Showing results by narrator "Verity" in All Categories

Book 8 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow Some wonders are only pretending to be whole. An injured dormouse. A ribbon that conceals its own damage. An invitation that briefly changes “come marvel” to “come mend.” Wren Ashcombe has questions before she ever reaches the Tatterlight Fair. With her husband, Cormac, beside her, she arrives at Larksilver Green to find teacup puppets, impossible pastries and tiny threadmice taking unpopular liberties with the bunting. But beneath the bright stalls and beautiful craftsmanship, something is going wrong. Creatures grow unsettled. Repaired wonders begin to fail.

One wounded griffin found a sanctuary. Now an entire colony needs one. Wren Ashcombe has begun rebuilding her life beside Cormac Vane at the Grumbleback Sanctuary. But an injured griffin from High Crag brings evidence of a larger danger: a migrating colony is being poisoned by skyglass contamination. Saving one creature was difficult. Protecting many will mean confronting the Slateworks, navigating Guild assessors, and persuading a cautious village that sanctuary must become something larger than one refuge.

Book 6 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow A ROAD CAN SHORTEN DISTANCE. IT CANNOT MAKE A PROMISE TRUE. The thaw survey carries Wren Ashcombe beyond Greywood to Lanternmere, a lake town where old lantern-marked roads have begun shortening, looping, and returning travelers to places that cannot truly receive them. At the water's edge walks a wounded wayhart. It takes water, refuses treatment, and chooses its own paths while the town argues over what those paths mean. Lanternmere has no shortage of welcome on paper: beds, shelters, market promises, open doors.

Book 4 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow The morning after her wedding, healer Wren Ashcombe receives an impossible patient: a field mouse transformed into flawless stone, fresh soil still clinging to its paws. The trail leads to Bellflower Hill, where animals have begun disappearing, old stone figures may not be carvings at all, and something ancient is moving beneath the village storehouse. Local legend blames a basilisk. Wren isn't so sure.

Book 7 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow FIVE OLD ROADS TURN INWARD. HOME CANNOT BE ONE PLACE'S JOB. At first light, the five grooves beneath Grumbleback Sanctuary are still only evidence. No voice has spoken. No road has opened. But the old marks have moved, and Wren Ashcombe knows the right first question is not what they promise —it's what they connect. The answer reaches across the places Thistlewick has spent years learning not to own: griffin air, mooncalf water, Bellflower earth, Rook Orchard warmth, and Lanternmere's uncertain roads. Each place has different limits.

Book 3 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow The mooncalves are not lost, injured, or trapped. They are waiting. When a silent herd crosses the sanctuary before dawn, flowers spring from their glowing hoofprints and Thistlewick Hollow’s carefully planned Lantern Festival begins to unravel. Noise frightens the creatures, fields bloom out of season, and no boundary can explain what drew them to the lower meadow. Wren Ashcombe is used to healing wounds.

Book 1 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow Every wounded creature deserves a sanctuary. Wren Ashcombe is about to learn that healers do too. When gifted healer Wren Ashcombe loses her licence and her place in the capital, an unexpected inheritance sends her to Thistlewick Hollow. The sanctuary waiting there is crumbling, its wards are failing, and its halls are crowded with opinionated gnomes and magical creatures no one else knows how to save. Cormac Vane, the guarded groundskeeper, expects Wren to leave.

Book 5 of 8: Thistlewick Hollow AN ORCHARD THAT RIPENS IN WINTER SHOULD BE A BLESSING. At the first hard frost, the pears at Rook Orchard are warm in the hand. Blossom, ripe fruit and blackened seeds appear on the same trees, and Wren Ashcombe knows the season has gone wrong. Beneath the roots, a hearthwyrm is moving warmth through the old roads. It can store heat. It can carry it. It cannot create it. So every warm root is leaving something else colder. The orchard depends on its harvest. The hearthwyrm needs a winter of its own.

As dawn breaks on the farm, Helen Rebanks makes a mug of tea, relishing the few minutes of quiet before the house stirs. Within the hour the sounds of her husband, James, and their four children will fill the kitchen. There are also six sheepdogs, two ponies, 20 chickens, 50 cattle and 500 sheep to care for. Helen is a farmer's wife. Hers is a story that is rarely told, despite being one we think we know. Weaving past and present, Helen shares the days that have shaped her.

Maybe you're frustrated or embarrassed by your current contracts or you've tried automation before and it was a huge time suck with no tangible results. Inside this jam-packed book, you’ll learn how to design readable digital contracts your clients will love.

Bloomsbury presents The History of Art in One Sentence written and read by Verity Babbs, with Dom O'Keefe. With an exclusive bonus chapter only in audio and some extra content with the author herself! What’s so special about Dutch paintings of cheese? When does Art Nouveau become Art Deco? Why...