Showing results by narrator "Jane Collingwood" in All Categories

Stella lives with her mother, a smothering narcissist. Her world has shrunk since the terrible accident that left her a shut-in. Her days are broken up by deliveries from a courier that she always returns and by the irresistible urge to watch the life of a stranger - beautiful Connie - unfold on social media. But why is she so drawn to a woman she has never met? And what caused the accident she doesn't want to speak about?

Best friends tell you everything - about their kitchen renovation, about their little girl’s schooling. How one of them is leaving the other for a younger model. Best friends don’t tell lies. They don’t take up residence on your couch for weeks. They don’t call lawyers. They don’t make you choose sides. Best friends don’t keep secrets about their past. They don't put you in danger. Best friends don’t always stay best friends.

What if you had always dreamed of something more? Waving goodbye to the chip shop, Nell McNamara starts up a new business making her own line of must-have handbags, which are soon flying off the shelves. It seems Nell's dreams are finally coming true, but her success doesn't come without a price. Before too long, Nell has to ask herself if it's really possible to have it all….

Rome, the very end of December. The Field of Mars is packed with monuments, none more beautiful than Domitian's new Odeon and Stadium. But the area has been overtaken by ugly events: elaborately staged murders. Someone bears a spectacular grudge against the theatrical community and intends to get revenge in the most spectacular way possible. The killer's method is to re-enact bloody scenes from the gruesome side of popular theatre, where characters in plays really die on stage.

The Mighty Shandar, the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen, returns to the Ununited Kingdoms. Clearly, he didn't solve the Dragon Problem, and must hand over his fee: Eighteen dray-weights of gold. But the Mighty Shandar doesn't do refunds, and vows to eliminate the dragons once and for all - unless sixteen-year-old Jennifer Strange and her sidekicks from the Kazam house of enchantment can bring him the legendary jewel, The Eye of Zoltar.

From the creator of Falco comes Falco: the new generation, featuring her unforgettable heroine, Flavia Albia, in her third novel.In the blazing July heat of imperial Rome, Flavia Albia inspects a decomposing corpse. It has been discovered in lots to be auctioned by her family business, so she's determined to identify the dead man and learn how he met his gruesome end. The investigation will give her a chance to work with the magistrate, Manlius Faustus, the friend she sadly knows to be the last chaste man in Rome.

A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them. One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him....

A young woman's future is torn away in a heartbeat. Herded on to a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope. Jean-Luc thought he had left it all behind. The scar on his face a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi Occupation. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door. On a darkened platform, two destinies become entangled. Their choice will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.

Collins brings the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, to English language learners. Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time in any language. Now Collins has adapted her famous detective novels for English language learners. These carefully abridged versions are shorter, with the language targeted at learners of English.

A fractured marriage. A silent family. A secret that connects them all. When DC Cat Kinsella is approached by Joseph Madden for help with his wife, Rachel, there's not much she can do. Joseph claims that Rachel has been threatening him but can't - or won't - give Cat details as to why. Dismissing it as a marriage on the rocks, Cat forgets about it. That is until Naomi Lockhart, a young PA, is found dead after a party attended by both Joseph and Rachel, and Joseph is arrested for the murder.

The next book in the gripping Flavia Albia series, by acclaimed author Lindsey Davis. A tragic accident...or was it? Emperor Domitian has been awarded (or rather, has demanded) yet another Triumph to celebrate two so-called victories. Preparations are going smoothly until one of the men overseeing arrangements for the celebration accidentally falls to his death from a cliff on the symbolic Capitoline Hill. But an old woman comes forward, insisting that the man was in fact pushed - and she refuses to leave it alone.

William Morris was a giant of the Victorian age, and his beautiful creations and provocative philosophies are still with us today: but his wife, Jane, is too often relegated to a footnote. In truth, Jane and William's personal and creative partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives. The homes they made together were works of art in themselves, and the great labour of their lives was life itself: through their houses and the objects they filled them with, they explored how we all might live a life more focused on beauty and fulfilment.

Melissa and Paul: Five years after they split he's still looking for love in all the wrong places while all she wants is him. Chris and Vicky: They are deliriously happy, so why is Chris risking it all for an affair? Cooper and Laura: He wants to settle down, she wants to take a gap year - can their relationship survive a year apart?

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father are sent to capture one for the Shogun, they fear that their lives are over. Soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in the wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. As Yukiko learns the horrifying extent of the Shogun’s crimes against her country and her family, she becomes determined to make him pay.

Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Penny chews or hard boiled sweeties (you do get more for your money that way)? The jangle of your pocket money… the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag… Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian's sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy is she wrong. Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton's sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams - a novel - with recipes.

The official autobiography from the Girls Aloud and Strictly Come Dancing star. In 2002 - along with Cheryl Cole, Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding and Nicola Roberts - Kimberley Walsh won a place in the Popstars The Rivals band Girls Aloud, and her life changed forever. Ten years later, after six platinum albums, twenty top-ten singles, a Brit Award, an entry in the Guinness Book of Records and a triumphant sell-out reunion tour, the girls have decided to go their separate ways.

Watch out for cats in boots, three bears who live in the woods and strange unicorns in this magical collection of short stories by Enid Blyton. From lost slippers and fairy curses to imps without names and a dragon called Mr Wumble, there's fairy magic brewing. Who will live happily ever after? These traditional tales are ideal for younger children and for new listeners. Each story stands alone and is the perfect length for listening at bedtime or in the classroom.

This is the tale of three 14-year-old girls and a volatile combination of lies, jealousy and perversion that ends in tragedy. Except the tragedy is even darker and more tangled than their tight-knit community has been persuaded to believe. Blackly funny and with a surreal edge to its portrait of a northern English town, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers they face in a predatory adult world they think they can handle.

Gwen’s life has stalled. She’s in her mid-thirties, perpetually single, her friends are busy procreating in the country and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around herbaceous borders and the council’s wheelie-bin timetable. Above all she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone? When Gwen’s made redundant from a job she drifted into a decade ago and never left, she realises it’s time to make a change.

Elektra is hoping for big things this year.... She's finished her first feature film (even if her character was unexpectedly killed off halfway through filming), hosted the party of the year (well, before her mum arrived and threw everyone out - how embarrassing!) and managed to become Archie Mortimer's actual real-life girlfriend (for now anyway...), so things are most definitely moving in the right direction. But with social media to navigate (#actinggoals #instanightmare), GCSEs looming and a seemingly never-ending parade of failed casting calls, Elektra's road to acting stardom is proving to be as rocky as ever.