Showing results by narrator "Sebastian Humphreys" in All Categories

The Chester Square Cookery School in the heart of London offers students a refined setting in which to master the fine art of choux pastry and hone their hollandaise. True, the ornate mansion doesn’t quite sparkle the way it used to—afeeling chef Paul Delamare is familiar with these days. Worn out and newly broke, he’d be tempted to turn down the request to fill in as teacher for a week-long residential course, if anyone other than Christian Wagner were asking.

Arthur Osbourne-Cloud has always had his future mapped out for him – graduate Oxford and follow his dreadful father into politics. Except Arthur wants to do anything but that. He’s more than happy filling his days rowing for golds at the Olympics or World Championships, and this year he has The Boat Race to win. Kate Astley also has her future mapped out – the next six years at least. Fly half-way across the world, and win a scholarship at Cambridge University to study medicine. Oh, and become a crew member for the legendary Boat Race. Seems simple enough. But then she meets Arthur.

The lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Henry VIII, and Queen Victoria fill bookshelves and fascinate scholars all over the world. But little attention is given to the ferret who posed for the Renaissance master, the servant who oversaw the Tudor’s toilet time, or the famous horse who thrilled the miserable old monarch. These supporting cast members have been waiting in the wings for too long, and Adrian Bliss thinks it’s high time they join their glory-hogging contemporaries in the spotlight. Fortunately, now they can.

Told with humour and heart, Herc gives voice to the silenced characters, in this feminist, queer (and sometimes shocking) retelling of classic Hercules myth.

When Lena helps her teenage daughter gather sounds for her media studies project, she doesn't expect her boom-microphone to pick up a conversation between her neighbours, the Morgans. And she’s certain they are planning a crime. Her family and friends tell her that she must have misheard. After all, the Morgans are a well-respected, upstanding couple in their early sixties. They’ve never been in trouble with the law. Yet Lena can’t stop thinking about it. Because what if she hasn’t misheard? What if she can prevent something awful happening?

Each spring, Ithaca condemns twelve maidens to the noose. This is the price vengeful Poseidon demands for the lives of Queen Penelope’s twelve maids, hanged and cast into the depths centuries ago. But when that fate comes for Leto, death is not what she thought it would be. Instead, she wakes on a mysterious island and meets a girl with green eyes and the power to command the sea. A girl named Melantho, who says one more death can stop a thousand.

It’s London, 2014, and Hal Lancaster, son and heir of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, is in a holding pattern: his mother is dead, his father is dying or remarrying or both, his siblings are fighting, his internship is pointless, and nobody will leave him alone. Everything is as it should be and yet nothing is right. Over the course of a year of partying, drinking, and flirting to dubious consequence, Hal is tested by brutal family legacies, Catholic guilt, and the terrifying possibility of being loved. The House of Lancaster will never be the same.

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he is still here, he watches his girlfriend, Hannah, lost in grief in the apartment they shared and begins to realize how much of her life was invisible to him. In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah was haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seemed to offer the potential of a fresh new chapter, but the past refused to stay hidden.

Before Gods and mortals, there were The Fates - three sisters born out of Nyx's darkness, destined to weave the lives, and deaths, of humankind for eternity. But immortality is a heavy burden, and Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are captivated by the gloriously human lives of the mortals below, especially those of the great warrior Atalanta and her ill-fated lover, Meleager. However, being a Goddess of Fate doesn't make you a master of it. Will these three sisters find a way to free the couple, and themselves, from their destinies? Or will they be bound by Fate forever?

Oxford 1360. William de Foucart — known to his friends as Penn — had no choice but to abandon his fiancé, and with it his own earldom, when he fled the night before his enforced marriage. But ill-equipped to survive on the run he must trust the kindness of a stranger, Raff, to help him escape. Unaware their fates are already entwined, their unexpected bond deepens into a far more precious relationship, one that will test all that they hold dear.

As a child, Chris Thorogood dreamed of seeing Rafflesia - the plant with the world's largest flowers. Today he is a botanist at the University of Oxford's Botanic Garden and has dedicated his life to studying the biology of such extraordinary plants, working alongside botanists and foresters in Southeast Asia to document these huge, mysterious blooms. Pathless Forest is the story of his journey to study and protect this remarkable plant - a biological enigma, still little understood, which invades vines as a leafless parasite and steals its food from them.

Patrik is a literary researcher living in Berlin, a city just coming back to life after lockdown. Though his beloved opera houses are open again, Patrik cannot leave the house and hardly manages to get out of bed. He is supposed to give a paper at a conference in Paris, on the poetry collection Threadsuns by Paul Celan, but he can't get past the first question on the registration form: 'What is your nationality?' As Patrik attempts to find a connection in a world that constantly overwhelms him, he meets a mysterious stranger.

When chef Paul Delamare agrees to help his old friend Christian by teaching at an exclusive residential cookery school in Belgravia, the only thing he expects his students to murder is his taste buds. But on the first night, the unthinkable happens: someone turns up dead. Could one of his students be the killer? Or Rose - the owner of the school, a woman with secrets and a murky past? The police are convinced Paul is the culprit.

Dennis and Gnasher are back for three action-packed audio adventures! The Battle for Bash Street School: when mysterious new teachers arrive to lay down the law at notoriously naughty Bash Street School, Dennis, Gnasher and friends finally face a classroom test they simply can’t afford to fail. The Abominable Snowmenace: unusual smelly footprints lead Dennis and the gang to discover a new friend in a whole heap of trouble. Attack of the Evil Veg: an army of giant carnivorous vegetables has sprouted to rule Beanotown!

When Penn and Raff meet in Hartswood Forest the only truth they know of each other is a brief moonlit kiss they had shared previously. But Penn is escaping an arranged marriage to a woman he has never seen. Raff is tracking the elusive missing groom of his sister to restore his family’s honour. Neither are looking for a travelling companion. Yet both men find themselves drawn to each other in ways neither imagined.

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, he watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him. In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden. It finds expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with.

Paul Delamare has been roped into accompanying his old friend on a luxury cruise aboard the magnificent superyacht Mal de Mer. It’s all plain sailing until his friend’s priceless necklace is stolen, and everyone falls under suspicion. As Paul races to catch the thief, the ship begins to drift off-course, veering into the storm-lashed mid-Atlantic. Then one of the passengers is found dead in mysterious circumstances, in a pool of coffee and surrounded by cake crumbs. It’s all hands on deck to catch the killer, but Paul soon discovers guests and crew are harbouring deadly secrets.

Alex is a normal, everyday kid, living in a normal, everyday city. Axel is a monster-slaying hero, living in a world of magic. Unfortunately, when the two boys mysteriously swap places, each of them ends up being mistaken for the other. With zero experience of heroism, Alex is thrust into an epic quest to defeat the evil Felonius Gloam, who has stolen the Book of Lifetales and is using it to unravel the very fabric of the world of Aërth. Meanwhile, Axel is faced with double maths, a gran who's six months behind on the rent, and a crucial chess tournament he's got to win.

Max didn't believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, he watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him. In the weeks and months before Max's death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden.

Dennis and Gnasher are back for three action-packed audio adventures! This set includes Super Slime Spectacular, The Bogeyman of Bunkerton Castle and Little Menace’s Great Escape.