Showing results by narrator "Ben Allen" in All Categories

Stories of ultimate revenge, from freshly sold human meat and uncontrollable robots, to life-sucking MP3 players and reality TV where death is the penalty - all told with dark humour and gruesome relish, and made even more fiendish by retro illustrations, chilling facts and a puckish message from the author. This is Anthony Horowitz at his most wicked.

Nicole and Tom's lives are changed overnight by a ten-million-pound lottery win. Before they know it they've moved into a state-of-the-art Glass Barn conversion in the stunning grounds of Lancaut Manor in Gloucestershire. But their dream quickly turns into a nightmare when Tom is found dead in the swimming pool, with a nasty wound on the back of his head. Someone close to home must be responsible. But other than the young couple who live in the Manor, and their housekeeper in the Coach House next door, there's no one around for miles.

Is it a break? Or is it a blip? Liv and Adam are in love. Liv and Adam are supposed to be getting engaged. Until Adam accidently suggests they take a break. And Liv starts thinking.... Friends, family and bystanders all have opinions, and one complication leads to another as Adam and Liv try to muddle through in this hilarious, heartwarming comedy. Are they split up - or are they on a break? What exactly are they allowed to get away with? And, most importantly, what do Liv and Adam really want?

Jago is a kid from a rough part of London who has worked hard to get a job in a bank. Marcantonio is a member of the 'Ndrangheta crime families from Southern Italy. He is in Germany to learn how to channel their illicit millions towards legitimate businesses. When Jago witnesses Marcantonio commit a vicious assault, he is drawn into the middle of a delicate surveillance operation.

Ancient powers are waking. The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself broken in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past. Meanwhile, the powerful Wasp Empress is regaining control over those imperial cities that refused to bow to her.

Imagine waking up one day to discover that you have forgotten everything about your life. Your only link with the past, your only hope for the future, is your identical twin. Now imagine, years later, discovering that your twin had not told you the whole truth about your childhood, your family, and the forces that had shaped you. Why the secrets? Why the silences? You have no choice but to begin again. This has been Alex's reality: a world where memories are just the stories people tell you, where fact and fiction are impossible to distinguish.

Achaeos the seer has finally tracked down the stolen Shadow Box. But he has only days before this magical artefact will be lost to him forever. Meanwhile, the Empire's dread forces are mustering for their next great offensive. Stenwold and his followers have only a short time to gather allies, before the enemy's soldiers march again – to conquer everything in their path. If Stenwold cannot hold them back, the hated black and gold flag will fly over every city in the Lowlands before the year's end.

The reverend Dodd, vicar of the quiet Cornish village of Boscawen, spends his evenings reading detective stories by the fireside - but heaven forbid that the shadow of any real crime should ever fall across his seaside parish. But the vicar's peace is shattered one stormy night when Julius Tregarthan, an ill-tempered magistrate, is found at his house in Boscawen with a bullet through his head. The local police inspector is baffled by the lack of clues.

Each track of this unique collection contains an extract, which might be a famous poem, quote or scene, matched to the date, performed by leading actors such as Sir Simon Russell Beale, Helen McCrory, and Damian Lewis. Allie Esiri's introductions give her listeners a new window into the work, time and life of the greatest writer in the English language. Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year is perfect for listening or sharing and brings you Shakespeare’s best-known and best-loved classics alongside lesser known extracts read by a range of award-winning Shakespearean actors.

Too many popular histories seek to establish heroes, pioneers and martyrs but as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and/or dastardly deeds have been overlooked. We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those 'bad gays' whose un-exemplary lives reveals more than we might expect? Part-revisionist history, part-historical biography and based on the hugely popular podcast series, Bad Gays subverts the notion of gay icons and queer heroes.

Why do obviously intelligent people believe things in spite of the evidence against them? Will Storr has travelled across the world to meet an extraordinary cast of modern heretics in order to answer this question. He goes on a tour of Holocaust sites with David Irving and a band of neo-Nazis, experiences his own murder during 'past-life regression' hypnosis, takes part in a mass homeopathic overdose, and investigates a new disease affecting tens of thousands of people - a disease that doesn't actually exist.

A collection of articles, based on modern science, using force-free and fear-free methods. It includes solutions to common issues from pre-puppy to adulthood. The book is a compilation of articles written by these professionals on various aspects of puppy and dog ownership, care, training, and managing and treating behavior problems.

As Tess traces the sunrise over the floodplains, light that paints the house a startling crimson, she yearns for the comforting chaos of life as it once was. Instead of Max and Sonny tracking dirt through the kitchen - Tess and Richard's 'rainbow twins' - Tess absorbs the quiet. The nights draw in, the soil cools and Richard fights to get his winter crops planted rather than deal with the discussion he cannot bear to have. Secrets and vines clamber over the broken red bricks and although its inhabitants seem to be withering, in the damp, crumbling soil - Sonny knows it - something is stirring.

Is the information they bring worth the cost of protecting them for the rest of their lives? Is it even genuine? Might they be double agents? These are some of the questions facing MI6 when a Russian agent hands himself in to them in Denmark. As a team begins to assess his value, his former employers in the Kremlin develop a brutal plan to show that no defector will ever be safe. And they know where to find him. Which means there must be a mole in MI6.

It is the summer of 1961, and the brutal Cold War between East and West is becoming ever more perilous. Two young prodigies from either side of the Iron Curtain, Yulia and Michael, meet at a chess tournament in London. They don't know it, but they are about to compete in the deadliest game ever played. Shadowing them is Greta, a ruthless resistance fighter who grew up the hard way in the forests of Lithuania, but who is now hunting down some of the most dangerous men in the world.

This is the true story of a Londoner who gives up his job as an estate agent in the city, moves to the wilds of Exmoor, starts a smallholding and becomes self-sufficient, with a few bumps along the way. Simon's journey from urbanite to self-sufficient smallholder is brimming with incidents - some funny and some tragic - leading him to question Mother Nature, himself, the food he eats and his role in it all.

The Spell is a comedy of sexual manners that follows the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin, an architect in his late 40s who is trying to build an idyllic life in Dorset with his younger lover, Justin; Robin's 22-year-old son, Danny, a volatile beauty who lives for clubbing and casual sex; and the shy Alex, who is Justin's ex-boyfriend.

Countries die. Sometimes it’s murder, sometimes it’s by accident, and sometimes it’s because they were so ludicrous they didn’t deserve to exist in the first place. Occasionally they explode violently. A few slip away almost unnoticed. Often the cause of death is either ‘got too greedy’ or ‘Napoleon turned up’. Now and then they just hold a referendum and vote themselves out of existence. This is an atlas of nations that fell off the map. 

Following a drunken misunderstanding, Simon Dawson gave up his job in the city, moved to the wilds of Exmoor and became an accidental self-sufficient smallholder with an array of animals. But that was years ago now. Following up on his first book, Pigs in Clover, this is the story of what happens when he suddenly realises that his life is changing all over again. He's not quite the spring chicken that he used to be: he is, horror of horrors, getting older.

Shakespearean is a rich, brilliant and superbly drawn portrait of an extraordinary artist, one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Through an enthralling narrative, ranging widely in time and space, McCrum seeks to understand Shakespeare within his historical context while also exploring the secrets of literary inspiration and examining the nature of creativity itself.