Showing results by narrator "Luke Thompson" in All Categories

The fourteen haunting stories in this collection span the whole of Daphne du Maurier's writing career and explore every human emotion: an apparently happily married woman commits suicide; a steamer in wartime is rescued by a mysterious sailing-ship; a dull husband breaks loose in a surprising fashion; a con woman plays her game once too often; and a famous novelist looks for romance, only to meet with bitter disappointment.

*PRE-ORDER BETH O'LEARY'S BRAND NEW UNMISSABLE ROMANCE, THE NAME GAME, NOW* 'Ingenious, heartwarming and romantic' SOPHIE KINSELLA 'Surprising and deeply satisfying' EMILY HENRY Three women. Three dates. One missing man . . . 8.52 a.m. Siobhan's looking forward to her date with Joseph. Breakfast...

On a platform in Paris before dawn, a woman whispers goodbye. It is the end. But also the beginning. In the tradition of Virginia Bailey's Early One Morning by Virginia Bailey and M. L. Stedman's The Light Between Oceans, a beautiful, powerful and unforgettable portrait of the brutality of war...

In a Europe on the verge of collapse, the Nazi organisation Ahnenerbe is pillaging sacred landmarks across the world. Their aim is to collect treasures with occult powers, which will help them establish the Third Reich. The organisation's head, Himmler, has sent SS officers to search a forgotten sanctuary in the Himalayas, whilst he tries to track down a mysterious painting. Which ancient power do the Nazis believe they hold the key to?

The perfect gift book, featuring the writing of Meryl Streep, Bill Bailey, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman, Caitlin Moran, Richard Ayoade, Emily Watson and others, to coincide with the upcoming movie Last Christmas, starring Emma Thompson, Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding. When you think back to Christmases past, what (if anything) made it magical? This is a beautiful, funny and soulful collection of personal essays about the meaning of Christmas, written by a unique plethora of voices from the boulevards of Hollywood to the soup kitchens of Covent Garden. 

Best-selling author Jasper Fforde begins an effervescent new series. It's Easter in Reading - a bad time for eggs - and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town.

Award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber journeys across Europe exploring Europe's epic poems, from the Odyssey to Beowulf, the Song of Roland to the Nibelungenlied, and their impact on European identity in these turbulent times. These are the stories that made Europe. Journeying from Turkey to Iceland, award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber takes us on a fascinating adventure through our continent's most enduring epic poems to learn how they were shaped by their times and how they have since shaped us.

July 1942. Never has the outcome of the war been more uncertain. Britain might have ruled out any risk of invasion, but Stalin's Russia is bowing under the blows of Hitler's armies. The Nazis unleash an occult war in an attempt to tip the scales: whoever reunites the four sacred Swastikas will win. Double Agent Tristan Marcas sets out in search of the Romanov treasure, which is said to harbour the final relic. He's got no time to lose: the battle is about to come to a head.

French Academician and Nazi sympathiser Paul-Jean Husson writes a letter to his local SS officer in the autumn of 1942. Tormented by an illicit passion for Ilse, his German daughter-in-law, Husson has taken a decision that will devastate several lives, including his own.

Gripping historical mystery from the bestselling author of The Stranger Diaries. 'Griffiths writes with a smart, sharp eye and great elegance' Peter James Three girls have left. None have come back. Brighton, 1963. Edgar Stephens has been promoted to Superintendent and is married to his former...

'I still have that recurring fear of something happening to me before I see you again, and before I can tell you myself just how much and how often I've realised during the last few months that I love you completely and to the exclusion of all others. Remember that, because if there wasn't you, my darling Mary, the world would seem very empty and meaningless.' Mary was only 21 when she met and fell in love with the privately educated 19-year-old David in 1938.

When war is declared, Mary North leaves finishing school unfinished, goes straight to the War Office, and signs up. Tom Shaw decides to give it a miss - until his flatmate, Alistair, unexpectedly enlists, and the conflict can no longer be avoided. Young, bright and brave, Mary is certain she'd be a marvelous spy. When she is - bewilderingly - made a teacher, she instead finds herself defying prejudice to protect the children her country would rather forget.

Love is not a singular concept. In this collection, seven award-winning authors explore seven concepts of love: from philautia (self-love) to agape (love for humanity) and from storge (a natural affection for family) to mania (a frenzied, obsessive love).

A Christmas anthology from legendary historian and Christmas Cracker compiler John Julius Norwich. This year go carol singing in the Cotswolds with Laurie Lee or attend church with a grumpy Samuel Pepys. Make plum puddings for bemused French villagers with Elizabeth David; go present shopping with Virginia Woolf, or eat far too much with Agatha Christie. Celebrate Christmas at Chatsworth, in the workhouse or marooned in the ice with Shackleton....

Despite the many films and television programmes over the decades since the end of the Second World War that portrays our allied heroes as grown-up men and women, the Battle of Britain was in the main actually fought and won by teenagers. The average age of an RAF fighter pilot was just 20 years old. Many of the men and women who designed and built their planes were even younger.

The fourth Brighton Mysteries story from the author of the bestselling Dr Ruth Galloway series - a must-read for fans of Bryant and May. 'Mixes cosiness and sharpness in a way that recalls the best of Agatha Christie' Sunday Express (on Smoke and Mirrors) What do a murdered Brighton flower...

She is sailing. She is alone. Ahead of her is the world's curve and beyond that, everything else. The known, the imagined, the imagined known. Who else has entered Tim's life the way Maud did? This girl who fell past him, lay seemingly dead on the ground, then stood and walked. That was where it...

John Wallace has no idea why he has been targeted. No idea who his attacker is. No idea how he will prevent the inevitable. Then the pendulum of fate swings in his favour. He has one chance to escape, find the truth and halt his destruction. The momentum is in his favour for now. But with a killer on his tail, everything can change with one swing of this deadly pendulum....

November, 1941. Germany is about to win the war. Only one thing still separates the Nazis from a certain victory: they must find the three remaining all-powerful swastikas and reunite them with a fourth that is safely hidden away in Himmler's mountain stronghold. Churchill has no choice but to mobilise his best man, double agent Tristan Marcas, and employ the most risky techniques to beat them to it. It all comes to a showdown at a ball in Venice.

They believed it was over. Having survived the lethal Pendulum conspiracy, photographer John Wallace atones for his past mistakes. DI Patrick Bailey clings to the hope that he can, at last, return to a normal life in London. But it's only just beginning. FBI investigator Christine Ash - alone and paranoid - hunts down the remaining members of the ruthless Foundation organisation. Dark forces are rising again. But when masked assassins strike at the heart of the UK government, a shocking new threat emerges that forces all three to reunite.