Showing results by narrator "Ric Jerrom" in All Categories

Will knows a secret. Somewhere in the forest, behind the abbey where he lives, is a grave. And beneath the snow lies something he thought could never die.But Will is not alone in knowing the truth behind the Crowfield Curse. Hidden in the dusk, someone else is watching...A spooky, suspenseful story for older children from acclaimed author Pat Walsh, The Crowfield Curse was shortlisted for the Times Children’s Fiction Competition.

Josephine Short was a woman with a secret or two. When her great-nephew’s wife, Janet Wakefield, gets a call from the Berebury Nursing Home, she’s taken aback. Not only does it come as a surprise to hear that her husband’s estranged great aunt has passed away, but more surprising is the fact she had been living locally for some years. Janet is sure that her husband Bill was the last of Josephine’s close family. But then a young man approaches her at the funeral and introduces himself as Josephine’s grandson....

London, 1471. The War of the Roses rages on. Edward of York has claimed the English throne, and his Yorkist supporters gleefully slaughter their adversaries; there's no mercy for anyone who supported the Lancastrian cause. Margaret Beaufort - mother of Henry Tudor, the only hope for the House of Lancaster - knows her enemies are closing in. Desperate for help, she turns to Christopher Urswicke for protection. But when ruthless scheming and pitiless killings are the only routes to survival, Urswicke will have to choose where his loyalties truly lie.

During the long 18th century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic book, author Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. A momentous work by one of Europe's most eminent historians, Unfabling the East takes listeners on a thrilling voyage to the farthest shores, bringing back vital insights for our own multicultural age.

In old Greece a fragile balance of power was continually disturbed by wars. Then, from the late third century, the military and diplomatic power of Rome successively defeated and dismantled every one of the post-Alexandrian political structures. The Hellenistic period (c. 323-30 BC) was then one of fragmentation, violent antagonism between large states and struggles by small polities to retain an illusion of independence. Yet it was also a period of growth, prosperity, and intellectual achievement.

DI Mark Tartaglia spends a night in a west London hotel with a woman he has just met. When he is called out to the same hotel the next morning to investigate a murder, he realises it must have taken place while he was there. If things weren't already complicated enough, the investigation takes a new and horrifying turn when he recognises the young female victim.

Britain, 55 BC: Julius Caesar’s invasion of the wild and mineral-rich land is becalmed, a stalemate exists between the forces of Rome and Britain. But the standard bearer of the Tenth Legion, Lucius Oppius, is about to display a depth of courage that will change the course of the invasion - and history. Encamped upon the south coast Caesar, admiring the courage and skill of his standard bearer, orders Oppius to accompany a native British archer and go behind enemy lines.

Victorian England's most famous consulting detective is hot on the trail of London's most notorious serial killer, Jack the Ripper. But in Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Vampire, Jack is a vampire and Holmes' refusal to believe it could be his undoing as the two match wits in this delightfully original first novel.

AD 1081: Vast empires struggle for dominance. From the Normans in the north to the Byzantines in the south, battles rage across Europe and around its fringes. But in the east an empire still mightier stirs, wielding a weapon to rule the world: gunpowder. Seeking the destructive might of this 'fire drug', the mercenary Vallon is sent by the defeated Byzantine emperor on a near-impossible quest to the far-off land of Song-Dynasty China.

In honour of H.R.F Keating's 80th Birthday, his fellow Detection Club Members and the leading lights in crime fiction serve up a new selection of tantalising conundrums. Edited by Peter Lovesey. Foreword by Dick Francis. Stories include: Lionel Davidson's Tuesday's Child; Len Deighton's Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Swindle; Reginal Hill's Uncle Harry; P.D. James' Hearing Ghote; H.R.F Keating's Arkady Nikolaivich and many others.

Pharsalus, 48 BC: The battle will decide the fate of a civil war and empire. Caesar's forces are outnumbered, but he believes his veterans will not be outmatched. For one veteran, the centurion Lucius Oppius, the battle will be about revenge rather than glory. Oppius has vowed to avenge his father's death. His enemy is Flavius Laco - a former gladiator and an agent of Pompey the Great. Against the backdrop of one of Ancient History's most momentous battles two soldiers will wage their own personal war.

Frankenstein: Or, Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley had a huge impact on Gothic horror and science fiction genres. The name Frankenstein has become part of our everyday language, often used in derogatory terms to describe scientists who have overstepped a perceived moral line. But how did a 19-year-old woman with no formal education come up with the idea for an extraordinary novel such as Frankenstein?

The human mind is both extraordinary and compelling. From the leader who convinced his followers to kill themselves to the man who lost his memory, these famous accounts have provided invaluable insights for scholars and researchers and amazed the public at large. Brought to life by Rolls, each case is contextualized with more typical behavior, while the latest thinking in each subfield is also discussed.

Harry Leslie Smith is a great British stalwart. A survivor of the Great Depression, a Second World War veteran, a lifelong Labour supporter and a proud Yorkshire man, Harry's life has straddled two centuries. As a young man, he witnessed a country in crisis with no healthcare, no relief for the poor, and a huge economic gulf between the North and South. Now in his 90s, Harry wanders through the streets of his youth and wonders whether anything has actually changed.

Ryunosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan’s great writers - author of the stories Rashomon and In a Bamboo Grove, most famously - who lived through Japan’s turbulent Taisho period of 1912 to 1926, including the devastating 1923 Earthquake, only to take his own life at the age of just 34 in 1927. These are the stories of Patient X in one of our iron castles. He will tell his tales to anyone with the ears and the time to listen. Inspired and informed by Akutagawa’s stories, essays and letters, David Peace has fashioned a most extraordinary novel of tales.

In the dark and slimy streets of Wapping a prostitute is beaten half to death, a not uncommon fate in late 18th century London. So begins this gripping tale set in 1798 in the Port of London. A cruel villain holds sway over the underworld. His name is Boylin. His face is scarred by lime and his back by the two hundred lashes he received following a naval court martial. He holds Captain Tom Pascoe responsible for his suffering.

Taking a chronological approach, The War on Paper tells the story of the most destructive war in history through 20 key documents held in the IWM archives. Ranging from high-level iconic records including the signed order to invade Poland on August 1939 and Hitler's final will and testament, to more personal items such as Kindertransport identity papers and the ration book of Queen Mary, the Queen Mother.

From cocoa farming in Ghana to the orchards of Kent and the desert badlands of Pakistan, taking a practical approach to sustaining the landscape can mean the difference between prosperity and ruin. Working with Nature is the story of a lifetime of work, often in extreme environments, to harvest nature and protect it - in effect, gardening on a global scale.

The Psychology of Climate Change explores the evidence for our changing environment, and suggests that there are significant cognitive biases in how we think about, and act on climate change. The authors examine how organisations have attempted to mobilise the public in the fight against climate change, but these initiatives have often failed due to the public’s unwillingness to adapt their behaviour.

Aleppo is one of the longest-surviving cities of the ancient and Islamic Middle East. Until recently it enjoyed a thriving urban life—in particular an active traditional suq, whose origins can be traced across many centuries. Its tangle of streets still follow the Hellenistic grid and above it looms the great Citadel, which contains recently-uncovered remains of a Bronze/Iron Age temple complex, suggesting an even earlier role as a ‘high place’ in the Canaanite tradition.