Showing results by narrator "Helen Phillips" in All Categories

There are no polar bears left on Bear Island. At least, that’s what April’s father tells her when his scientific research takes them to this remote Arctic outpost for six months. But one endless summer night, April meets one. He is starving, lonely and a long way from home. Determined to save him, April begins the most important journey of her life....

You wake on a beautiful, remote island. Sparkling blue seas, golden sunsets, barely a footprint in the sand. Yet this is no ordinary escape. Next to the wreck of a plane, a stranger paces. Another sharpens a knife, scoring a list of the dead onto a palm tree. Others watch from the shadows of a campfire—all with untold stories, and closely-guarded secrets.

Varangantua is in turmoil. After the district of Korsk is obliterated in a fiery cataclysm, the city’s enforcers must pick up the pieces. As sanctioner teams comb the wreckage for survivors, dogged probators such as Agusto Zidarov and Lycia Calix seek to uncover the truth about what happened. Their stories become intertwined with those of petty criminals and desperate citizens, even drawing the vaunted attention of agents beyond Alecto itself, painting a picture of sprawling conspiracy.

I used to enjoy my job. I was good at it and felt fulfilled. I also used to enjoy spending time with the people I worked with. They say you spend more time with your work colleagues than you do with your family members, but that was fine by me because I made two very good friends at the office. I also allowed myself to get a little too close to my boss, but I soon realised that was a mistake. Unfortunately, it was too late by then, and as my personal and professional lives quickly blurred into one, that was when everything changed.

Five years ago, Kate's partner, Max, abandoned her for his pregnant lover. The affair has long since crumbled, but Kate has become fixated with Vee, her ‘replacement'. In a bid to find out what compelled Max to leave, she moves to Bridgewell, where Vee is now raising her four-year-old daughter, Iona. Warm and trusting, Vee is juggling work, single parenthood and a controlling ex-partner, Max, with whom she is still secretly sexually involved. When Vee meets charismatic artist, Tom, she is hopeful of establishing her first meaningful attachment since Max. But Kate has her own plans.

Old friends Shelley, Lena and Pearl have reached their limit with the festive preparation that has always fallen to them, and five days before Christmas, they’ve booked a mini break… without their families. Up until Christmas Eve, they’ll be sipping prosecco in the Highlands while their kids wrap bacon around 100 chipolatas and their partners brave the supermarkets. It’s exactly what they need… until they’re snowed in. Facing the prospect of Christmas 500 miles from home, each woman is forced to confront her real reasons for needing to escape.

After a difficult few months, Karina's looking forward to a short break in Turkey with her husband and four-year-old son, Jacob. The marriage has been showing signs of strain lately, so it'll be a chance to relax. But on their first morning, Karina is startled to discover she's slept in late. Where's Jacob? She rushes to his room, but his bed is empty and he's nowhere to be found in the villa. Frantic with worry, she raises the alarm with her husband—but he stares at her blankly. He says he has no idea what she's talking about. They don't have any children.

Twenty-nine-year-old teacher Emily needs her father to believe her life is a success. He may have walked out on the family when she was a child and let her down when she needed him most, but her life is perfect despite him.

When three girls are stranded at the grand Bramble Estate in the middle of a snowstorm, they stumble into a murder plot. Someone has poisoned wealthy Emily Vanforte in the middle of a family dinner - which means Devi, Lizzie and Jayne are trapped in the house with a killer and a mystery to solve. With knives under floorboards, vanishing guns and secret passages in the walls, no one is safe and everyone is a suspect. But in a house of liars and corruption, will the girls save themselves...or learn to fit in?

Are we more like a coffee bean, a carrot or an egg? What happens to us when we are boiled in the trials and tribulations of life? Jessica Miller is fascinated by the somewhat perplexing tendency of humans to end their own lives, but she secretly believes such acts may not be that bad after all. Jessica is coming to terms with her own relationships, and reflecting on what it means to be queer, when a single event throws everything she once believed into doubt. Can she still defend the act?

When the anonymous invite arrived, we knew exactly who it was from. Elle Romero, the beautiful, charismatic Texan who burst into our lives when we were teenagers. We'd gone our separate ways and lost touch. Until now. Elle, the legendary prankster, is back. She's invited us all—me, Claire, Lizzie and Megan—to a swanky country house for a reunion. We arrive excited for a weekend of reminiscing and reconnecting. A chance to step out of our uneventful lives for a while. But when Elle fails to show up at her own party, we begin to wonder if she's up to her old tricks.

I always thought I was going to be a girl who did something. I was going to run my own business and find fame and fortune! Fall in love… But here I am. Still waiting for it all to happen, sitting on the floor, surrounded by lilies and roses, trying to do my best friend’s wedding flowers because – in her words – ‘how hard can it be, Frankie?’. The answer is actually ‘very hard’ but it’s not the only thing that’s tough right now. My boyfriend won’t commit, I barely have a job, and once again I have the hangover from hell… What I don’t know is that life’s about to throw me a curveball.

Anyone can pick up a pair of needles and a ball of yarn. And everyone can be mindful. Mindfulness in Knitting casts fresh light on this renowned calming craft, and reveals how the act of “knit and purl” can be the epitome of conscious living. Ethical textile artist Rachael Matthews unpicks the threads of this popular pastime to explore how knitting connects us to each other and to the world around us. Through personal anecdote and expert insight, she unravels the true value of what it means to craft, its therapeutic benefits, and the joys of mindful making.

Three women controlled by one man—their charismatic husband Elijah, leader of their cult who dictates every aspect of life in the remote Scottish settlement of Halcyon. But cracks have begun to form in the community's idyllic facade, and Elijah's increasingly erratic behavior begins to test the loyalty of the women who love him, especially when he reveals his intention to take a fourth wife, sixteen-year-old Mim. Deceived and isolated by the husband they share, Aoife, Ruth, and Deborah must set years of animosity aside and come together as danger mounts within their isolated community.

Violet Zennor was raised fighting in underground arenas. Ruthless and skilled, she becomes an heiress after her father's death. But her freedom is short-lived. Her father planned to send her to the Darklands, where her stillborn brother was sold. Despite pressure, Violet refuses. After an assassination attempt, she realizes she must confront her father's legacy. Seeking help from Miren, Ellie, and Asher, she prepares for the ultimate journey: into the Darklands, to the Anchorhold. This gripping tale explores a sinister fantasy world where blood is power and magic is a weapon.

True-Crime obsessed Paige, and her family, move across the Atlantic to her father's eerie hometown, and it's not long before she uncovers the town's dark history—a string of unsolved murders and disappearances in the 90s.

When Christmas-hating Sam moves to Holly Cross, he thinks he's found the perfect home, until he discovers that, each year, Holly Cross transforms into the most Christmassy village in the whole country... Blythe is just one sale away from being Real Estate Agent of the Month, so she twists the truth to sell a home to city boy Sam, who is looking for the perfect house in the perfect location. Little does he know he's just bought a cottage in the middle of the most Christmassy village in the country. And if there's one thing Sam loathes, it's Christmas.

1838, England: When eighteen-year-old Frances Dickinson impulsively marries Lieutenant John Geils, all her hopes for her future are quickly shattered as she finds there is much about her husband she did not know. A cruel and violent man, John keeps Frances in isolation on his family's estate, while spending her fortune and preying upon their maids. Frances yearns to break free from her marriage but the law is not on her side. Only when John's abuse escalates can she set in motion a daring plan to secure her freedom.

Everyone can draw, and everyone can be mindful. Mindfulness in Drawing is an engaging and enlightening insight into how setting pencil to paper is a meditative act by its innate nature, and how this creates a deeper connection between ourselves and the world around us. Through mindful creative exercises and personal anecdotes, doodlers and artists at any level in their craft will gain practical experience in and discover the joys of drawing mindfully.

Where will the magic take you? When Magician Winnifred's enchanted house gets stuck upside down in ten-year-old Callie's garden, the pair strike up an unlikely friendship—until Winnifred realizes that it is Callie's intense homesickness that is causing her magic to malfunction. Now all of Winnifred's most precious magical possessions are unprotected. Can Callie and Winnifred restore the Wanderdust before malicious pixies and dangerous giants steal everything?