Showing results by narrator "Matt Addis" in All Categories

April, 1144. A body is found floating in Fladbury Mill leat, a man in green who has been stabbed but not robbed. The lord sheriff’s trio discover him to be an Evesham horse dealer, who has a beautiful young wife who ‘strays’. Did the wife or one of her lovers get rid of him? What is the connection with the lord of Harvington, who wed the man’s sister, and how did that lady meet her death? The trio have to work seamlessly together to unravel the thread that links seemingly disparate deaths before even more people die, and in the process keep Walkelin from the noose.

It is 1852, and in Sweden's far north, deep in the Arctic Circle, charismatic preacher and Revivalist Lars Levi Læstadius impassions a poverty-stricken congregation with visions of salvation. But local leaders have reason to resist a shift to temperance over alcohol. Jussi, the young Sami boy Læstadius has rescued from destitution and abuse, becomes the preacher's faithful disciple on long botanical treks to explore the flora and fauna. Læstadius also teaches him to read and write - and to love and fear God.

Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year Arrest Me, for I Have Run Away is a stunning short story collection on human nature and identity. Stevie Davies' latest work, it is bound to captivate and charm the listener.

Hugh Bradecote does not want his betrothed heading off on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Eadgyth at Polesworth, but the Archbishop of Canterbury's envoy and his entourage of monks seem Heaven sent as escorts, right up until they are captured by a renegade who wants his forger out of the lord Sheriff's cells; a renegade who loathes the Benedictines and kills for pleasure.

Sebastian has long been haunted by the disappearance of his father, Jack Messenger: celebrated travel writer, potential spy and murder victim, his absent presence and equivocal past continue to cast inescapable shadows over his son, who must also contend with his ageing mother's fragmented memory and his own dereliction of a partner. So who is the stranger that buttonholes Sebastian at an academic conference on the Welsh coast, and reveals lies and transgressions neither outgrown nor comprehended? How does he know Sebastian, and what are his connections to Jack Messenger?

It's 1983 in Thatcher's Britain. Alec Johnston has left his comfortable family home in Cardiff and taken a flat with bikers Minto, Stobes and Black. There he meets Sindy, Minto’s strange and vulnerable young girlfriend. When she starts to view Alec as a possible saviour from her abusive relationship, it earns Alec a big target on his back. Hide takes us on a dark, unsettling journey: one that begins in a small town in Wales and continues through the vast Australian outback. As the threats get closer, Alec fears this is one journey from which he may never return.

On a bright Sunday morning in Hawaii, Japanese planes swoop down and attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbour. America enters the war and Britain no longer stands alone against Hitler. The country can dare to hope again, although a long hard struggle still clearly lies ahead. Conditions on the home front remain bleak, and for Scotland Yard detective Frank Merlin, life is as arduous as ever.

Over a century after Cézanne’s death his art still obsesses and enraptures. And for the characters in this multifaceted novel, the painter’s work is of crucial significance. In Hong Kong, will billionaire art collector Walter and his son ever be reconciled? In Liverpool, will artist Nick find peace? In New York, can Joel and Sophie mend their relationship with the help of Cézanne’s work in the Metropolitan Museum? Through these multiple narratives Michael Langan deftly explores human relationships and asks: can art ever save us?

Archaeologist Clare Hills is struggling to finance her recently established university research institute along with her long-time friend, Dr David Barbrook. When Professor Margaret Bockford finds the Hart Unit work with a housing developer in the Cotswolds, the pair are hardly in a position to refuse. There is just one catch: the previous site director, Beth Kinsella, was found hanged on-site, surrounded by mutilated wildlife.

Written in 1791 as a response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man is a seminal work on human freedom and equality. Using the French Revolution and its ideals as an example, he demonstrates his belief that any government must put the inherent rights of its citizens above all else, especially politics. After its publication, Paine left England for France and was tried in his absence for libel against the crown.

On a deserted road in Calabria, Greek aid worker Anastasia Cristakos is driving alone to visit one of the new refugee centres funded by billionaire Denis Hisami, whom she has recently married. She slows down to greet two African migrants she recognises. Too late she realises they are not her friends. This is an ambush. She manages a desperate phone call to Hisami before her Mafia kidnappers silence her with a powerful drug. Hours later she wakes up in the pitch dark on a container ship powering eastwards across the Mediterranean.

Marlene Wegener is on the run. She has stolen something from her husband, something priceless, irreplaceable. But she doesn't get very far. When her car veers off a bleak midwinter road she takes refuge in the remote home of Simon Keller, a tough mountain man who lives alone with his demons. Here in her high mountain sanctuary, she begins to rekindle a sense of herself: tough, capable, no longer the trophy on a gangster's arm. But Herr Wegener does not know how to forgive, and in his rage he makes a pact with the devil.

October 1143. A mysterious archer who kills cleanly and 'dissolves' into the forest, a missing train of pack mules on the salt road from Wich and a lord in the wrong place at the wrong time mean a crime the lord Sheriff of Worcestershire cannot ignore. Bradecote, Catchpoll and the eager Walkelin are hunting a killer and a gang and whoever is giving them orders. They are not helped by a reeve keen to keep his position, a lord with his own ends to serve and a distrusting and vengeful widow with a haunted past, to whom Bradecote is increasingly attracted.

A breathtaking missing persons thriller set under the menacing peaks of the Pyrenees. Five years after their disappearance, the village of Monteperdido still mourns the loss of Ana and Lucia, two 11-year-old friends who left school one afternoon and were never seen again. Now, Ana reappears unexpectedly inside a crashed car, wounded but alive. The case reopens, and a race against time begins to discover who was behind the girls' kidnapping. Most importantly, where is Lucia, and is she still alive?

Paris, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell. Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain's Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago.

Following the recent death of her husband, Clare Hills is unsure of her place in the world. When her former university friend Dr David Barbrook asks her to help him sift through the effects of deceased archaeologist Gerald Hart, she sees this as a useful distraction. During her search, Clare stumbles across the unpublished journals detailing Gerald's most glittering dig. Supposedly destroyed in an arson attack, she cannot believe her luck. Finding the Hungerbourne Barrows archive is every archaeologist's dream....

I've probably lied to you. That's habit. I lie to everyone about my family.... Daniel Laird has returned to his remote family home in Norfolk to care for his ailing artist father. Living an isolated existence - with his father unable to speak and only their brusque housekeeper, Maggie, for company - Daniel describes the strangeness of coming home after an eight-year absence in a series of vivid and passionate letters to his sister; his boss; and Alice, his one true love.

Sensational books like Freakonomics have shown how human behaviour follows predictable patterns. But how do you take these radical ideas and apply them to your business? How do you make money from them? Secrets of the Moneylab sets out what business can learn from the findings of the new economics and social psychology. It shows how you can shape desires, use incentives and reduce risks to consistently improve the bottom line.

The Honourable Catherine Elford - Kitty - is presented with an awful choice. Either she is cast off, penniless, by her stepbrother, or she marries the handsome Earl of Ledbury, who would be perfect were he not a serial womaniser. Ledbury has only ever courted other men’s wives and does not want a wife of his own. However, Kitty’s generous dowry, which will keep him from selling his beloved racehorses, proves too tempting.

Born in the 1920s on a working-class London street, Harry Miles wins a scholarship and grows into adulthood as a sensitive man, torn between his love for poetry and the immediate demands of the world around him. When he marries the magnetic and demanding Evelyn amongst the outbreak of war, his capacity to love is increasingly tested - up to and beyond when she abandons him on the cusp of death. An unconventional love story, harrowing and deeply tender, Dear Evelyn studies two people who permanently shape each other over a shared lifetime.