Showing results by narrator "Ben Elliot" in All Categories

With two jobs and two children, Jess Thomas does her best day after day. But it’s hard on your own. And sometimes you take risks you shouldn’t. Because you have to.... Jess’ gifted, quirky daughter Tanzie is brilliant with numbers, but without a helping hand she’ll never get the chance to shine. And Nicky, Jess’ teenage stepson, can’t fight the bullies alone. Sometimes Jess feels like they’re sinking.... Into their lives comes Ed Nicholls, a man whose life is in chaos, and who is running from a deeply uncertain future.

Return to the world of Rivers of London in this first short-story collection from number one Sunday Times best-selling author Ben Aaronovitch. Tales from the Folly is a carefully curated collection that gathers together previously published stories and brand new tales in the same place for the first time.

Sometimes a girl is touched by mother war. Thorn is such a girl. Desperate to avenge her dead father, she lives to fight. But she has been named murderer by the very man who trained her to kill. Sometimes a woman becomes a warrior Fate traps her in the schemes - and on the ship - of the deep-cunning minister Father Yarvi. Crossing half the world to find allies against the ruthless High King, she learns harsh lessons of blood and deceit.

Pete Riley is a stay-at-home dad; his partner, Maddie, works in advertising. After Pete drops two-year-old Theo off at nursery one morning, he's politely accosted by a man who looks just like Theo. The man, Miles Lambert, breaks the devastating news that Theo is in fact not Pete's son, but his - the two babies got mixed up at hospital and Miles and his wife, Lucy, now have the Rileys' son at home. They've already carried out DNA testing to prove it.

When billions poured into the neglected east London borough hosting the 2012 Olympics, a turf war broke out between crime families for control of a now valuable strip of land. Using violence, guile and corruption, one gangster, the Long Fella, emerged as a true untouchable. A team of local detectives made it their business to take him on until Scotland Yard threw them under the bus and the business of putting on 'the greatest show on earth' won the day.

At the age of twenty-three, Charlie Mason is endowed with good looks, good manners and a cheerful disposition. Following three years at Cambridge and one working in his father's business, he is looking forward to a jaunt in Paris with Simon, his oldest friend.

He's posted on your wall. He's following you on Twitter. He knows where you are right now.... When Amy receives an email from her older sister, Becky, announcing that she's off travelling and 'don't try to find me', she is worried. Becky would never do such a thing on a whim. Amy - who is recovering from an abusive relationship that has left her terrified of love - soon finds that Becky had started using online dating sites. Aided by Becky's neighbour, Gary, Amy sets about tracking down the men her sister had dated.

No driver has ever made such an instant impact on the sport of F1 racing as Lewis Hamilton. The first black grand prix driver, his astonishing level of success in his rookie season together with his swash-buckling, attacking style has created a sensation. It has also been a central factor in the most exciting and controversial season of F1 in living memory as Hamilton was involved in a three-way fight for the world crown.

A dinner party is held in the penthouse of a multimillion-pound development. All the guests are strangers - even to their host, the billionaire owner of the building. None of them know why they were selected to receive his invitation. Besides a postcode, they share only one thing in common - they've all experienced an unsettling occurrence within the building's walls. By the end of the night, their host is dead, and none of the guests will say what happened. His death remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries - until now.

For 13 years, 22 series and 175 shows, Richard Porter was script editor of Top Gear, from the first faltering pilot episode in 2002 until the very last show presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May in 2015. Along the way they destroyed cars, sparked diplomatic incidents, set fire to caravans, almost killed one of the presenters, and somehow transformed Top Gear from a shabby BBC Two motoring show into an Emmy-winning, record-breaking, planet-straddling behemoth.

Being a confident communicator creates success and happiness. Every conversation could be the start of something new: a new career, a new business idea, or a new friendship. When you clam up in public, you close off all of those opportunities as if they never existed. How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone will help you see conversation differently; as an enjoyable, positive activity that might just change your life.

Prince Yarvi has vowed to regain a throne he never wanted. But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself. And he must do it all with only one good hand. Born a weakling in the eyes of his father, Yarvi is alone in a world where a strong arm and a cold heart rule. He cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so he must sharpen his mind to a deadly edge.

A classic coming-of-age tale set in a vivid and richly imagined world from Sunday Times best-selling author Joe Abercrombie. Words are weapons. Princess Skara has seen all she loved made blood and ashes. She is left with only words. But the right words can be as deadly as any blade. She must conquer her fears and sharpen her wits to a lethal edge if she is to reclaim her birthright.

Theo has been living in his parents' shed, nursing a broken heart and a wounded ego, convinced life can't get any worse. Then he gets evicted on his 30th birthday. Theo thinks he's done with the real world—until it shows up on his doorstep. Joel is a successful TV scriptwriter, still in love with his teenage sweetheart. A proper grown-up—and yet he's falling apart at the seams. He's headed home to reconnect with best friend Theo—except they haven't spoken since the summer they turned 16.

In 1882, David Wildeblood, a 21-year-old from rural Norfolk, arrives in London to start work at the offices of a famous man. His job is to investigate the notorious slum of Somers Town, recording house by house the number of inhabitants, their occupations and standard of living. The deeper he penetrates the everyday squalor, the more appalled he is by mounting evidence that someone is making a profit from people's suffering. Passionate but reckless in his urge to uncover corruption, he soon finds his life in danger....

Josephine escapes poverty by coming to Kuwait from the Philippines to work as a maid, where she meets Rashid, an idealistic only son with literary aspirations. Josephine, with all the wide-eyed naivety of youth, believes she has found true love. But when she becomes pregnant, and with the rumble of war growing ever louder, Rashid bows to family and social pressure and sends her back home with her baby son, Jos.

Maddy, dressed in white, stands at the back of the church. At the end of the aisle is Rob - the man she's about to marry. Next to Rob is Ben - best man and the best friend any two people ever had. And that's the problem. Because if it wasn't Rob waiting for her at the altar, there's a strong chance it would be Ben. Loyal and sensitive Ben has always kept his feelings to himself, but if he turned round and told Maddy she was making a mistake, would she listen? And would he be right?

With her shy smile and kind nature, she fits into the family easily. When Nancy Arnold’s eldest son Frank begins to show an interest in the new arrival, she believes that at long last he has found a woman to share his life with.But tensions begin to rise between Frank and his brother, and while Nancy puts it down to sibling rivalry, her husband senses a more dangerous undercurrent. Something has deeply unsettled their peaceful world and Ellie is also affected.

This is an exceptional, contemporary, heartbreaking novel. Toby's life was perfectly normal--until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test. Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House: an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he and the others who live there are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium.

On paper, things looked good for Mark Rice-Oxley: wife, children, fulfilling job. But at his 40th birthday party his world crumbled as he succumbed to depression.… Many men suffer from depression yet it remains a taboo subject. By telling his story, Mark Rice-Oxley hopes to enable others to tell theirs. This is a memoir that is brim-full of experience, understanding, and hope for all who read it.