Showing results by narrator "Simon Shepherd" in All Categories

Ever pictured your own funeral? You won’t be able to help it when you read some of the stories in this nightmarish collection, where things are never what they appear. Funerals are just the beginning. How about a day at the beach that ends in a mischievous murder? Or a cell phone that has a direct dial to the dead? From the creator of the blockbuster Alex Rider Adventures and The Diamond Brothers Mysteries comes eight more fantastically frightening tales.

Dame Beryl Bainbridge was one of the best loved and most recognisable English novelists of her generation. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, and her critically acclaimed novels The Dressmaker (1973), The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), An Awfully Big Adventure (1990), Every Man for Himself (1996) and Master Georgie (1998) confirmed her status as one of the major literary figures of the last 50 years.

Meet Eugene, the most portly of princes, and Kalvitas, the most courageous of chocolate makers. Theirs is a tale of cakes and cowardice, bullies and battles, as they set out to defeat a terrifying tyrant. The characters are cursed. The desserts are deadly. And people are not always as they appear....

Meet Marius Myerdorf, the newest recruit of Schwartzgarten's most secret of societies. His is a tale of adventure and abduction, friendship and fearlessness, as the Band of Blood race against time to unmask two of the foulest fiends in the history of the Great City. The deeds are dastardly. The twists are terrifying. And happy endings are not always guaranteed.

When twins Greta and Feliks lose their beloved Aunt Gisela to a poisoned marzipan cake and are sent to the ill-omened Schwartzgarten Reformatory for Maladjusted Children it seems their fate is sealed... that is until they are rescued by the glamorous and wealthy Olga Van Veenen, a fabulous children's author. The two twins are grateful but something tells them that Olga's motives are not entirely genuine...

Its two days before Christmas and Helsinki is battling ruthless climate catastrophe: subway tunnels are flooded; abandoned vehicles are burning in the streets. People are fleeing to the far north where conditions are still tolerable. Social order is crumbling and private security firms have undermined the police force. Tapani Lehtinen, a struggling poet, is among the few still willing to live in the city.

Mari Jungstedt’s compelling series of novels featuring Inspector Anders Knutas continues to go from strength to strength with, The Dead of Summer, the fifth crime adventure set on the island of Gotland. Her trademark combination of rich characterisation, taut crime plots and the continuing unfolding drama of her series characters’ lives add up to a mix that rivals Henning Mankell’s Wallander series.

One man. One year. So many ways to screw up.…William has a 12-year-old boss bent on his destruction; the interior design duo from hell re-decorating his bathroom; and an angry small person with a mean right hook on his case. On the plus side, he has as a gorgeous wife and an adorable (but insomniac) new son - and he loves them both. It’s just a shame that parenthood doesn’t stop him doing the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time, with catastrophic results for his small - and increasingly exasperated - family.

William is a happy man. He has just married Isabel, the girl of his dreams, and is confidently sailing along on a sea of wedded bliss. He’s got a hot wife, a snazzy new job and things couldn’t be much better. Sure, there are a few bumps in the road, but life on the whole is good. That is until Isabel’s ‘best friend’ Alex starts to intrude on their wedded bliss. And when William’s ex-girlfriend Saskia - aka the ‘Destroyer of Relationships’ - appears on the scene, things go from bad to worse.

Arthur Bannister has been unexpectedly accepted into Shiverton Hall, which, as it turns out, is an incredibly spooky school, full of surprises. And it is just as well that Shiverton Hall has made its offer, because Arthur had a horrible time at his previous school, and was desperate to leave. Timely indeed... but Arthur has no time to worry about the strange coincidence. He is too busy trying to make head or tail of Shiverton Hall, dogged as it is by tales of curses and bad fortune.

Don’t look behind you. Resist with all your power. He’ll go away, perhaps, as long as you don’t look. Arthur Bannister is back for another term at Shiverton Hall, where eerie events are unfolding. First, a burned stranger shows up in the middle of the night uttering dire warnings. Then a young boy disappears, leaving behind only an ancient book as a clue. And then there’s that dreadful feeling Arthur has that he’s being watched . . .

On the threshold of 40, Jasper Rees fished his French horn out of the attic and, despite limited ability, sets himself a near-impossible target: to stand up in front of a paying audience in 12 months’ time and play a Mozart concerto. Alone. This is the inspired story, not only of a midlife rethink, but also of man’s first musical instrument, and its journey from the hunting fields of aristocratic France to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

William Dougal, a post-graduate expert in the medieval script of Caroline Minuscule, stumbles on the garroted corpse of his tutor and finds himself embroiled in a hunt for a cache of diamonds, in a deadly fairy story in which no one obeys the rules. Least of all Dougal's girlfriend Amanda. As the body count rises, the couple pursue the diamonds from London to an East Anglian cathedral close, from Cambridge to a wintry Suffolk estuary.

It’s a difficult time for William Dougal. He’s given up smoking and, to make matters worse, a touch of blackmail persuades him into doing a job for his old adversary James Hanbury. Nothing complicated - all he has to do is keep an eye on Dr Vertag, the leader of a lunatic fringe survival group. But he has hardly started when the barman who tried to warn him off is murdered. Suddenly Zelda appears from Dougal’s murky past. Zelda is big, black and very beautiful. And just as suddenly she is kidnapped from his flat.

Matt has a magic crystal that enables him to read minds. He can find out secrets and he has this great sense of power. It's amazing. But what Matt doesn't expect is that it's dangerous. Matt is horrified when he gets a blackmail letter. Someone has found out his secret. He is sure that he knows who the blackmailer is - but is he right?

When Alan and Mika's summer explorations are cut short by a grisly discovery, they can't understand why their parents seem so upset. Will their beach ever be just a playground again?

It is 1993 and Thomas Penmarsh has lived in Finisterre, the house by the sea, all his life, sleeping each night in the room with the barred window. He's only 48 but has been an old man since one evening in 1967 when he lost everything he valued. However, now his controlling mother has died and he is master of the house. When Esmond, his cousin and childhood confidant, comes to live with him, Thomas is overjoyed - Esmond always looks after him. But is Esmond all that he seems?

Bethan and Harry see the ghost: a pale figure floating over the water, one finger pointing downwards. Local legend says that she is Hettie Daynes, an ancestor of their family, who vanished over 100 years ago. If so, what does she want?

What are the benefits of owning a dog on health and well-being? Why does a problem dog behave as it does and how can owners deal with unwanted behavior? How do dogs communicate with humans and each other? The Psychology of Dog Ownership explores the nature of our unique relationship with dogs and its effect on our mental and physical welfare. The book uses psychological learning theory to examine dog behavior and highlights the importance of determining between typical dog behavior and behavior disorders that need treatment. 

In this manifesto, the author takes a leap of faith. It is a faith in Lost Causes. He asserts that today, architectonic reason has fallen into ruins. As soon as architecture leaves the limits set to it by architectonic reason, no other path is open to it but the path to aestheticism. This is the wrong path contemporary architecture has taken. In its reduction to a pure aesthetic object, architecture negatively affects the human sensorium.