Showing results by narrator "Bea Holland" in All Categories

Alex Parkinson is in love with his writing tutor, Siobhan. He has never loved anyone like this, but how can he convince Siobhan that they are meant to be together? So Alex stalks her on Facebook and finds out where she lives, buys her presents using her own credit card and sends her messages telling her exactly what he wants to do to her. He breaks into her house, reads her diary and secretly listens to her while she takes a bath. Isn't that what all lovers do?

Anna’s aunt has always warned her of the dangers of magic. Its twists. Its knots. Its deadly consequences. Now Anna counts down the days to the ceremony that will bind her magic forever. Until she meets Effie and Attis. They open her eyes to a London she never knew existed. A shop that sells memories. A secret library where the librarian feeds off words. A club where revellers lose themselves in a haze of spells. But as she is swept deeper into this world, Anna begins to wonder if her aunt was right all along.

In the aptly named borough of Foulsham, Grandfather Umbitt Iremonger has found a way of making everyday objects assume human shape, and turning real people into objects. Lucy Pennant has been discarded as a clay button, abandoned in the Heaps. Meanwhile, Clod has been turned into a gold coin and is being passed as currency through the town. Everywhere people are searching for Clod, who, it is believed, has the power to bring the mighty Umbitt down.

It is two years before the outbreak of World War 1, and the Oakley family are typical of their time. Andrew has been clerk at a City solicitors for twenty years. Alice, his wife, keeps the home fires burning. Their sons plan on becoming skilled apprentices. And Mabel, their daughter, says she would rather die than go into domestic service like her cousin. She is going to go to train as a secretary. Andrew Oakley little imagines, as he sets off for work one February morning, that their lives are about to change in the most dramatic and tragic fashion.

Dover 1940 As firebombs fall on Dover, Edie Castle's life is thrown into turmoil when the garage where she lives and works is damaged and her beloved boss is arrested. With no job and nowhere else to go, Edie returns to Castle's Café and her formidable mother, Nellie. Living with her mother is never easy, but tensions reach boiling point when an old friend of Nellie's arrives looking for a place to stay. Meanwhile, desperate to clear her boss's name, Edie turns to his nephew for help.

London 1949. The lives of three very different women are about to collide. Like most working-class daughters, Caroline Wilby is expected to help support her family. Alone in a strange city, she must grab any opportunity that comes her way. Even if that means putting herself in danger. Star of the silver screen, Ursula Delancy, has just been abandoned by the man she left her husband for. Already hounded by the press, it won’t be long before she’s making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Cynthia and Alex have always been like sisters. Living and working for years on Cynthia's mother's sprawling farm, they've raised their families together. It was the perfect life until the fateful night that Alex finds Hannah, one of Cynthia's eighteen-year-old twins, inexplicably murdered in her own home. Soon Alex's life is spiralling out of control as she questions everything she knows and everyone she trusted. And when local detective, Stefani Warner starts investigating Hannah's murder, one prime suspect quickly rises to the fore: Daniel, Alex's nineteen-year-old son.

In a crumbling old mansion in the English countryside, 11 people gather, each one famous in their field. They have been invited for a three-day house party, to celebrate the launch of a groundbreaking virtual reality game that promises to unite the worlds of technology, politics and the environment. DCI Marten Jansen has been summoned to join the house party. His instructions are to offer police protection in case of an outside attack. Instead, he finds simmering tensions, long-buried secrets - and a murderer in their midst.

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

Your wife has lied since the day you met. So has your brother. You love them both, but can you trust them? Twelve years ago, Nick’s brother Rob was caught in a storm out at sea and drowned. His body was never found. When Nick met Susie at his brother’s funeral, he thought it was destiny at play. Then Rob suddenly appears on television. He is a hero. He has brought down a terrorist who opened fire on dozens of restaurant diners. Everyone wants to know who Rob is, but he’s vanished a second time, without a word.

Through helpful exercises, guidance and expert narrative, Dr Arnold's techniques will show you how to reduce stress triggers that can feel hard to handle, and teach you how to reclaim your equilibrium and rediscover your self-belief. This audiobook is designed to help you to improve your self-care routine from the moment you wake up. Not only will you feel rested, calm and full of confidence, you will learn to sharpen your self-awareness and implement acts of care and thoughtfulness into your everyday life.

From Sunday Times bestselling author Simon Kernick - the UK's answer to Harlan Coben - come two electrifying novellas and three gripping short stories published in book form for the very first time. Fans of David Baldacci, Stuart MacBride and Peter James will not be disappointed.

Two suburban women. Two dark secrets. The almost perfect murder. Everybody needs good neighbours.... Melissa and Hester have lived next door to each other for years. When Melissa's daughter was younger, Hester was almost like a grandmother to her. But recently they haven't been so close. Hester has plans to change all that. It's obvious to her that despite Melissa's outwardly glamorous and successful life, she needs Hester's help.

Funny, feisty and all-too-true, A Not Quite Perfect Family by Claire Sandy is for anyone who loves their family so much they’d just like a weekend away from them. Fern Carlile has a lot on her plate. It’s a good thing she loves her big, imperfectly perfect family, because she’s the one who...

Foulsham has been destroyed. Darkness lies heavily over the city; the sun has not come up for days. Inside the houses throughout the capital, ordinary objects have begun to move. There are rumours of a terrible contagion. From the richest mansion to the poorest slum, people have disappeared. The police have been instructed to carry arms. Someone has stolen a certain plug. Someone is lighting a certain box of matches. All will come tumbling down. The Iremongers have come to London.

The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, living in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items. A storm is brewing over Heap House. The Iremongers are growing restless and the whispers are getting louder. When Clod meets Lucy, a girl newly arrived from the city, everything changes. The secrets that bind Heap House together begin to unravel to reveal a dark truth that threatens to destroy Clod's world.

Parents, friends, teachers, relatives, and even work colleagues - from the people close to us to those we never even meet - other people are constantly shaping who we are. The mirror neuron is a part of the brain that has shaped each and every one of us throughout our lifetimes. It is the very essence of what makes us human, but most of us have never even heard of it. Mirror Thinking explores how the mirror neuron has defined us through the role models we observe and interact with.

As the Battle of Britain rages, the Castle family are standing their ground at the heart of the community, running Castle's Café. German guns shell Dover and danger lurks around every corner, but despite this, Lily Castle is excited to be starting her nursing career at last. Lily is enjoying her life. She's a good nurse, has a group of friends at the hospital and there is romance on the horizon. That is until her world comes crashing down around her. When she tries to help an injured prisoner of war at the hospital, she ends up implicated in a crime.

After Jimmy's shocking departure, Nellie Castle is feeling bereft. And with Rodney being elusive, she's determined to do all she can to help her youngest son Bert get back on his feet following the terrible injuries he sustained in the bombing. Plagued by guilt and nightmares, the last thing Bert wants is to return to the café - being there only makes his guilt over Gladys's death worse. His relationship with nurse Vi is helping somewhat, but when he receives a formal summons to the trial of the woman who tried to kill him, he is plunged back into the depths of despair.

The first book offering support for parents and carers of children and young people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), this guidebook explains the condition as well as the impact that it may have in education settings, family life and socialisation. The guide begins by explaining how and why BDD emerges, before moving onto an exploration of how the mental health condition presents itself emotionally, psychologically, physically and behaviourally.