Showing results by narrator "Jack Hawkins" in All Categories

A young man named Samuel dies in a horrible car crash. Was it an accident, or was it suicide? To answer that question, an unnamed writer with an agenda of his own sets out to map Samuel's last day alive. Through conversations with friends, relatives, and neighbors, a portrait of Samuel emerges: the loving grandchild, the reluctant bureaucrat, the loyal friend, the contrived poseur. The young man who did everything for his girlfriend, Laide, and shared everything with his best friend, Vandad.

Bob Howard used to fix computers for the Laundry - the branch of the British Secret Service that deals with otherworldly threats - but those days are over. He's not only been promoted to active service but actually survived missions against cultists, enemy spies and tentacled horrors from other dimensions. Willingly or not, he's on his way up in this dangerous organisation.

Returning to the UK to try to sort out his stormy personal life, Ben runs into two old friends. Simeon and Michaela were once his fellow students at Oxford; now they are the Reverend and Mrs Arundel. Ben senses that Simeon is deeply troubled, but before the truth can emerge about his secretive research project concerning a mysterious, ancient "sacred sword", both he and Michaela are wiped out in a devastating road crash. Convinced that his friends' deaths were no accident, Ben is propelled on a global quest.

Bob Howard is an IT specialist and field agent for the Laundry, the branch of Her Majesty's secret service that deals with occult threats. Overworked and underpaid, Bob is used to his two jobs overflowing from a strict nine to five, and since his wife, Mo, has a very similar job description, he understands that work will sometimes follow her home, too. But when 'work' involves zombie assassins and minions of a mad god's cult, he realises things are spinning out of control.

What was a Buddhist monk doing at the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos lecturing the world's leaders on mindfulness? Why do many successful corporations have a chief happiness officer? What can the chemical composition of your brain tell a potential employer about you? In the past decade, governments and corporations have become increasingly interested in measuring the way people feel: the Happiness index, Gross National Happiness, well-being and positive psychology have come to dominate the way we live our lives.

School teacher Ben is driving on the motorway, on his usual commute to work. A day like any other.... Except for one man who, in a final despairing act, jumps in front of Ben's car, turning the teacher's world upside down in a single horrifying instant.... Wracked with guilt and desperate to clear his conscience, he develops a friendship with Alice, the dead man's wife, and her seven-year-old son Max.

'The situation as far as I'm concerned', says the young narrator-hero of MF, 'is an interesting one. In two days in a strange country I've acquired a mother in the form of a Welsh-speaking Bird Queen who scares me. I've spent some hours in prison, I've discovered the works of an unknown superlative artist in a garden shed and I've been shot at by a riddling lion-faced expert on Bishop Berkeley. Most interesting of all I'm due tonight to be married by a circus clown to my own sister.'

Former SAS major Ben Hope is relaxing at his home in Normandy when he hears the worst news of his life. His ex-girlfriend, Dr Brooke Marcel, has been kidnapped. Racing against the clock, Ben's frantic search for Brooke leads him from Ireland to the Spanish mountains and the rainforests of Peru. What is the mysterious link between the kidnapping, the salvage of a sunken 16th-century Spanish warship and the secret activities of its wealthy discoverer?

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from the supernatural, has involved brilliant hacking, ancient magic and combat with creatures of pure evil. Now the Laundry's existence has become public, and Bob is being trotted out on TV to answer pointed questions about elven asylum seekers.

We live in the age of the individual. We are supposed to be slim, prosperous, happy, extroverted and popular. This is our culture's image of the perfect self. We see this person everywhere: in advertising, in the press, all over social media. We're told that to be this person, you just have to follow your dreams, that our potential is limitless, that we are the source of our own success. But this model of the perfect self can be extremely dangerous. People are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy.

Prince Anders, the ruler of Archenfield, has been murdered, leaving his younger brother, Jared, to ascend the throne. Sixteen-year-old Jared feels unprepared to rule the kingdom and its powerful and dangerous court, yet he knows he can rely on the 12 officers of the court to advise him. He also knows he can just as easily be at their mercy - especially when it appears that one of them may be responsible for his brother's death. Unable to trust anyone, Jared takes it upon himself to hunt down his brother's killer - but the killer may be hunting him, as well.

Alex Schwartz had a great job and a promising future - until he caught an unfortunate bout of vampirism and agreed (on pain of death) to join the Laundry, Britain's only counter-occult secret intelligence agency. His first assignment is in Leeds - his old hometown. But the thought of telling his parents he's lost his job, let alone their discovering his 'condition', is causing Alex almost as much anxiety as his new lifestyle of supernatural espionage. His only saving grace is Cassie Brewer, a student from the local Goth Festival.

The inspiring story of Ben Smith – who ran 401 marathons in 401 days with minimal support, to raise money for Stonewall and Kidscape. On 1 September 2015, Ben Smith set out from Bristol. Over the next 401 days, he would burn an estimated 2.4 million calories; run with almost 10,000 people; inspire almost 600 first-time marathon runners and visit 101 schools. He would also raise in excess of £325,000 for charity.

After 10 years of servitude, Nish is about to be released from the blackest prison of his corrupt father, the maimed God-Emperor, Jal-Nish Hlar. Using the sorcerous Profane Tears, Gatherer and Reaper, Jal-Nish has crushed all opposition and is remaking Santhenar in his depraved image. The oppressed peoples of the world see Nish as a messianic figure, the Deliverer, who promised long ago to return and cast down his father.

The dramatic concluding volume in an epic tale of hope in the face of adversity. Nish, his battered little troop and his few remaining allies are trapped on the Range of Ruin by the God-Emperor's mighty army. Nish's only choices are a humiliating surrender to his father or a suicidal fight to the death. Yet Nish has to fight, and somehow he has to win, for the beautiful world of Santhenar is in peril and no-one else can save it.

The second instalment of Ian Irvine's dramatic epic fantasy series, The Song of the Tears. Beset by false friends and the weight of a world's expectations, Nish flees his father, the God-Emperor - always searching for the means to orchestrate his downfall. Nish's reluctant allies are Maelys, who believes he betrayed her family; former scrutator Xervish Flydd, now stripped of power; and Colm, whom Nish owes a favour he can never repay.

When 11-year-old Stefan tells his little brother on Christmas Eve that Santa isn’t real, he totally expects to be grounded. What he doesn’t expect is for his name to land at the top of the Naughty List and for a demon named Krampus to creep down his chimney. Narrowly escaping an attack from Krampus, Stefan falls into The Land Christmas Forgot - a dark place where wolves are made of shadow and evil snowmen roam the forests.

Just how do you become a barrister? And why do only one per cent of those who study law succeed in joining this mysteriously opaque profession? If it’s such a great occupation, how come you work 100-hour weeks for less than minimum wage? And why might a practising barrister come to feel the need to reveal the lies, secrets, failures and crises at the heart of this world of wigs and gowns? Nothing but the Truth charts an outsider’s progress down the winding path towards practising at the Bar,

Driven by money, power and success, Gabriel has worked ruthlessly to get to the very top of the banking game. He's not going to let the inconvenience of a terminal brain tumour get in his way. But the tumour has other ideas. As it grows, it appears to be doing strange things to Gabriel's personality. Whether he likes it or not, he seems to be becoming less selfish, less mercenary, less unlikeable. Once he could dismiss the rest of humanity as irrelevant. Now he's not so sure.

Stephanie doesn’t believe in fate, true love, or living happily ever after. She’s content enough being married to Matt. But then she meets Jamie, who understands her more than anyone else ever has. Jamie’s married to his childhood sweetheart and believes in everything Stephanie doesn’t. He’s happy with Helen. So why does he have such a strong connection with Stephanie? When Stephanie and Jamie meet one fateful weekend in 2006, it sparks a tumultuous relationship that spans over a decade. The day they meet changes everything....