Showing results by narrator "Jessica Hayles" in All Categories

Meghan was 11 when she first advocated for women’s rights; a teenager when she worked in a soup kitchen feeding the homeless; a popular actress when she campaigned for clean water in Africa and passionately championed gender equality in a speech to a United Nations Women’s Conference. Even before she met Prince Harry, hers was an extraordinarily accomplished life. Meghan’s wedding to Harry was a joyful occasion, marking happiness at last for the Queen’s grandson who had captured our hearts 20 years earlier when he bravely walked behind his mother Diana’s coffin.

Tess is a Londoner whose relationship with Richard transports her from a Jamaican diaspora in the city to the English countryside, where predatory birds hover over fields, buses run twice a day, neighbors barter honey for cider, and no one looks like her. As Tess and Richard settle in, the dramatic arrival of their fraternal twins—one who presents as black and the other as white—recasts the family dynamic, stirring up complicated feelings and questions of belonging.

Canna and Lily are the same person but they refuse to admit it. Their split psyche has forced them to shift randomly between worlds—between lives and between families—for far longer than they should. But one mind can’t bear this much life. It’ll break under the weight of it all. Soon they’ll experience their final shift and settle at last in one world, but how can they prepare both families for the eventuality of them disappearing forever?

An anthology of heartfelt, real-life stories about allyship authored by multiple, diverse voices. It will inspire young listeners to inform themselves and further their knowledge to help, show respect, and champion the rights of people from all walks of life.

Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most enigmatic geniuses of European literature. What happens when his idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting.

In The Love That Dares, queer love speaks its name through the words of lovers from years gone by. Alongside the more famous names coexist beautifully written letters by lesser-known lovers, giving us an insight into queer love outside of the spotlight of fame or fortune. These letters give us a glimpse into the passion and courage it took to continue a gay relationship in times when it was at best improper and at worst illegal. Enlightening introductions to each set of letters give readers an idea of the historical context in which they were written.

Hal loathes being a Prince; she's much more comfortable instated on the Throne of Misrule, a racous underground nether-court where passion rules all. She yearns to live up to the wishes of everyone she loves best - but that means sacrificing her own heart, and so she will disappoint everyone until the moment she can rise to prove those expectations wrong.

Party girl actress Mercy Valentine is nobody’s hero, and that’s how she wants it. She’s sarcastic, sharp and always defensive—so no one can hurt her ever again. Mercy’s starring in a major theatre show and hitting the gossip headlines, but her glamorous world is about to come crashing down. And when Mercy crashes, there will be fireworks.

A young black man is arrested for murder. The case against him is strong - a mum and a teacher saw him standing over a body in a park, a knife still in hand. But his up-and-coming barrister Rosa knows how people prejudge, but most of all, she suspects something is amiss. This boy comes from her neighbourhood. From a good family. So she begins to dig. As Rosa discovers secret upon terrible secret, she moves closer to finding a testimony that could win the case - or bring the whole establishment down on her.

Mindfulness in Wild Swimming explores how swimming in rivers, lakes, and seas is the epitome of conscious living. Zen-seeker Tessa Wardley reconnects the physical and spiritual cycles of life to the changing seasons and flow of wild waters worldwide and leads the listener on to a mindful journey through the natural world. With expert insight and personal anecdote, she shares a sparkling clarity on why our relationship with open water is so fundamental to pure wellbeing, and reveals how wild swimming can be the ultimate physical meditation.

The Art of Mindful Baking is a delightful insight into how the act of baking is a practical meditation by its very nature. Julia Ponsonby, head of food at Schumacher College, looks at what it means to use our hands and why kneading promotes wellbeing, and explores the true and enduring value of eating real food. Containing a wealth of mouth-watering recipes that highlight how you can incorporate mindfulness into your baking, this book demonstrates how baking with awareness provides benefits for not only you, but also those around you.

Someone is watching Etta. Footsteps in the night, the security light coming on at strange hours...is it all just her curtain-twitching neighbours, who seem to monitor her every move? Or is her little online problem making her paranoid? Because Etta needs to win big. She joined a gambling website to get a bit of cash, hoping to convince her boyfriend, Ola, that they can afford to get married. And she was so good at it...until she wasn’t. Luckily, she’s made a friend who hit the jackpot, and if she plays her cards right, he could lend her the money to win everything back. Easy.

Erin Goodman is a very good reporter. Up until recently, in fact, she was the best. Cat Sullivan suddenly seems to have the inside scoop; she's always in the right place at the right time for the juiciest news reports. When Cat just happens to be in the area when a murder is called in, Erin can no longer ignore the long run of coincidences giving Cat's career a boost. But Cat knows Erin is onto her. And Cat is more than happy to toy with her colleague, especially if it gets her an even bigger story to report on. In the game of cat and mouse, there can be only one winner.

For years, the king and queen have longed for a child. Their wish is miraculously twice granted in the form of a little wooden robot and an enchanted princess, both of whom they raise lovingly. There’s just one catch: every night when the princess falls asleep, she transforms into a log. She can only be woken with the magic words “Awake, little log, awake.” The two siblings are inseparable, until the day when the sleeping princess is mistaken for an ordinary log and carted off to the frozen North.

When Kendra Tamale returns to England from Australia she rents a room from Kyle, a separated father of two, and begins a new job. She's looking forward to a fresh start and a simple life. Kyle's six-year-old twins, Summer and Jaxon, have other ideas and quickly adopt Kendra as their new mother - mainly because she lets them eat marshmallows for breakfast. Kendra eventually becomes a part of their lives, even though she's hiding a painful secret that makes her keep everyone - especially children - at arm's length.