Showing results by narrator "Adjoa Andoh" in All Categories

Noo Saro-Wiwa was brought up in England, but every summer she was dragged back to Nigeria - a country she viewed as an annoying parallel universe where she had to relinquish all her creature comforts and sense of individuality. Then her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was murdered there, and she didn't return for 10 years. Recently, she decided to rediscover and come to terms with the country her father loved.

A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was 10 years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed Fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children.

How do you know you really exist? It’s Maisie’s birthday and she can’t wait to open her presents. She’s hoping for the things she needs to build her own nuclear reactor. But she wakes to an empty house and outside the front door is nothing but a terrifying, all-consuming blackness. Trapped in an ever-shifting reality, Maisie knows that she will have to use the laws of the universe and the love of her family to survive. And even that might not be enough.... A mind-bending mystery for anyone who’s ever asked questions, from the author of The Many Worlds of Albie Bright and The Jamie Drake Equation.

When a frightened Russian woman seeks DCI Hanlon's help in finding her missing husband, Hanlon's not keen on the case. Until she hears a name she recognises only too well: Arkady Belanov, sadistic pimp and owner of an exclusive brothel in Oxford is involved. When her former partner and friend disappears, Hanlon is forced into an uneasy alliance with the London underworld to rescue him from the blood-stained hands of the Russian mafia.

Finnish teen eco-blogger, Ulli Earthgirl, wins a competition to join a low-carbon expedition to the North Pole by foot, to measure the melting ice. Blogging her way across the Arctic, she has to navigate deadly cracks in the ice, as well as the treacherous currents of environmental controversy in the blogosphere. Soon she's afloat in both worlds, as all her certainties begin to dissolve.

What would you do for the friend who broke your heart? Best friends Kamryn Matika and Adele Brannon thought nothing could come between them - until Adele did the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn's fiance, Nate. Worse still, she got pregnant and had his child. When Kamryn discovered the truth about their betrayal she vowed never to see any of them again.

It's been 18 months since my husband was murdered and I've decided to finish writing The Flavours of Love, the cookbook he started before he died. Everyone thinks I'm coping so well without him - they have no idea what I've been hiding or what I did back then to protect my family. But now that my 14-year-old daughter has confessed a devastating secret, and my husband's killer, who was never caught, has started to write to me, I know it's only a matter of time before the truth about me and what I've done will be revealed.

No one is perfectly happy, but when are we happy enough? Laura is a happily married mother of two until an ex-lover contacts her. Suddenly passion and excitement are rekindled, but how much happiness has she a right to expect, and what about the pain she would cause to achieve it? Unknown to Laura, several others in her Sussex village are also living with their own unresolved crises, where every decision they take has an impact on those around them.

Raised as a boy in a grand but unhappy family in Nigeria, Otolorin Akinro escapes to boarding school knowing two things: she is truly a girl, and to stay safe, she must hide that truth. Away from the cruelty of her childhood home, Oto blooms even as she strives to be the best boy she can, finding true friendship and working hard to earn a scholarship to an American university, hoping someone out there might help her understand the secrets her body holds.

Edie is struggling. She’s increasingly confused, but she can’t let the women in the village find that out - they’d only talk. But she’s forgetting so much - forgetting to wear matching clothes, forgetting to bake one of her walnut cakes for the church sale...and forgetting to lock the front door...until one day she wakes to find Jonah in her house and herself in her past. Jonah is struggling. The journey to England was illegal and dangerous, and he’s the only one who survived - and he still hasn’t made it to London.

It's Christmas Day, 2067. 'Silent Night' drifts across the ruins of a wrecked spaceship, listing helplessly in the black. A sole woman, May, stirs within - the last person left alive of a disastrous first manned mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. There is only one person who can help her - her ex-husband, Stephen, a NASA scientist who was heading up the mission back on Earth. Until, that is, she broke his heart and he left both her and the mission.

Nina Landry is supposed to be taking her two children on a Christmas holiday. But the road from Sandling Island seems littered with obstacles. Most pressing of all, her 15-year-old daughter, Charlie, has yet to return from a night out. Has Charlie run away? Or has something more sinister happened to her?

From best-selling author and illustrator Kate Pankhurst, descendant of Emmeline Pankhurst, comes another 'smart, informative, inclusive and accessible' book about trail-blazing women. This time, it's women who have helped protect our natural world from way before it was on a political agenda. Discover their untold stories.

The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or, at least, the only life she'd ever known. For who was she if not a City high-flyer, Senior Partner at one of the top private equity firms in London? As Stacey starts to reconcile her old life with the new - one without professional achievements or meetings but instead long days at home with her dog and ailing mother, waiting for her successful husband to come home - she at least has The Girls to fall back on. Beth, Melissa and Gaby.

Just because you're in love, doesn't mean you're meant to spend your life together, right? Having read Women are from Mars and Men are from Croydon and Set Sail on the SS Relationship, unemployed ex-soldier Andy thinks it's about time he and his left-wing lawyer girlfriend Julie headed into deeper waters. But there's plenty in their way, from comically grim airport trips and fancy dinner parties, to nearly causing the assassination of the Prime Minister and discovering Andy's dad has been living a double life.

Countess Elizabeth Bathory has power and wealth running through her veins. She rules her vast estates with an iron fist and fierce intelligence, protecting her family and the people who depend on her. She is devout in her faith and even tends to the sick herself. But rumours are spreading... and bodies are mounting up. Why do young servant girls die wherever the Countess goes? Is she a witch? Is she cursed? No one has seen anything with their own eyes, but tales of cruelty and murder persist, as the Countess leaves a bloody trail behind her…

Philosophy lecturer Dr Gideon Fuller, with his penchant for high-end sadistic sex, is in the frame, but Hanlon is not convinced. From the specialist brothels in Oxford and Soho to the inner sanctum of a Russian people trafficker with a taste for hurting women, the trail leads Hanlon deeper and deeper into danger - until she herself becomes the killer's next target.

Three stories that explore the most evocative experience of summer - outdoor swimming. 'To Brixton Beach': A mysterious swimmer spends all day in the pool at Brockwell Lido. Written by Stella Duffy. Read by Adjoa Andoh. 'Lido Lover': An Englishwoman finds a kind of fulfilment on the Venetian Lido. Written by Michele Roberts. Read by Joanna Tope. 'The Horizon Pool': An unexpected swimming companion in the UK's northernmost outdoor pool - the Trinkie in Wick - may hold the key to recovery for a teenage boy. Written by Linda Cracknell. Read by Finn den Hertog.

Libby has a nice life with a gorgeous husband and a big home by the sea. But over time she is becoming more unsure if Jack has ever loved her – and if he is over the death of Eve, his first wife. When fate intervenes in their relationship, Libby decides to find out all she can about the man she hastily married and the seemingly perfect Eve. Eventually Libby stumbles across some startling truths about Eve, and is soon unearthing more and more devastating family secrets.

Young and athletic, London cycle courier Astrid Bell is bad luck - for other people. First Astrid's neighbour Peggy Farrell accidentally knocks her off her bike - and not long after is found bludgeoned to death in an alley. Then, a few days later, Astrid is asked to pick up a package from a wealthy woman called Ingrid de Soto, only to find the client murdered in the hall of her luxurious home. For the police, it's more than coincidence. For Astrid and her six housemates, it's the beginning of a nightmare.