Showing results by narrator "Gemma Whelan" in All Categories

Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories of ghosts and strange happenings. Now eight best-selling, award-winning authors, master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales.

In 17th-century England, civil war rages and witches have become pawns in a plot to oust the king. Red-haired Evey does not want to be a witch, but she cannot deny the magick coursing through her veins. In a country seething with civil war, superstition, dread and dark forces are at work. A storm is coming. After witnessing the brutal murder of her mother by witch-hunters, Evey vows to avenge her and track down her killers. Fury burns in her bright and strong. But she has promised her mother that she will keep Dill, her little sister, safe.

2059. The world has stopped turning. One half suffers an endless frozen night; the other, nothing but burning sun.Only in a slim twilit region can life survive. In an isolationist Britain, Ellen Hopper receives a letter from a dying man. It contains a powerful and dangerous secret. One that those in power will kill to conceal.

Kier Templer lives her life on the road. Dubbed 'the monster's daughter' after her mother's infamous crime, she's left her hometown and twin behind. One thing still ties her to her brother - the maps she creates and sends him of the places she's been. But then she vanishes from the Portuguese national park, with no map and no trace. Detective Elin Warner arrives in the park ready to go off-grid and forget the stalker who has been shadowing her steps. When she discovers Kier's final, disturbing map, Elin can tell Kier didn't vanish by choice, but in the wilderness she has to tread carefully.

In rural Somerset, in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. From the wounded headmaster in the library, unable to help his trapped pupils and staff, to teenage Hannah in love for the first time, to the parents gathering, desperate for news, to the 16 year old Syrian refugee trying to rescue his little brother, to the police psychologist who must identify the gunmen, to the students taking refuge in the school theatre, all experience the most intense hours of their lives, where evil and terror are met by courage, love and redemption.

A collection of hilarious original audio stories for raising lots of laughs and giggles. These new stories are especially written for families to listen to, publishing to coincide with April Fool's Day! With more than an hour of audio, this edition is filled with funny and engaging sound effects, guaranteed to raise laughs from little listeners everywhere. This audiobook is aimed at children aged seven and over, for family listening and learning and development for young minds.

Once upon a time, damaged women came here to be cured. We took them in, fed them glasses of our clean, good water, let them scream at the waves till their lips split like ripe fruit. Now no one is left but my sisters and me. King died a year ago, quite suddenly. Mother has vanished, no one knows where. And the safe compound they built around us, far away from the toxic world, has finally been breached. Three men arrived last week, washed up by the sea, their gazes hungry and insistent. We remember now what our father taught us.

Kara Wright is a former Royal Air Force intelligence analyst. Her best mate, Tien Tran, is a veteran of the British Army's Intelligence Corps. Both served in Afghanistan, and both were lucky to make it home. Now they are private investigators with an intriguing new taskmaster. When a local celebrity DJ goes missing, presumed dead, the enigmatic Franklyn tasks Kara and Tien to investigate. Within days the women are embarked on a pursuit that leads halfway around the globe and into the darkest recesses of the human condition.

An idyllic wellness retreat has opened on an island off the coast of Devon, promising rest and relaxation—but the island itself, known locally as Reaper's Rock, has a dark past. Once the playground of a serial killer, it's rumored to be cursed. A woman is found dead below the yoga pavilion in what seems to be a tragic fall. But DS Elin Warner soon learns that the victim wasn't a guest—she wasn't meant to be on the island at all. The longer Elin stays, the more secrets she uncovers.

An imposing, isolated hotel, high up in the Swiss Alps, is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But she's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when she receives an invitation out of the blue to celebrate her estranged brother's recent engagement she has no choice but to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge. Though it's beautiful, something about the hotel, recently converted from an abandoned sanatorium, makes her nervous—as does her brother, Isaac.

When six-year-old Alice Hilton disappears on New Year's Eve 1979 from Yew Tree Manor, suspicion immediately falls on local boy Bobby James. Bobby claims he knows nothing about it, but his family has a grievance against Alice's landowner father. Tragically the child is never found. Decades later, Willow James, an architect working on a development at Yew Tree Manor, discovers that the land surrounding the house is holding a secret.

The story begins in 1970. The day after Jimi Hendrix's death...dairy farmer Michael Eavis invites revellers to his field in Somerset to attend a 'Pop, Folk & Blues' festival. Tickets are £1 each, enticing more than a thousand customers with the promise of music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and spontaneous entertainment - as well as free milk from his own Worthy Farm cows. Fast forward through five tumultuous decades, and the Eavises' vision now encompasses a gigantic 'city in the fields', with a total annual population nearing a quarter of a million.

In Victorian England, Viola is an amateur photographer struggling with the grief of her father's death and the sterile atmosphere of her marriage to her childhood friend, Jonah. When she discovers a talent for capturing ghostly images on camera, Viola comes to the attention of a spirit medium, and a powerful attraction between the two women is sparked....

Andie, Eden, Ryan, Tasha and Hasmita love being part of the Heart Club. They've promised to stay best friends forever, and nothing can tear them apart. But sometimes things happen that you couldn't have expected, and forever might not be as long as you think. Now, two years later, Eden and Ryan are haunted by memories of the past. Can they find a way to bring the club back together, or is it too late to mend a broken heart?

Robin and Kessie have been best friends since childhood when their families fractured. Now, in their mid-thirties, they are keen to have children themselves, but each faces daunting obstacles. In stepping up to support each other, they begin to negotiate unconventional routes towards motherhood, challenging assumptions about ‘normal’ family relationships along the way.

Join six kings, queens and warriors from around the world as they battle for crowns, vanquish dark forces and claim their thrones in this collection of Ladybird Tales.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The House by Simon Lelic, read by Adam Newington and Gemma Whelan. The perfect couple. The perfect house. The perfect crime. The heart-stopping thriller about a husband and wife who are hiding something from each other, and from you.... This audiobook won't let you go until you've found out the truth. Perfect for fans of Erin Kelly, Gillian Flynn and Fiona Barton. Whose story do you believe? Londoners Jack and Syd moved into the house a year ago.

The new, enthralling supernatural thriller from Stephen Lloyd Jones, following his highly acclaimed debut The String Diaries. High in the mountains of the Swiss Alps Leah Wilde is about to gamble her life to bring a powerful man an offer. A promise. Leah has heard the dark stories about him and knows she is walking into the lion's den. But her options are running out. Her rare lineage, kept secret for years, is under terrible threat.

Penguin presents the audio download edition of Ladybird Favourite Fairy Tales read by Gemma Whelan and Nigel Pilkington. Listen to eight traditional, captivating fairy tales in this gorgeous audio treasury from Ladybird. Each classic tale has been retold for young listeners and is perfect for your little one, whether you're curled up at home or on the move.

An imaginative, tight, edge-of-your-seat supernatural thriller which follows an historical mystery through to its nail-biting contemporary conclusion. The String Diaries. A jumble of entries, written in different hands, different languages, and different times. They tell of a rumour. A shadow. A killer. The only interest that Oxford Professor Charles Meredith has in the diaries is as a record of Hungarian folklore ... until he comes face to face with a myth.