Showing results by narrator "Jilly Bond" in All Categories

Stick and Fetch are on holiday, but even in a rickety old seaside hotel there are plenty of crimes to solve and mysteries to unravel. Such as, who is Major Mayhem? Why is that door frightened? And where could the small-bottle-of-shampoo robbers be hiding? This lovable pair is on the case and undeterred despite plenty of mishaps, misdeeds and misunderstandings along the way. A fun-filled adventure featuring two hapless investigators with a lot of hair.

Hello Computer is the story of a working-class girl who begins a lifelong love affair with technology after seeing a computer for the first time in 1967. It tells of her quest to become a professor of computing in one of the top universities in England. Empowered as a programmer on pioneering hospital systems, she learns that computer code can change lives. Her story is a journey from 1967 to 2017, through exciting times and epic events, from the dawn of the internet to the dotcom boom, from punch cards to the raspberry pi and virtual worlds.

When a bomb goes off in the West End, Home Secretary Victoria Osborne has a desperate sense of having failed to protect the public. A young Muslim reporter, Ahmed Khan, also has a deep-seated sense of anger and responsibility. He persuades his editor to let him go back amongst childhood friends in Leeds to try to find information.

A World of Beauty: Tales from Pavlysh contains 19 charming little tales about the beauty of the natural world, and how nature supports all living creatures. A chicken hatches some duck eggs. A rowan tree welcomes some beautiful crested birds to feed on its berries. A blade of grass slumbers through the winter and awakens to joyfully greet the spring. In some of the stories, people engage with this beauty. A child admires the magic beauty of a snowflake, “a six-pointed star, so beautiful and shiny, that a fairy-tale master might have cut it from a plate of silver”.

It is the day of her ex-husband's wedding. The press call Ursula first thing, demanding that she share her innermost feelings with the world at large. Her three children cannot restrain their excitement. After all, it isn't every day that their father marries a government minister.

This collection includes two of the most notable titles from author Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd.

A story about love, loss and starting again. Widower Henry Drummond is marking time, drifting towards retirement, until he accidentally saves a life. His daughter, Maddie, is at a wedding with the love of her life. But he is the groom, and she is not the bride. They both decide they need to change their lives, preferably with soulmates by their sides. But, as Henry's mother tells him, 'Love is a complicated business, and it is not for the easily discouraged'.

September 1940. England is at war once again and London has become an ever-fragile place for widowed Livia Ripley and her two young daughters, Polly and Eliza. When Livia meets charismatic publisher Hugo Ballantyne, she is hopeful that her life is about to change for the better. But as clouds gather in the clear autumn sky, the wail of the siren heralds the arrival of the Luftwaffe.

A year after the tragic death of her husband, Kate Nichols, still overwhelmed with grief, meets Richard Marshall. A divorced father of two, Richard’s messy involvement with his bi-polar ex-wife troubles Kate but, despite these obstacles, she can’t stop herself from falling in love. Meanwhile, as Kate’s father battles with the final stages of cancer, her divorced mother has found a new love in Ben. But Kate’s suspicions are roused as her mother’s behaviour becomes increasingly furtive.

London, 1702. When her husband is lost at sea, Mary Burton Gulliver, midwife and herbalist, is forced to rebuild her life without him. But three years later when Lemuel Gulliver is brought home, fevered and communicating only in riddles, her ordered world is turned upside down. In a climate of suspicion, poverty and violence, Mary is caught in a crossfire of superstition and fear driven by her husband’s outlandish claims of the wonders he has seen, and it is up to her to navigate a passage to safety for herself and her daughter, and the vulnerable women in her care.

It's more money than the street urchin has ever dreamt of. But who is the rider, and why is there so much interest in his big black horse? And will the boy ever see the money he has been promised? There's highway robbery in the air, but it isn't entirely clear just who is trying to rob who.

Jason Warwycke, Marquess of Wyckeham, has vowed never to wed again after his disastrous first marriage, which left him with nothing but a tarnished reputation. That is, until he sets eyes on Ianthe Templeton... But can Wyckeham and Ianthe overcome the malicious schemes of spiteful siblings and evil stepmothers to find wedded bliss? Or will Wyckeham discover that the past has come back to bite him for a second time?

Alison James thinks she might be living the wrong life. She loves her husband, Marc, and their children, but somehow, in the process of building a perfect life for her family, she seems to have lost herself. And sometimes she worries that she's being punished for running away with her best friend's boyfriend.

Jen's stable relationship, steady job as a press officer for the police and mapped-out future is thrown into turmoil after she confronts her fiancé about a telephone call from a mysterious woman. In sadness and revenge she picks up a stranger in a bar. When videos and demands for money start to arrive, Jen has to find her blackmailer and rescue her relationship with Dan. As she emulates her police colleagues to find her evil extortionist darker secrets emerge.

Friendship, freedom, booze and student loans: the glory days of University, the halcyon haze. For friends Liz, Cora, Mike and Stevie, students at Cardiff, that haze was shared, their circle tight, a surrogate family, bound together for three idyllic, hedonistic years in total trust. Or so it seemed. Mike and Cora marry after graduation, while Liz and Stevie look on, misty-eyed.

Viscount Rothersthorpe can't tear his eyes from Lydia Morgan any more than he can calm the fury coursing through his veins. Furtive glances across the ballroom are not helping to ease Lydia's state of shock - the man who once uttered a marriage proposal has returned. But when he stuns her with an outrageous but wickedly delicious proposal, it is clear that despite the rumours, the rake from her past has not reformed!

A powerful, posthumous novel from bestselling author Mario Reading. Relegated to an isolated provincial town in France after years spent fighting on the Eastern Front, German commander Maximilian von Aschau finds unexpected distraction in the form of beautiful and reserved Lucie Léré. He’s seen every horror of the human experience. She’s never left her village. Opposites in every way, Max and Lucie manage to find common ground. But love is the most dangerous element of war. It makes you vulnerable... and careless.

Emily Soldene's life spanned the entire Victorian era. As both leading lady and a formidable impresario with her own opera company, she was a darling of London’s music halls and theatre land, later reinventing herself as a journalist and writer. From humble working-class beginnings, Emily's fiery ambition would see her counting the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Charles Dickens as friends and mingling with the Rothschilds, Oscar Wilde and aristocrats. She even alleged that she had a close encounter with Jack the Ripper.

Meet Sally Stick and her dog (and best friend), Fetch. Together, they're Stick and Fetch: Detectives. A girl. A dog. A detective agency. Sally loves nothing more than investigating a good mystery - and her shaggy canine companion, Fetch, loves nothing more than to be at her side when she does. There's just one small problem: they always gets the wrong end of the stick! The hapless pair remain undeterred, however, dashing from one crime scene to another on their bicycle, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake...yet always emerging blissfully unaware. A fun, madcap trio of stories featuring two lovable heroes with a lot of hair.

Gina's life is good. She loves her adopted home in Italy, and she is passionate about her work as a photographer. She's all wrapped up in her latest artistic project, shots of the young men who arrive in Italy as refugees, destitute and vulnerable. One day Sasha, a lonely British teenager at summer school, crosses Gina's path. Sasha's innocent romance creates complications neither of them could have imagined, leading Gina to wonder, can she come to terms with her past?