Showing results by narrator "Harrie Dobby" in All Categories

Fifteen-year-old girl gamer Casey Henderson is obsessed with smash-hit game SkyWake - and she’s good at it, too. Little does she realize it’s actually an alien training tool created by an evil extra-terrestrial race. When the aliens swoop down on a national gaming tournament, Casey and her teammates discover they’re abducting the best gamers to fight in a distant alien war across the galaxy. And they’ve got her brother. Casey’s gaming skills are her best hope of stopping the aliens - but first she and her online teammates must learn to work together in real life.

When Allie moves to a quaint old cottage with her husband, it’s their dream home. Nestled in the village of Pluckley, it seems a perfect haven in which to raise their two children. But Pluckley has a reputation. It’s known as England’s most haunted village. And not long after the birth of their new son, Allie begins to notice strange things.... What’s the flash of white she sees moving quickly through the woods to the back of their house? And what’s the strange scratching noise coming from the chimney?

Catapulted forward four years, Casey and her teammates have landed on a very different Earth from the one they left only a few days before. The Red Eye aliens have taken over, leaving carnage in their wake as they ruthlessly search for the key to intergalactic domination. And they seem to have all the adults – and Casey's younger brother Pete – in their thrall. Determined to free their families and stop the Red Eyes from discovering the final piece in the puzzle, the gamers team up with a rag-tag bunch of teenagers who call themselves the Resistance.

What happened to Elisa Lam, found dead in a water tower atop a hotel roof? Who were the two men who came to see her, and what was in the mystery box they gave her? Why did the location of her gravestone match the zip code of a bookstore miles away? Why did a man write the Fibonacci sequence as a clue and tell a stranger he was 'Looking for the Beast' before he disappeared in the barren plains of a desert? Find many more head-scratching puzzles in Tales of Mystery Unexplained.

On a crisp winter evening, Detective Nikki Gill is taking a peaceful stroll through New College Oxford grounds before starting her new job at Kidlington Criminal Investigations unit the following day. But when she hears a blood-curdling scream coming from one of the buildings, she discovers the lifeless body of Professor Brian Allerton in his office and his wife kneeling by his side. With her first case already underway before she's officially begun her new role, Nikki is feeling the pressure.

Nineteen-year-old Ellen is thrilled to have Jack Bryant as a best friend and roommate. She would be even happier to have him as a boyfriend. Ellen doesn't just love Jack, she loves his entire family—so perfect, so wealthy, so envied by the neighbors. Then, one terrible Saturday morning, Ellen and Jack visit his family home—and find six hanging bodies. Little by little, Ellen learns that beneath the family's glossy facade was a seething cauldron of abuse, dysfunction, and toxicity that she couldn't have imagined.

After his dad's death, Konrad stops speaking. Not a word at home or school. But that begins to change when he meets Maya on the beach he loved to explore with Dad. She doesn't mind his silence. It gives her a chance to be heard, because at home no one seems to notice her. When the pair go on a last visit to Konrad's family bookshop before it's sold, they soon get lost in the pages of Konrad's favourite book of folk tales. Whisked back in time to quest with a dragon, they must find themselves and their voices, as well as a happy end to the story in the book and in real life.

Returning to Pipley following her FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) training, Olive is eager to step up her involvement in the war effort. Her pigeons are being conscripted to aid the Belgian resistance, and it’s up to Olive to choose the best birds for the mission. To protect the secrecy of their work, she must also continue the ruse of being romantically involved with her superior. But perhaps the greatest challenge of all comes when an instructor at Station XVII, the top-secret training school housed at Brickendonbury Manor, is found dead in Balls Wood by a troop of Girl Guides.

Periods, sex and online shaming. An extraordinary verse novel from a bold new voice in YA fiction. During astronomy-lover Frankie's first sexual experience with the quiet and lovely Benjamin, she gets her period. It's only blood, they agree. But soon a graphic meme goes viral, turning their fun, intimate afternoon into something disgusting, mortifying and damaging. As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, Frankie begins to wonder: is her real life over?

Clara and her younger brother, Stephen, are taken by their father to stay with their aunt and uncle in a remote house in the hills as their mother recovers from an accident. At first, they see it as a summer to explore. There's the train set in the basement, the walled garden with its secret graves and beyond it all, the silent loch, steady and waiting. Auntie has wanted them for so long - real children with hair to brush and arms to slip into the clothes made just for them.

Olivia and Nico were once inseparable best friends with shared hopes, dreams and plans for the future. But as life took its course, they took very different paths – leaving them with a challenging long-distance friendship. When Olivia receives an invitation to Nico's wedding in Italy, she can hardly believe it. Despite her happiness for him, she can't help but reflect on the roads not taken and the promises once made. As she arrives in the picturesque Tuscany, disaster strikes. The wedding venue has fallen through and Nico’s wife-to-be is a total Bridezilla.

Tilly dreams of having a pony of her own. One that only she can ride to stardom. Will her wishes come true when she joins Silver Shoe Farm Stables? Tilly witnesses the beginning of a lifelong bond between a young autistic boy, Edward, and a sweet pony called Rusty. To have a good friend, you need to be a good friend.

Lockdown is putting Sophia’s life on pause - just as she planned to put herself out there and meet someone. When the first clap for the keyworkers rings out around her courtyard, she’s moved to tears for all kinds of reasons. Jack is used to living life to the fullest. He’s going stir-crazy after just days isolating. Until the night he hears a woman crying from the balcony under his. He strikes up a conversation with the stranger and puts a smile on her face. Soon their balcony meetings are the highlight of Jack and Sophia’s days.

Interior designer Faith Hudson knows better than anyone the value of a home. Growing up as an unwanted kid in foster care, she hangs onto every last treasure, always searching for the place where she belongs. Out of the blue, Gabe York, the musician ex-boyfriend who broke her heart, calls to say he wants a second chance...and asks her to renovate the Cornish beach house they used to share together. It's bittersweet for Faith, but she's nothing if not hopeful.

Beaten, tortured and shot 17 times, Maggie the little street dog should have given up on the world. But the world didn't give up on her. With the help of her human friends, Maggie begins her long road to recovery and starts to spread joy everywhere she goes. This is the inspirational true story of a little dog who learned to be loved just as she is.

Tilly dreams of having a pony of her own. One that only she can ride to stardom. Will her wishes come true when she joins Silver Shoe Farm Stables? How do you find the perfect horse? Mia longs for an unbreakable bond like Tilly has with Magic Spirit, but the search to find the horse that is just right for her is not an easy one.

Gary Budden's debut collection blends the traditions of weird fiction and landscape writing in an interlinked set of stories from the emotional geographies of London, Kent, Finland and a place known as the Hollow Shore. The Hollow Shore is both fictional and real. It is a place where flowers undermine railway tracks, relationships decay and monsters lurk. It is the shoreline of a receding, retreating England. This is where things fall apart, waste away and fade from memory.

Working in the camp’s munitions factory, Adela Rubenstein discovers the underground network fighting against the devastating cruelty all around them. Imprisoned for teaching Jewish orphans in secret for the resistance, she doesn’t hesitate to join the rebellion. Every night on the way back to her hut, she looks up at the stars, the only witness to their plan to blow up the crematoria buildings.

Tilly dreams of having a pony of her own. One that only she can ride to stardom. Will her wishes come true when she joins Silver Shoe Farm Stables? Oh Buttons, what a naughty pony! He’s disobedient for everyone at Silver Shoe Farm, until he meets Tilly. She has some clever ideas for turning this tricky pony into a happy pony.

Suzanne is engaged to be married to the man of her dreams - except the lead up to her wedding is beginning to feel more like a nightmare. Can Suzanne uncover the truth about her fiancé ahead of her big day? Bella's life was on track until the day of the hen party when everything changed. Now she must find the strength to rebuild her future - and decide who she wants to spend it with. Mandy's grandmother has fallen in love, but her family don't approve. For her grandmother's dreams to come true, Mandy has a secret wedding to plan, and a very special dress to find.