Showing results by narrator "Lesley Harcourt" in All Categories

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three bosom companions–a healer, a weaver and a seer. If the men hunting her find them, they will kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as power-hungry murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history.

It’s 1952 in smog-shrouded London. Christmas might be fast approaching, but with her mum away and Uncle Frank busy running the post office, Penny Black is lonelier than ever. All that changes when Penny discovers a small, fluffy, funny, springy talking creature in the post office one night, trying to make off with a letter. But Wishyouwas is no thief. He’s a Sorter and he introduces Penny to a secret world hidden in the tunnels underneath the city’s streets. Self-appointed guardians of lost mail, the Sorters have dedicated their lives to rescuing letters that have gone astray.

Unicorns are NOT horse creatures with horns. In fact, they are the most powerful magical beings on the planet and they look just like you and me. They live in a secret realm known as the Universe, and the horse with a horn thing was just something a unicorn called Greg made up to distract the humans – and it really worked! But a young human girl called Neon Gallup is about to find the last remaining Universe portal opener (an old, battered green lipstick) and step into a zany world where magic is made with goo and the possibilities are endless!

Now a fully fledged unicorn (no, not the horse kind, the ultra-powerful human-looking kind), Neon Gallup is LOVING her secret double life in the extraordinary UNI-VERSE, creating goo-powered magic and going on adventures with her unicorn friends. Little does she know that she has been spotted opening a portal by none other than the neighbourhood unicorn hunter, Priscilla. Now that she’s seen Neon’s portal opener, Priscilla is determined to steal it and destroy unicorns once and for all.

It's 1953, just days from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, and Penny Black can't wait to go on her summer holiday to Scotland to visit her Uncle Frank. But when Wishyouwas plops into the fireplace in a cloud of soot and chaos, with a summons from the Royal Postmistress herself, all Penny's plans suddenly go up in smoke. The intrepid pair are soon on the trail of a mysterious traitor and a potentially deadly plot to halt the coronation. Their investigation will take them across London's busy streets, high up in the air and deeper into danger than they've ever been before.