Showing results by narrator "Emma Fenney" in All Categories

Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima, and, what’s more, she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. She must leave all she knows behind and follow her fiancé to Citaceleste, the capital of a cold, icy ark known as the Pole, where danger lurks around every corner and nobody can be trusted.

Twenty-five years after the end of the war, Noah Ainsworth is still preoccupied with those perilous, exhilarating years as a British SOE operative in France. A head injury sustained on his final operation has caused frustrating gaps in his memory—in particular about the agent who saved his life during that mission gone wrong, whose real name he never knew, nor whether she even survived the war. Moved by her father’s frustration, Noah’s daughter Charlotte begins a search for answers that resurrects the stories of Chloe and Fleur, the code names for two otherwise ordinary women.

'She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go a huge blast right into the centre of his body. The rivulets and streams of red scarring run across his chest and up around his throat. She'd put her hand on his heart and stopped him dead.' Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death.

Long ago, following a cataclysm called the Rupture, the world was shattered into many floating celestial islands, now known as arks. Over each, the spirit of an omnipotent and immortal ancestor abides. The inhabitants of these arks each possess a unique power. Ophelia, with her ability to read the pasts of objects, must navigate this complex world using her trademark tenacity and quiet strength.

The Long Form, Kate Briggs's long-awaited debut fiction, unmakes and remakes the novel to meditate on very real social issues, from housing to care-taking, laying bare the settings and support structures that make durational forms of co-existence first thinkable, then possible. At once acrobatic and deeply attentive, The Long Form insists on the creativity inherent in everyday life, showing how the acts of social composition (living arrangements) are continuous with the acts of artistic composition (page arrangements).

In the aftermath of the mysterious death of their lead singer, the young members of a now-legendary British acid folk band hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient English country house with its own dark secrets. There they record Wylding Hall, the album that makes their reputation but at a terrifying cost when Julian Blake, their new lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen again.

Married couple Mark and Cecilia seem to have it all—looks, wealth, love. But behind closed doors, things are very different—they live in silent resentment, their marriage broken by the shattering loss of the child they so desperately wanted. Enter Alice: Mark’s idea of the perfect woman. She appears from nowhere and offers Mark the chance of a new life filled with love, passion, and, finally, the joys of parenthood—everything he’s ever dreamed of. But there’s a catch.

When our heroine Ophelia is promoted to Vice-Storyteller by Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight and her special gift is revealed to all. She knows how to read the secret history of objects, and there could be no greater threat to the nefarious denizens of her icy adopted home than this. Beneath the golden rafters of Pole’s capital, Citaceleste, she discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic fiancé.

England, 1918. As war ends, across the world people are trying to heal and recover. But Eleanor still feels broken. The loss of her beloved brother, killed just days before the Armistice was signed, feels impossibly unjust. Spending her time in the neglected garden behind their house, she fears her heart will never recover. Then her father hires a man to help restore the garden to its former glory.

More than 80 classic myths retold and explained, from early creation beliefs to classical hero narratives and the recurring theme of the afterlife, narrated by Emma Fenney. The Mythology Book explores the compelling worlds and characters depicted in myths and legends. Delve into each myth and discover the meanings behind these stories, getting to the heart of their significance to different cultures worldwide. More than just stories, myths are testament to the amazing creativity of humans striving to explain and make sense of the world around them.

Amidst the terror of the Second World War, 17-year-old Eliza and her troubled little sister, Rebecca, have had their share of tragedy, losing their mother to the Blitz and their father to suicide. But when they are forced to leave London to work for the mysterious Mr Brownawell at Abigale Hall, they find that the worst is yet to come....

After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima, her home ark, it is finally time to act, to put what she has discovered in the Book of Faruk to use. Under an assumed identity, Ophelia travels to Babel, a cosmopolitan and thoroughly modern ark that is the jewel of the universe. Will her talent as a reader suffice to avoid being lured into a deadly trap by her ever more fearful adversaries? Will she ever see Thorn, her betrothed, again?

Teenager Abigail Ryder is devastated when she gets home from school to find her family gone. Nothing makes sense. Things are missing from the house and her stepsisters' room is completely empty. But the police think she's trouble, and when grandmother Eleanor tells her to forget them all and move on, there's no choice other than face the future - alone. Fourteen years on, Abi and Adam are a happy couple on the verge of parenthood. But when the past comes back to haunt Abi, the only way forward is to go back and uncover the truth.

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne knows what it is like to live on the edge. The most successful rider in British Superbike history, he is the only person to have won the championship six times. Shakey is a living motorbike legend, with legions of fans across the country. For the first time Shakey tells his life story, from being abandoned as a newborn baby in a London hospital, to multiple brushes with the law and working night shifts on the London Underground to fund his early racing career.

June 6, 1944. Allied forces hit the beaches of Nazi-occupied France. Among the countless lives shattered are those of five spirited women with starkly different lives. As the war reaches its tipping point, each of the women fight for the survival of themselves, their countries, and their way of life during one of the most pivotal days in history. Now, during the most perilous hours of their lives, all five women must summon courage they never knew they had as they confront the dangers of war alongside treacherous family secrets, heartbreak, and the ability to trust themselves.

As a child, Ashley Whitelam could often see odd things nobody else could: quiet, watchful figures she called the Heedful Ones kept a strange vigil wherever she went. As an adult, she keeps these visions to herself, but she’s turned her taste of the beyond into a career as a “psychic”­—parting people from their money with a combination of psychology and internet research. When the Lake District is gripped by a series of grisly child murders, Ashley offers her services to the police for the free publicity.

Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, they hope to discover truths that will halt the destruction and death and bring the world back into balance.

For 12-year-old Ottilie Finch, London is an exciting playground to explore. Her family have recently arrived in Hampstead from Durham, under a cloud of scandal that Otty is blissfully unaware of. The only shadow over her days is her mother’s mysterious illness, which keeps her to her room. When young local girl Mabs is offered the chance to become Mrs Finch’s companion, it saves her from a desperate life on the canals. Little does she know that all is not as picture-perfect as it seems.

In "The Emperor's New Clothes", two weavers tell the emperor that they can make him a new suit of clothes that is invisible to people who are unfit for their positions or who are stupid or incompetent. Con men, the two weavers actually outfit the emperor in nothing, but will anyone be willing to tell the emperor that he is naked? As an idiom, the story's title refers to things that are accepted as common knowledge in spite of being obviously untrue.

Margot Murray is a newly single, successful businesswoman with no interest in a cutesy seasonal romance after her breakup with her long-term girlfriend. Ben Gibson is an unlucky-in-love sweetheart in need of a woman to bring home for the holidays. Together, they make a pact: Margot gets two blissful weeks away from London in a picture-perfect manor, and Ben gets a fake girlfriend for his holiday at home with his family. Upon arriving to the manor, Margot meets Ben’s sister, Ellie, who is suspicious of the supposed relationship right from the start.