Showing results by narrator "Sam Stafford" in All Categories

In West Britain, King Loarn of the Silures tribe leads a rebellion against their weakened Roman occupiers. Caught in the middle is Faustus, a Roman soldier with maternal ties to the Silures, trapped between loyalty to the army and compassion for his kin.A fragile peace teeters on the brink as a sudden tragedy threatens to escalate tensions, fracturing the relationship between him and his sister Silvia.

Sabine and Rory Sugar seem like a perfectly respectable family to their new neighbours. They’re popular and friendly, their two teenage boys quiet and courteous. But when Rory starts staying late at work, and Sabine thinks she sees her son, Leo, in the woods apparently fighting with a girl, their seemingly perfect lives start to fall apart. And when the girl is reported missing and the police turn up asking awkward questions, Sabine must decide whether to lie to protect her son, or risk Leo being arrested on suspicion of abduction.

There was no doubt that things had definitely looked better for Gabriel Atwood, one time Viscount Northwood. Mainly because everyone who knew him or of him almost certainly believed him dead—the bastard who'd betrayed him had made sure of that. His only hope was to seek aid from Nicholas Sinclair, his former mentor, now the current Duke of Blackmore, before his enemies realised that news of his demise had been greatly exaggerated.

Through the seventies and into the mid-eighties, a cohort of young climbers challenged the siege mentality of their seniors on high mountains in the Greater Ranges with fast moving, lightweight expeditions run on a shoestring. Brian Hall was one of them and, in High Risk, he describes their daring adventures and the counterculture they lived within, their rivalries and relationships, and the terrible price many of them paid.

All Charlie Masterson wants is to graduate Oxford. With a first, obviously. But then his life gets turned upside down when Evie Waters waltzes into his philosophy class. Evie Waters, the one-time, very careless owner of his heart. A heart he has no intention of giving away ever again, therefore he needs to come up with a plan to make sure that doesn’t happen. As Charlie and Violet spend more time together, it soon becomes hard to tell where the acting ends and real life begins, especially when Charlie starts looking at Violet the way she’s always looked at him.

When Laurel Fletcher’s meticulously ordered world is upended by the discovery of a possible Anglo-Saxon burial site on her beloved family farm, the last person she expects to see is Dr. Nate Daley—the man she hoped never to encounter again. As old university resentments resurface, Nate is baffled by Laurel’s hostility and strives to build a friendship with her. As they reconnect, Laurel and Nate realize their feelings run deeper than they initially thought. But just as they start to envision a future together, unexpected revelations threaten to tear them apart.

When a group of six strangers who have only ever spoken on a creepy Deddit thread decide to meet IRL, they have one plan in mind: they are going to play The Midnight Game and summon the Midnight Man. Rules of the game are simple: Do not turn on the lights. Do not go to sleep. Do not leave the building. And once you start the game, you must finish it—there's no other way out.

From Eliza Clark, the author of the brilliant novels Boy Parts and Penance and one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, comes a fierce, visionary and darkly comic story collection. A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.

Meet Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo. Or, for short, Eddie: an aspiring playwright who dreams of making it big in London’s theater world. But after repeated rejections from white talent agents, Eddie suspects her non-white sounding name might be the problem. Enter Hugo Lawrence Smith: good looking, well-connected, charismatic and…very white. Stifled by his law degree and looking for a way out of the corporate world, he finds a kindred spirit in Eddie after a chance encounter at a cafe. Together they devise a plan, one which will see Eddie’s play on stage and Hugo’s name in lights.

A teenager longs for perfect skin. A scientist tends to fragile alien flora. A young man takes the night into his own hands. Each of these characters has a desperate desire. Can any of them be sated? Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humour, Eliza Clark's debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.

Prince Siegfried comes of age and celebrates his 21st birthday in the palace gardens. The next day he is to finally choose his future bride at the court ball. Near the castle, on the shores of Swan Lake, the beautiful swan girl Odette emerges from the water in the moonlight. She is actually a princess transformed by the magician Rothbart. Siegfried is overwhelmed by her beauty and immediately swears his eternal love and loyalty. The curse of the evil wizard Rothbart is now supposed to be broken, but he has his own plans for Odette.

A dangerous snake attacks Prince Tamino in the forest but three noble ladies protect him. Together with the bird catcher Papageno, Tamino is supposed to free Princess Pamina because the dreaded Sarastro has imprisoned her in his castle. Tamino and Papageno receive a magic flute and a glockenspiel from Pamina's mother, the Queen of the Night. The brave rescuers must overcome difficult tests, but the daring rescue plan succeeds. In the end, Tamino and Pamina, Papageno and his new girlfriend Papagena are happily in each other's arms.

Adam lives a picture-perfect life: happy marriage, two young children, and a flourishing career as a doctor. But Adam also lives with a secret. Hospital CCTV, strangers' mobile phones, city traffic cameras–he is convinced that they are all watching him, recording his every move. All because of something terrible that happened at a drunken party when he was a student. Only two other people knew what happened that night. Two people he's long left behind. Until one of them, Clio–Adam's great unrequited love–turns up on his doorstep, and reignites a sinister pact twenty-four years in the making...

In the dark labyrinth of his memories, can Cameron Todd uncover the truth about his girlfriend's fatal plunge from a clifftop? With a brain injury preventing him from remembering anything, even the night Emma died, Cameron is trapped in a sinister game of piecing together his fragmented past. Accusations swirl around him - the police, Emma's grieving family - they all question whether his amnesia is a mere pretence. As he struggles to reconstruct the mosaic of his life, Cameron discovers that his relationship with Emma may not have been as idyllic as he believed.

Popular romance author Margot Bradley has a secret: she doesn't believe in Happily Ever Afters. Not for herself, not for her readers, not even for her characters. When a super-fan leaks this to the world, Margot is dropped faster than you can say 'enemies-to-lovers.' Her sister thinks she needs a change of scene and sends Margot off to a remote Alaskan cabin on a writing retreat that could be the perfect chance to say goodbye to romcoms and write something new - maybe swap meet-cutes for murder mysteries? But then she meets the handsome owner, Forrest

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand: to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs.

It isn't unusual for crop circles to appear overnight on Hackpen Hill. In this part of Wiltshire, where golden wheat fields stretch for miles, the locals have gotten used to discovering strange mathematical patterns stamped into the earth. But this time, it's different. Not only because this particular design of dramatic spiralling hexagons has never been seen before. But because of the dead body positioned precisely in the centre of the circle. DI Silas Hart, of Swindon Police, is at a loss.

Behind each door lies something strange and terrifying. Here, the normal is made nightmarish, from howls of were-foxes to satanic car-boot sales. Creepy, terrifying and witty by turn, Silverweed Road deals in love, loss, isolation, loneliness, obsession, greed and revenge. As the screw turns with each story, Crook creates a world of pure imagination, constantly surprising, in a setting that is instantly recognisable but other-worldly at the same time.

Two boys, one struggle. A new family, an uncovered secret. Tommy and Ryan are as different as they come. Tommy is a young offender, he’s tough and he’s cool. Ryan is a good student, well-behaved, and definitely not cool. Forced to become a family, the two discover their shared dyslexia and develop an unlikely friendship. As Ryan helps Tommy to read, a secret is revealed that will change their lives forever. Prize-winning Malcolm Duffy's third novel explores the joys and challenges of dyslexia in a story full of his hallmark heart and humour.

When siblings Ava and Luke discover a mysterious notebook in their dad’s attic they are instantly intrigued. And, as they read through letters, diary entries, newspaper cuttings and notarised secret recordings, they realise that a decades-old, still unsolved, murder case is unfolding right in front of them . . .