Showing results by narrator "Colleen Prendergast" in All Categories

As a palliative care nurse, it is Kelly Critcher's job to look death in the eye - to save a patient while the fight can still be won and confront death with grace and kindness when it can't. In early 2020, everything changed for nurses on the NHS frontline. Working on Covid wards and the High Dependency Unit, Kelly spent the height of the coronavirus crisis at Northwick Park Hospital - perhaps the UK hospital most deeply ravaged by the illness.

The small city of Stockleigh is in shock as three women are brutally attacked within days of each other. Are they random acts of violence, or is there a link among the victims? For Detective Eden Berrisford, it's her most chilling case yet. The investigation leads Eden to cross paths with Carla, a woman trying to rebuild her life after her marriage to a cruel and abusive man ended in unimaginable tragedy. Her husband, Ryan, was imprisoned for his crimes, but now he's out and coming for her.

When a teenage girl is strangled while out for a run with her friends, it shakes the city of Stoke to its core. Why would anyone want to hurt a child? And who would have the audacity to murder in broad daylight? DS Grace Allendale and her team are brought in to bring a swift resolution, but investigating the case brings up no leads. It is as if the killer chose the girl at random and then disappeared. And then another young woman is found dead....

Agatha Christie meets St Trinian's in this delightful new middle grade mystery series! Daphne is off to St Rita's, an exclusive girls' boarding school. It sounds awfully respectable, and Daphne herself is awfully respectable, too. She loves to read and is delighted to be offered the chance to interview for librarian's assistant's assistant immediately upon arrival. But it turns out nothing is quite what you'd expect at St Rita's....

Mara lives with her father in a drought-stricken village, where rain comes at a price controlled by powerful cloud-makers. Without enough water, the village crops, animals and people will continue to suffer. When Mara’s father’s illness takes a turn for the worse, she sneaks to The Cloud Factory in the hopes a healthy cloud will help him. But stealing a cloud isn’t simple, as Mara soon finds – and she begins to discover the secrets behind The Cloud Factory.

1945. They have survived the Blitz, but when Simon, Patricia, Evelyn and Larry step through a mysterious library door, it is the beginning of their most dangerous adventure yet. They discover the magical world of Folio, where an enchanted kingdom of fairy knights, bears and tree gods is under threat from a sinister robot army. The many stories of the Library are locked in eternal war, and the children's only hope is to find their creator - a magician who has been lost for centuries. What they find will change not just their own lives, but the fate of the world, for ever....

Rabbit is surprised: some of the trees in the valley seem to be flying south for the winter. His friend Bear is sure that trees can't fly. Then there's a loud crunch! from very near by. It sounds like the world's largest rabbit, eating the world's largest carrot. There's a new creature in Rabbit and Bear's valley, and he's trying to change everything. From novelist and playwright Julian Gough and the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize Jim Field, this is a tale of friendship, Progress and all kinds of getting muddy.

After being orphaned as a child, Mary is taken in by her mother's friend - and ex-prostitute - Nell and raised as her own. But when Nell dies her stepfather takes too much of an interest in Mary, and she is forced to leave home, landing a job as a barmaid. Only Whitelocks is no spit and sawdust pub but a new gin palace in the centre of Leeds. Mary thinks she's landed on her feet. More so when she catches the eye of William Winn, the charming owner of a glamorous new hotel.

Meg just wants to keep her family together. Her mother is desperately ill, and her sister is still in school so it is up to her to support them. All Meg knows to do is bake, and desperation leads her to Ted Lund, the miserly owner of a local bakery. In a moment of uncharacteristic kindness, he takes pity on Meg and offers her a job. But Ted’s charity ends there. He’ll save money at any costs, cutting corners by using sawdust in his bread, ignoring vermin in his flour and paying Meg a pittance.

In 1959 Milly starts her new life as a housemaid at Rutherford House, working for the aristocratic Rutherford-Percy clan. Entranced by her new mistress, Vivienne, she becomes deeply embroiled in the household and the keeper of dark secrets the family conceals beneath the mansion’s grand exterior. In the present day, Christie is working as a psychiatric nurse when she meets troubled patient Lillian Percy, Vivienne’s granddaughter and heiress to Rutherford House. They soon bond over the loss of their mothers.

I live near a biscuit factory. Sounds like a dream come true, right? But it's not all fun and jammie dodgers. You see, the biscuit factory is really a Super-Secret Science Lab. Everyone pretends it makes biscuits. It just makes life easier. Until today. Because the biscuit factory tore a hole through dimensions, and now huge orange monsters are climbing through. Oh, and if we don't do something, the world is going to go kablooey in the next 30 minutes. Not on my watch. You coming?

DI Annie Delamere and her colleague DS Zoe Everett are off duty and enjoying a walk on the Peak District’s vast moorlands when they stumble across a mutilated corpse. While Annie is put in charge of the case, her long-term partner, MP Sheena Pearson, is confronted by a group of far-right extremists. Sheena chooses to stand her ground - and almost pays for it with her life. As more bodies are found, Annie is under pressure to prove her worth.

Beth Lomas thought she knew her late husband. But this one small word, written on the back of a discarded envelope and left on their kitchen table, convinces the police that Oscar took his own life. As the police announce they are not seeking anyone else in connection with Oscar's death, Beth is convinced that there is more to the story. As she sets out to discover what really happened, Beth uncovers shocking truths about the man she thought she knew better than anyone.

Limpet's mum is opening an ice-cream shop, full of her favourite new flavours: mushroom and tuna ice cream, anyone? Roast parsnip and gravy? Limpet's not sure about this. He likes a nice, safe life. His favourite ice-cream flavour is vanilla. But when wicked Mr Fluffy arrives with his Mega Emporium of Amazing and Spectacular Ice Creams, Limpet knows he's got to fight back. And there are magic ingredients on his doorstep which can solve all his worries, if only he can get the recipe just right.

Gut Well Soon navigates the turbulent waters of health and wellness in the 21st century. It explores the science underpinning the health claims and misconceptions we have all heard but never fully understood. In particular it explains why our gut bacteria is crucial to our mental and physical health, and explains what you can do to support it in a simple and accessible way. Not satisfied with just words, Catherine has created an informative and individualised online programme called Reset Your Gut to help put the fully referenced information in this book into your everyday life.

Bella Whittington’s caviar-and-Cristal life comes crashing down when she walks in on her fiancé and best friend tangled up in page 34 of the Kama Sutra, limbs everywhere. But her plan to dull the pain with Daddy’s credit card is totaled by the news that they’ve lost the family business. Suddenly, Bella’s both single and completely broke. Shivering in her dingy, new studio apartment, after a traumatic incident with a homemade turmeric face mask (Hello Tangerina Jolie!), Bella realizes she must pull up her Gucci socks and get a job, fast.

When a young boy falls from a balcony in a block of flats, DS Grace Allendale witnesses the shocking aftermath of the tragic event. But strangely, no one will admit to seeing anything - and the parents will only tell the police that it was an accident. Determined to sort the truth from the lies, Grace is thrown into a case that takes her to the darkest corners of the criminal world - and strikes closer to home than she could have ever imagined.

When single mum Ruth has a brief fling with Rob, she's mortified to discover that he lied to her. He lied to her, because he's married. Worse still, he's the husband of Janine, head of the PTA at the primary school where Ruth works as secretary, and when the truth of their fling is discovered, Ruth suddenly has a lot of enemies at the school gates. Threatening texts begin to arrive, rumours abound and the staff room becomes hostile.

Since her twin brother, Eddie, drowned five years ago, 16-year-old Elsie Main has tried to remember what really happened that fateful day on the beach. One minute Eddie was there, and the next he was gone. Seventeen-year-old Tay McKenzie is a cute and mysterious boy that Elsie meets in her favorite boathouse hangout. When Tay introduces Elsie to the world of freediving, she vows to find the answers she seeks at the bottom of the sea.

Amy lies in a coma. Her older sister, Moira, comes to her in the evenings and sits beside her hospital bed. Here, Moira confesses. She admits to her childhood selfishness which deeply hurt her family; to her savagery at boarding school; to the wild, bitter and destructive heart that she carried into her adult life.