Rachel McMahon was synonymous with evil. After killing four men in the most brutal of ways, the world rejoiced as she was locked up. Now Rachel has done her time, repented for her crimes, and is ready to live a quiet life back in Scotland under a new name.

Detective Lola Harris is turning over a new leaf. She’s determined to get into shape. Her new personal trainer is merciless when it comes to fitness. Thankfully, he’s also charming and exceptionally good-looking, which helps on a cold early morning run. But as they puff round a corner in peaceful Pollok Park, Lola glimpses something that shouldn’t be there: a high-end BMW. Doors gaping. And a man and a woman, roped together. Lola’s early morning run is now a crime scene.

Like half of all the young women living in the Scottish town Clydebankin early 1911, Ellen works at the sewing machine factory. So does her big sister, Bridget, Bridget's fiancé Malcolm, and her new friend Sadie, who has come to work at the factory after the death of her father. For Sadie, the factory is a way to make ends meet, but Ellen has sewing in her veins. She is even making Bridget's wedding dress on her beloved sewing machine. But after the excitement of the wedding dies down, everything changes.

Cheryl Davidson was happy with husband Leo, watching her beloved son, Dean, grow into a handsome young man, dreaming of the paths his life would take. Until the day that Dean was murdered, his body dumped in an isolated scrapyard with a bullet in his head, and Cheryl's world exploded. Discovering that Dean had been mixed up in the Glasgow underworld, and worst of all, that Leo had brought him in, means that Cheryl's sanity is hanging by a thread. Overwhelmed by grief and with no one left to trust, Cheryl plans to take deadly retribution on the family that caused her son to be killed.

Young, feisty, and beautiful, heads turn wherever Danica Campbell goes, even if she only has eyes for her fiancé, Ricky Fyfe. He might be 20 years older than her, but his job as a big-time club owner in Glasgow means he can afford to give Danica the life she deserves. Danica knows he has a history—after all, his adult daughter Teigan works at the club—and she knows that Teigan’s mum, Elle, disappeared decades ago. It doesn’t matter, because Danica knows that Ricky will do anything for her.

After a string of failed relationships - romantic and platonic - Lea's had enough of watching life happen without her. When she bumps into Shep, a comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in need of accommodation, it feels like destiny. And voila - Lea now has a lodger and some company. The two get on like a flat on fire, and Lea can't resist falling for outgoing Shep. But she knows it's a mistake that will cost her heart - he's just another guy passing through, after all. And with Shep's stand-up routine edging him closer to his big break, there's no way he'll stick around.

When the body of 17-year-old Jackie Shaw is found in a shallow grave, it sends shockwaves through her small West Yorkshire community. Rumours of murder and systematic sexual abuse are rife, and the town's MP, Samuel Stokes, is adding fuel to the fire with his campaign against a so-called 'Asian grooming gang'. Probation officer Rachel Collier deals with paedophiles on a daily basis: so when she hears that her teenage daughter, Chloe, has become friendly with 24-year-old Tariq, she's concerned where it might lead. But that's not her only worry.