Showing results by narrator "David Dawson" in All Categories

Skandar Smith has always yearned to leave the Mainland and escape to the secretive Island, where wild, bloodthirsty unicorns roam free. He’s spent years studying for his Hatchery exam, the annual test that selects a handful of Mainlander 13-year-olds to train to become unicorn riders. But on the day of Skandar’s exam, things go horribly wrong, and his hopes are shattered…until a mysterious figure knocks on his door at midnight, bearing a message: The Island is in peril and Skandar must answer its call. 

Tonight 19-year-old William Lavery is dressed for success, his first black-tie do. It's the Midlands Chapter of the Institute of Embalmers Ladies' Night Dinner Dance, and William is taking Gloria in her sequined evening gown. He can barely believe his luck. But as the guests sip their drinks and smoke their post-dinner cigarettes, a telegram delivers news of a tragedy. An event so terrible it will shake the nation. It is October 1966, and a landslide at a coal mine has buried a school: Aberfan.  

In 1940, David Sparsholt arrives at Oxford to study engineering, though his sights are set on joining the Royal Air Force. Handsome, athletic, charismatic, he is unaware of his effect on others - especially on Evert Dax, the lonely son of a celebrated novelist who is destined to become a writer himself. With the world at war, and the Blitz raging in London, Oxford nevertheless exists at a strange remove: a place of fleeting beauty - and secret liaisons. A friendship develops between these two young men that will have unexpected consequences as the novel unfolds.

Thirteen-year-old Skandar Smith has only ever wanted to be a unicorn rider. To be one of the lucky few selected to hatch a unicorn. To bond with it for life, to train together and race for glory, to be a hero. But just as Skandar’s dream is about to come true, things start to take a more dangerous turn than he could ever have imagined. A dark and twisted enemy has stolen the Island’s most powerful unicorn—and as the threat grows ever closer, Skandar discovers a secret that could blow apart his world forever.

Twelve-year-old Lonny can stop death in its tracks. But there’s a price to pay for his magic. Each time he saves a life, he must sacrifice years of his own. In order to keep his power a secret, he's always stayed away from the nearby town of Farstoke, where the townsfolk might take advantage of a lifeling boy for their selfish and dangerous ends. But when Lonny’s family is left with no money, he and his brother, Midge, are forced to venture into Farstoke in search of work. 

Thomas Jerome Newton is an extraterrestrial from the planet Anthea, which has been devastated by a series of nuclear wars and whose inhabitants are twice as intelligent as human beings. When he lands on Earth - in Kentucky, disguised as a human - it's with the intention of saving his own people from extinction. Newton patents some very advanced Anthean technology, which he uses to amass a fortune. He begins to build a spaceship to help the last 300 Antheans migrate to Earth.

Someone is leaving a trail of bodies throughout London, and Detective Anthony Parglietto is determined to end the violence. Then he’ll return to the man he loves. Tough, street-savvy, and used to dealing with lowlifes, Flynn Parker is the last person Anthony thinks he has to protect. Then the Bow-Tie Killer strikes close to home and the world turns upside down. Right is wrong, black is white, and a policeman might become a monster. But in the name of love, justice must be served. In the name of love, pain can be endured.

When spring comes, the people leave their winter cave, foraging for honey and shoots, bulbs and grubs, the hot richness of a deer's brain. They awaken the fire to heat their naked bodies, lay down their thorn bushes and share pictures in their minds. But strange things are happening - inexplicable scents, sounds and violence - and, suddenly, unimaginable creatures are half-glimpsed in the forest: an upright new people of bone-faces and deerskins. What the early people don't know is that their season is already over.... 

A young man. Unconscious in a hospital bed. His life is in the balance from a drug overdose. Attempted suicide or attempted murder? British lawyer Dominic Delingpole investigates, with the help of his larger-than-life partner Jonathan McFadden. Compromising photographs of senior politicians and business chiefs are discovered. Is the young man a blackmailer?

In October 1940, the handsome young David Sparsholt arrives in Oxford. A keen athlete and oarsman, he at first seems unaware of the effect he has on others - particularly on the lonely and romantic Evert Dax, son of a celebrated novelist and destined to become a writer himself. While the Blitz rages in London, Oxford exists at a strange remove: an ephemeral, uncertain place in which nightly blackouts conceal secret liaisons....

Lonny is a lifeling. He has the power to heal any living creature and bring it back from the dead. But he pays a price for this gift - by lengthening the creature’s life, he shortens his own. So Lonny has to be careful, has to stay hidden in the forest. Because if people knew what he could do, Lonny would be left with no life at all.