Showing results by narrator "Laurence Bouvard"

An alien AI has been sent to the solar system as representative of three advanced species. Its mission is to save the Earth's ecosystem - and the biggest threat to that is humanity. But we are also part of the system, so the AI must make a choice. Should it save mankind or wipe it out? Are we worth it? The AI is all-powerful and might as well be a god. So it sets up some conditions. Violence is now impossible. Large-scale destruction of natural resources is impossible. Food and water will be provided for those who really, truly need them. You can't even bully someone on the Internet anymore.

A comedy/tragedy of manners. The new novel from the Man Booker-short-listed author of The Sisters Brothers. Frances Price - tart widow, possessive mother and Upper East Side force of nature - is in dire straits, beset by scandal. Her adult son, Malcolm, is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there's their cat, whom Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral lawyer whose gruesome tabloid death rendered them social outcasts.  

Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just 100 words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity will course through her veins. Now the new government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman. Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports are taken away and 70 million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write.

Britain is under New Management. The disbanding of the Laundry - the British espionage agency that deals with supernatural threats - has culminated in the unthinkable: an elder god in residence in 10 Downing Street. But in true 'the enemy of my enemy' fashion, Mhairi Murphy finds herself working with His Excellency Nylarlathotep on foreign policy - there are worse things, it seems, than an elder god in power, and they lie in deepest, darkest America.

Why is it that the behaviour of teenagers can be so odd? As they grow older, young children steadily improve their sense of how to behave, and then all of a sudden, they can become totally uncommunicative, wildly emotional and completely unpredictable. We used to think that erratic teenage behaviour was due to a sudden surge in hormones, but modern neuroscience shows us that this isn't true.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel, read by a returning cast. We always thought the biggest threat to humanity would come from the outside. We were wrong. As the human race picks up the pieces of destruction left behind, a new world order emerges. New alliances are formed. Old divisions are strengthened. And, with a power struggle fuelled by the threat of mutually assured destruction, nothing is certain.

You think you know how the world works? Think again. From best-selling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller that questions the very foundations of the modern world. Magic has faded from the minds of mankind, until an encounter between Melisande Stokes, linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy agent of government, leads to the uncovering of a distant past.

Lily was abducted from outside her high school gates. For eight long years, she's been locked away from the outside world. During that time she's changed from a girl into a woman. She's had a baby. And now she has seized her chance and escaped. Running for her life, with her daughter in her arms, she returns to her family and the life she used to know - to her much-loved twin sister, Abby; her mum; her high school boyfriend - and her freedom. But is it possible to go back?

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It has been harnessed by Fortune 100 companies, universities, hospitals, churches and the military. Its language - of extraversion vs. introversion, thinking vs. feeling - has inspired online dating platforms and Buzzfeed quizzes alike. And yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $500 million industry, struggle to account for its success - no less validate its results. How did the Myers-Briggs insinuate itself into our jobs, our relationships, our Internet, our lives?

A stunning new emotional tour-de-force from the author of Shadow, Born to Run and War Horse. May, 1915. Alfie and his fisherman father find a girl on an uninhabited island in the Scillies - injured, thirsty, lost… and with absolutely no memory of who she is, or how she came to be there. She can say only one word: Lucy. Where has she come from? Is she a mermaid, the victim of a German U-boat, or even - as some islanders suggest - a German spy?

In 2088 humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth's solar system, and astrophysicist Reggie Straifer knows where we should go. He's discovered a distant anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics. It could be a weird natural phenomenon, or it could be alien. Convoy 7's mission to discern the nature of the star's strange qualities will use vast resources and take centuries, so in order to maintain the genetic talent of the first crew, clones will be used for the expedition.

Norfolk, 1953. The Fens have never seen anything quite like the girls from USAF Drampton. Overpaid, overfed and over here. While their men patrol the skies keeping the Soviets at bay, some are content to live the life of the Future Homemakers of America - clipping coupons, cooking chicken pot pie - but other start to stray, looking for a little native excitement beyond the perimeter fence. Out there in the freezing fens they meet Kath Pharaoh, a tough but warm Englishwoman. Bonds are forged, uniting the women in friendship that will survive distant postings and the passage of 40 years.

It is 1964: Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening uninvited, where he notices a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. When Bert kisses Beverly Keating, his host's wife, he sets in motion the joining of two families. In 1988, Franny Keating, now 24, meets one of her idols, the famous author Leon Posen. After telling him about her family, she unwittingly relinquishes control over their story.

On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day reign inside and outside the home while girls know they will be married and pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood. But before that time comes, there is an island ritual that offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their doorsteps to roam wild: they run, they fight, they sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. They are free.

The year is 1880. Two hundred years after the trials in Salem, witches Adelaide Thom and Eleanor St Clair finally feel safe and have opened a tea shop in Manhattan, specialising in cures, palmistry and potions. When an enchanting young woman called Beatrice joins the witches as an apprentice, she soon proves indispensable, but her new life is marred by strange occurrences. She sees things no one else can see. She hears voices no one else can hear. Objects appear out of thin air, as if gifts from the dead.

Her beginning may be our end.... Deep in the humid Mississippi bayou, a half-wild child is dragged from the murky waters. She has no memories and no family and is covered in mysterious markings. Adopted by the policeman who rescued her, Luce Boudreau follows him onto the force, determined to prove herself in the eyes of those who are still suspicious.

Young and in love, their lives ahead of them, Tami Oldham and her fiancé, Richard Sharp, set sail from Tahiti under brilliant blue skies, with Tami’s hometown of San Diego as their ultimate destination. But the two free spirits and avid sailors couldn’t anticipate that less than two weeks into their voyage, they would sail directly into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history. They found themselves battling pounding rain, waves the size of skyscrapers, and 140 knot winds. Richard tethered himself to the boat and sent Tami below to safety, and then all went eerily quiet. Hours later, Tami awakened to find the boat in ruins and Richard nowhere in sight.

It's wedding season, and tensions are brewing. When one lavish wedding ends in disaster before it can even begin - with the maid of honour discovered dead in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony - everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash digs into the best man, the bride, the groom's famous mystery novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, the chief discovers that every wedding is a minefield - and that no couple is perfect.

A global thriller presenting an apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of despair and destruction. What would you do if the world was brought to a standstill? If you heard deafening static followed by the words 'my children. Do not be afraid'? Would you turn to God? Subscribe to the conspiracy theories? Or put your faith in science and a rational explanation? The lives of all 26 people in this account are affected by the message. Most because they heard it. Some because they didn't.

From best-selling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary commercial novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller combining history, science, magic, mystery, intrigue, and adventure that questions the very foundations of the modern world.