Showing results by narrator "Glen McCready" in All Categories

Her Number On It is a compelling portrait of kleptomania; the Unsuspected Talent of a dissatisfied wife has dangerous consequences; and Don't Tell Cissie upends our expectations of a ghost story. This latest collection of Cecila Fremlin's Gothic miniatures is a showcase of macabre domesticity: controlling husbands rub shoulders with manipulative wives, parasitic visitors meet fatal accidents, there are nervous breakdowns, toxic relationships, sinister villagers and mob justice. With an unerring nail, Fremlin picks the scabs concealing domestic fault lines.

Falling out with his best mate wasn't exactly the start to the new term that Dax Jones wanted. But when Gideon's life changes, it seems that he's leaving Dax behind. And as if that's not bad enough, everyone at school has started acting weirdly. Is Dax really the only one who can see their strange behaviour?

Araminta Jewell is a beauty, a dazzling young lady who manages to resist all the blandishments that come her way. But even her marriage to Sir Martin Culthorpe has not discouraged the rakes of London, and she is still pursued with unflagging zeal. It is during her first sitting for a portrait that Christopher Redmayne meets the lovely Lady Culthorpe, although he has heard much about her. Before the portrait can be finished, however, Sir Martin is murdered. 

The sequel to The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle's Poison Belt reunites the ever-popular Professor Challenger, intrepid journalist Edward Malone, dashing Lord John Roxton and the querulous Professor Summerlee for yet another adventure. When a sinister poison envelops the earth, the entire human race teeters on the brink of destruction, forcing the comrades to implement a desperate plan for survival.

It is 1956. Freddy and Polly have never minded helping their genius father with his experiments. Even when that means being put into cryonic suspension having their hearts frozen.... It is 2009. Ben and Rachel have resigned themselves to a long, dull summer when they find the hidden underground vault in the garden and inside it two frozen figures, a boy and a girl...Can Polly and Freddy adapt to the 21st century?

First published in 1876, Wilkie Collins’s The Two Destinies follows the lives of childhood friends George and Mary. George is the son of a nobleman, while Mary is the daughter of the nobleman’s bailiff. As the friends grow older and closer, George’s father, determined to end their affair, dismisses the bailiff and moves George to America. Years later, George returns to his native Suffolk to track down his former love. Although she has long gone, he remains determined to find Mary at all costs. But are the two lovers destined to find each other again?

The rich life Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is featured here: His work as a doctor, his novels and journalistic writings, his support of Spiritualism and his defense of fairies. This is a unique set for the 150th anniversary of his birth. After his early years in medicine, the writing talents of Arthur Conan Doyle took over. Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger were among his successes.

The Children of the New Forest is Captain Marryat's classic children's adventure story. The four Beverley children find themselves orphaned when their father is killed by Cromwell's army at the outset of the English Civil War. The book follows their experiences as they are forced to abandon their aristocratic title and go into hiding in the New Forest. Read superbly by Glen McCready, this new abridgement is aimed at 7-12 year olds.

Cornish farmer Joseph Moyle's loyalty to the crown goes well rewarded - his stepson Ralf is appointed page to the future Charles II. And when Ralf takes up his post, Britain is in the midst of its most tumultuous period ever - the war between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians and the dawning of an entirely new era...Ralf's duties oblige him to follow the heir to the throne through the western counties, where he experiences not only court intrigue and the constant threat of Cromwell's armies, but also romance.

When Oliver Moon is entered for the Young Wizard of the Year award, he finds he's up against the head boy. And when he's given the job of litter collector, he decides to liven things up with the help of his new pet dragon.

A dark and humid night on a London highway… a ghostly woman asking directions… and the reader is away on a tale of deceit, murder, madness, stolen identities and scheming cads, elaborate plots and outrageous coincidences, in the company of some of the most extraordinary characters in fiction. Hailed as a classic the moment it was written in 1859, The Woman in White uses a dozen different narrators to tell the tale of a man’s determination to save the woman he loves....

A woman screams in pain. Twenty-seven times, until she dies. The sound file was sent to DCI Mark Lapslie from an anonymous email address. Why is she screaming? Why would someone record that horrifying noise? And why send it to him? He soon learns that the file was sent from the hospital where he is being treated for synaesthesia - a neurological condition that cross-wires his senses so he tastes sound - and where his new girlfriend works.

Stretching along the shelf, standing upright, were 12 wooden coffins. Nine were closed and three open...with little dolls standing inside them. It was supposed to be the most special day of her life - until the unthinkable happened. Leslie Petersen is shot dead on her wedding day. With the bride's killer vanished without a trace, the investigation into the murder grinds to a halt before it's even begun. But then, the decomposing body of an unidentified homeless man is found in an old Cold War bunker, and DCI Mark Lapslie makes a bizarre discovery.

It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe. Except…that's not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, cunning Bajan drug dealers, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiotic Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus and whole armies of pitch-invading penguins, you quickly arrive at a lot more than you bargained for.

You probably hate giving presentations. You probably hate listening to them too. Why? Because most business presentations are too long, too detailed, too boring . . . and submerged under a blizzard of PowerPoint. But the single most important presentational tool known to man isn't a slideshow. It's you. Whether you're speaking to one person across a table, twenty people in a boardroom, or 1,000 people in a ballroom, it's all about the words you say and how you say them.

Somewhere in the United Kingdom, an eight year old boy is removed from his home in the middle of the night. He is a victim of an extraordinary experiment. In an attempt to reform society, the government has divided the population into four groups, each group representing a different personality type.

It is 1915: Ben Retallick is asked by a War Office friend to provide two traction engines for a secret expedition attempting to take two gunboats overland from Cape Town to Lake Tanganyika - more than 3,000 miles - to wrest control of the lake from the Germans. He sends engines with young Ruddlemoor as the driver, who meets a Portuguese East African nurse and takes her side against a group of white racist South Africans.

The brave seafarers of Brutalia are on a mission to find treasure fit for their demanding queen and among them is peace-loving Mort. Not one for fame and fortune, Mort’s eyes are on a different prize - his family who are lost at sea. But when he and his shipmate Punky find the tentacle of a mythical sea creature, their adventure takes a dramatic turn. Could it be a monstrous twist in Mort’s rescue mission? And will Mort be able to stick to his Pacifist Promise?

In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human. In the 13 darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells, we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems.

In a small, isolated town on the North Norfolk coast, Fran's life is unravelling. As she fills her days cleaning the caravan park she owns, she is preoccupied by worry — about the behavior of her son, the growing absence of her husband and the strained relationship with her sister. Her one source of solace is slipping out to the beach early in the morning, to watch the birds.