Showing results by narrator "Olivia Olivia" in All Categories

Just as the archetypal hero possesses the heart to face trials and tribulations for the sake of helping others, the bodhisattva has a remarkable resolve to free others from suffering so that all may achieve true happiness and awakening. Through each challenge, the Buddhist hero of compassion develops rich inner qualities that empower them to be of true benefit to others.

An international prize of one billion has been offered to the first man to complete an interplanetary trip, and Dale Curtance, a millionaire adventurer, emerges as the British entrant. With a hand-picked crew, he blasted off from Salisbury Plain in the spaceship Gloria Mundi, destination—the planet Mars. Once free of Earth's atmosphere, they discover a stowaway—a woman. Her extraordinary story helps them prepare for the dangers they encounter on the Red Planet, and the fantastic world that exists there.

Perseus grows up wanting to be a hero, but he cannot become one if his mother Danae still sees him as a boy. When his stepfather Polydektes casts him away on a voyage across the sea, Perseus is determined to fulfil the great destiny of the son of a god and the grandson of a king. But the line between heroism and monstrosity is thin, and when Perseus attempts to seduce first gentle Medusa and then beautiful Andromeda, before finally reuniting with Danae, they each learn of the dangers of resisting a boy prepared to risk it all for greatness.

The sudden withdrawal of British and American troops from Afghanistan in 2021, ended the 20 year war on terror, yet it also left Afghanistan to be reconquered by the Taliban. As violence and religious fundamentalism once again overwhelmed the region, thousands of Afghans who loyally served the British and American armies were left behind.

Fen and Rey were found curled up small and tight in the fiery fur of the foxes at the very edge of the wildlands. Fen is loud and fierce and free. She feels a connection to foxes and a calling from the wild that she's desperate to return to. Rey is quiet and shy and an expert on nature. She reads about the birds, feeds the lands and nurtures the world around her. They are twin sisters. Different and the same. Separate and connected. They will always have each other, even if they don't have a mother and don't know their beginning. But they do want answers.

It's been years since Anna has seen Leo Knight. And of all the apartments in all the cities in all the world, he just happens to walk in to her cosy new attic home – as her new housemate. As the two walk the cobbled streets of Prague, taking in the sights and sounds from Wenceslas Square, frosted with snow, to the soft glow of candlelit Charles Bridge, the enchantment of the City of a Hundred Spires soon starts to work its magic on them…

Mariel, a newly blooded captain of the Merry Men, is desperate to live up to the legacy of her grandfather, the legendary Robin Hood. Clem, a backwoods assistant healer known for her new-fangled cures, just wants to help people. When Mariel's ramshackle band kidnap Clem as retribution for her guardian helping the Sheriff of Nottingham, all seems to be going (sort of) to plan … until Jack Hartley, Mariel’s father and Commander of the Merry Men, is captured in a deadly ambush. Determined to prove herself, Mariel sets out to get him back – with her annoyingly cheerful kidnappee in tow.

Curfew law keeps men at home after seven p.m. It keeps women safe after dark. It changed things for the better...until now. Sarah rebuilt her life after her husband was sent to prison. Now he's about to be released, and Sarah isn't expecting a happy reunion given she's the reason he was sent there. Seventeen-year-old Cass disagrees with curfew. She believes men and women should be equal. And she's determined to prove she's right—whatever the cost. Helen wants a baby more than anything, so things are moving quickly with her boyfriend. All of these women are in danger. One will die.

Anna is used to hunger and hardship. Ever since she was seventeen, when the pale shadows of her vitiligo were spotted, she has spent more than a decade struggling to survive alone and in exile. Then a single act of kindness towards a beautiful stranger and the taste of a divine peach changes Anna’s life forever.

The truth can have deadly consequences... On a sunny morning, when the Mediterranean is dead calm, Captain Paul Thomas embarks on a dive to the wreck of the Zenobia, off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus. Within hours, he has taken his final, gasping breath in an accident below the surface. A new Royal Military Police liaison is required to pick up on his work, and Major Helen Scott gets the assignment. It turns out Paul Thomas had rattled cages during his current case - four serving soldiers are in custody accused of the leaking of state intelligence.

People aren’t as they seem. And history…I’m still attempting to reconcile the truth with what I was previously told. My new allies have an agenda, but I have one of my own. Though there’s overlap—we all agree Dante must die—what I desire more than anything is to return to Lore before he levels the kingdom to find me…or loses his humanity trying. I may favor crowns over coffins, but I refuse to live in a world where my mate only exists as a bird.

Westminster in the 2020s, where the business of governing is the last thing on the agenda for anyone worth their salt. In the SW1 bubble, politics moves fast, schemes are hatched and foiled - through both accident and conspiracy - within hours, and sex and power preside. When Bobby Cliveden decides to campaign against the closure of her local mental health unit, she scarcely thought it would take her straight to the heart of the UK's bustling political centre.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's great tragedies, and in this study guide we analyse the key meanings and subtleties within the play. We discuss the main protagonists, the key themes and the context and break down the core scenes so that you have all the necessary facts and arguments at your disposal. Written by Catherine Hartley and Stella Vassiliou, both of whom have master's degrees in English literature from Cambridge and Oxford Universities respectively.

Sixth formers Kerry and Annie are nerdy, horny, hilarious, and exceptionally uncool. They’re never invited to parties, picked for sports teams or included in jokes, yet together they form a unit so great that they don’t need anyone else. But, when they’re approached by the popular Heather and invited to one of the coolest parties in town to help her find out who’s been trolling her from an account claiming to be her dead dad, their investigations take a turn. Heather’s best friend is found murdered. Suffocated with a mooncup.

Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Warner Bros are set to bring YA sci-fi novel Illuminae to the big screen. The year is 2575, and two megacorporations are at war over a planet that's little more than an ice-covered speck. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Ezra and Kady have to make their escape on the evacuating fleet. But their troubles are just beginning.

Have you ever not been able to concentrate because there are SO many questions buzzing round your brain? The Bedtime Book of Impossible Questions will offer answers to the most bamboozling questions and curious queries that you can think of. How many stars are in the night sky? Why don't animals wear clothes? Do plants have feelings? This book will define, debunk and demystify the trickiest of questions and even open your eyes to questions you have never even thought of!

From number one best-selling author Matt Haig comes a hilarious and heartwarming story. Wherever she is, whatever the day, She only has one kind of thing to say. Just as cats go miaow and cows go moo, The Truth Pixie can only say things that are true. A very funny and lovable tale of how one special pixie learned to love herself. The Truth Pixie is an enchanting, rhyming story that will delight younger children.

The Great Successor is an irreverent yet insightful quest to understand the life of Kim Jong Un, one of the world's most secretive dictators. Kim's life is swathed in myth and propaganda, from the plainly silly - he supposedly ate so much Swiss cheese that his ankles gave way - to the grimly bloody stories of the ways his enemies and rival family members have perished at his command.

Marguerite Demers is 24 when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint-Sulpice, to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier, once one of the most powerful men in the village, and now dying alone in his large and secluded house, surrounded by rambling gardens. Manipulative and tyrannical, Jerome has scared away all his previous nurses.

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic Tales blends the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors.