Showing results by narrator "Candida Gubbins"

It is summer 1989, and 15-year-old Clotilde is on holiday with her parents in Corsica. On a twisty mountain road, their car comes off at a curve and plunges into a ravine. Only Clotilde survives. Twenty-seven years later, she returns to Corsica with her partner, Franck, and their sulky teenage daughter, Valentine. Clotilde wants to the trip to do two things - to help exorcise the ghosts of her past and to provide a bridge between her and her daughter, so that Valentine can begin to understand why her mother is the way she is.

Charlie hates the holidays, and this year is shaping up to be her worst yuletide ever. Her boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, her flat is out of bounds after a gas leak, and her mother has gone to spend Christmas in Melbourne with her fifth husband. Finding herself single, mildly concussed and temporarily homeless, Charlie hesitantly agrees to dust off her wellies and spend the festive season in Devon, looking after Cosy Canine Cottages, her cousin Jez's dog-care centre.....      

You never forget your first love. Eighteen years ago, Olivia learned to live without Sean Kenyon. She moved on, building a life with her husband, Richmond, and their two children in the picturesque town Kesterley-on-Sea. But when Sean unexpectedly appears on Olivia’s doorstep, her world is turned upside down once more. As old feelings resurface and new truths come to light, Olivia finds herself questioning everything. Is her husband really the person she thought he was?

When aristocrat's daughter Charlotte Bingham was summoned to her father's office aged 18, she never expected to discover that he was a spy. Even more ominous was his decision that she should work for MI5. Miserably assigned to the formidable Dragon, Lottie wishes for release from the torment of typing. But as fellow secretary Annabella illuminates the mysteries of MI5, and Lottie's home fills with actors doubling as spies, Lottie feels well and truly spooked. 

When Brighton tattoo artist Marni Mullins discovers a flayed body, newly-promoted DI Francis Sullivan needs her help. There's a serial killer at large, slicing tattoos from his victims' bodies while they're still alive. Marni knows the tattooing world like the back of her hand, but has her own reasons to distrust the police. So when she identifies the killer's next target, will she tell Sullivan or go after the Tattoo Thief alone?

The MacBrides have always gone to Far Barn in Devon for Bonfire Night, but this year everything is different. Lydia, the matriarch, is dead; Sophie, the eldest daughter, is desperately trying to repair a crumbling marriage; and Felix, the youngest of the family, has brought a girlfriend with him for the first time. The girl, Kerry, seems odd in a way nobody can quite put their finger on - but when they leave her looking after Sophie's baby daughter, and return to find both Kerry and the baby gone, they are forced to ask themselves if they have allowed a cuckoo into their nest....

Some wounds need more than time. They crave revenge. Claire's father is a privileged man: handsome, brilliant, the product of an aristocratic lineage and an expensive education, surrounded by a group of devoted friends who would do anything for him. But when he becomes the prime suspect in a horrific attack on Claire's mother - a pretty little thing who married into the elite ranks of society and dared escape her gilded cage - fate and privilege collide, and a scandal erupts. Claire's father disappears overnight, his car abandoned, blood on the front seat.

When Max is sent to Istanbul to stay with her boring Great-Aunt Elodie, little does she expect to be plunged into a thrilling nighttime adventure across Europe. And when the mysterious Heartbreak Diamond goes missing, Max must find her feet in a whirling world of would-be diamond smugglers, thieves and undercover detectives. Will she discover the real diamond thief before they reach their destination?

When Jo's beloved grandparents ask for her help in running their little café at the end of the pier in Salthaven-on-Sea, she jumps at the chance. The café is a hub for many people: the single dad who brings his little boy in on a Saturday morning; the lady who sits alone and stares out to sea; the woman who pops in after her morning run.

They were identical in every way. Until the unthinkable tore them apart. Isolte and Viola are twins. Inseparable as children, they've grown into very different adults: Isolte, a successful features writer for a fashion magazine with a photographer boyfriend and a flat in London, and Viola, desperately unhappy and struggling with a lifelong eating disorder. What happened all those years ago to set the twins on such different paths to adulthood? As both women start to unravel the escalating tragedies of a half-remembered summer, terrifying secrets from the past come rushing back - and threaten to overwhelm their adult lives....

Should you find yourself in need of a discreet investigation into any sort of mystery, crime or puzzling circumstances, think of Jesperson and Lane.... For several years Miss Lane was companion, amanuensis, collaborator and friend to the lady known to the Psychical Societs only as Miss X - until she discovered that Miss X was actually a fraud.

When her beloved grandmother, Marnie, passes away, Laurel is left with a small inheritance and a note telling her to follow her dreams. As she and Marnie always did in difficult times, Laurel turns to her ABBA albums and her favourite film, Mamma Mia! Without pausing for thought, she grabs her passport, dons her best dungarees, and jets off to Skopelos for her own Meryl-inspired adventure....

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he’s not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy’s tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time.

Ingrid Olsson returns home from a Stockholm hospital to discover a man in her kitchen. She's never seen the intruder before. But he's no threat - he's dead. Criminal Investigator Conny Sjoberg takes the call, abandoning his wife Asa and their five children for the night. His team identify the body as that of a middle-aged family man. But why was he there? And who bludgeoned him to death? Lacking suspect and motive, Sjoberg's team struggle until they link the case to another - apparently random - killing. And discover they face a serial killer on a terrible vendetta....

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Last Lullaby by Carin Gerhardsen, read by Candida Gubbins. Inspector Conny Sjöberg and his police colleagues are perplexed by the brutal killing of a family in their Stockholm apartment. With no clues, the murder inquiry starts with working out how it was possible for the mother, who worked as a cleaner, to afford a multimillion-dollar property.

It's been eight years since Gen Loxley lost her daughter, Beth: eight years of grief in which nothing's really moved forward, for all that her husband, Art, wills it to. Gen, once a writer of novels, has settled in to a life of half-hearted teaching, while Art makes his name and their fortune - and pressures her into trying IVF once again. For Gen, it seems a cruel act of replacement; life without Beth is unthinkable, unbearable - but still it goes on.

Three-year-old Hanna wakes up to find she has been abandoned. Her family is gone. The house is locked. She is trapped. Meanwhile, a teenage girl has been found murdered aboard the Cinderella, a cruise ship which sails between Sweden and Finland. Detective Chief Inspector Conny Sjoberg visits the girl's home to deliver the tragic news. But as he investigates, it becomes chillingly clear that the girl's younger sister will meet a similar fate - unless the police can crack the case and trap this elusive and vicious killer.

Nominee: Glass Key Award for Nordic Crime Fiction 2013, Winner: Finnish Booksellers Laila Hirvisaari Grant 2012, Winner: Finnish Whodunnit Society Clue of the Year Award 2012,Winner: Kaarle Prize 2012, Nominee: Helsingin Sanomat Debut Prize 2012. Cold Blood. Cold Case. Cold Courage. The body of a young woman body is abandoned in a car boot in the middle of London as a warning to others. The police have no leads and no clues as to the identity of the victim.

When the children dug a hole in the gravel-pit, they were very surprised at what they found. "It" was a Psammead, a sand-fairy, thousands of years old. It was a strange little thing - fat and furry, and with eyes on long stalks. It was often very cross and unfriendly, but it could give wishes - one wish a day. "How wonderful!" the children said. But wishes are difficult things. They can get you into trouble. An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English.

When Dirk Dilly of the Dragon Detective Agency is asked to follow a husband who is behaving suspiciously, he becomes involved in a mystery involving some very wicked Tree Dragons. Soon Holly is on hand to help Dirk and between them they find some solutions, not just the behaviour of the suspicious husband, but also to the problems that Holly has been having at school, where nothing is quite what it should be.