Showing results by narrator "Nicky Diss" in All Categories

Agatha Christie is renowned for her captivating plots and creative ways of killing off ill-fated victims. And what better way to add intrigue to a story than poison? The surreptitious ways they can be administered and the characteristic symptoms they produce make these killer chemicals the ideal method of murder in a ‘whodunit’. Christie perfected the use of poisons in her plots; her deft and varied use of toxic substances is one of her great strengths as a writer. But how is it that some compounds prove so fatal, and in such tiny amounts?

Jack Dee is here to help. Too often today the emphasis in psychotherapy is on providing clients with a metaphorical hug when what they so clearly need is good slap, so Jack Dee took the matter into his own hands, and whilst everyone else was baking bread and clearing out their cupboards during lockdown, he retrained online as a psychotherapist. After an incredibly gruelling four hours of study, he got his certificate of completion from The Ruislip College of Advansed Learning (sic).

In the snowy kingdom of Erkenwald, whales glide between icebergs, wolves hunt on the tundra and polar bears roam the glaciers. But the people of this land aren’t so easy to find - because Erkenwald is ruled by an evil Ice Queen, and the tribes must stay hidden or risk becoming her prisoners at Winterfang Palace. Join Eska, a girl who breaks free from a cursed music box, and Flint, a boy whose inventions could change the fate of Erkenwald forever, as they journey to the Never Cliffs and beyond.

Madame Augustina Pinchbeck travels the country conjuring the spirits of dearly departed loved ones...for a price. Whilst her ability to contact ghosts is a game of smoke and mirrors, there is real magic behind her tricks, too - if you know where to look. Through a magical trade, she persuades children to part with precious objects, promising to use her powers to help them. But Pinchbeck is a deceiver, instead turning their items into enchanted cabinets that bind the children to her and into which she can vanish and summon them at will.

Fifty years ago a girl vanished in the woods nearby - a girl Tanya's grandmother will not speak of. Fabian, the caretaker's son, is tormented by the girl's disappearance. His grandfather was the last person to see her alive and has lived under suspicion ever since. Together, Tanya and Fabian decide to find the truth. But Tanya has her own secret: the ability to see fairies. And after disturbing an intruder in the night, it emerges that someone else shares her ability.... The manor's sinister history is about to repeat itself....

Laura has been married to the man of her dreams for seven months. But, she now discovers, a week before the wedding Matthew made a terrible mistake.... Escaping the heartache and humiliation, Laura is whisked off to Florida's Key West by her best friend, Marty. A carefree holiday full of cocktails and fun, surrounded by gorgeous, tanned men, is exactly what the doctor ordered. Distraction comes in the form of sexy Cuban scuba diver Leo. As the end of the holiday approaches, Laura doesn't want to go home.

In Vaxxers, we hear directly from Professor Gilbert and her colleague, Dr Catherine Green, as they reveal the inside story of making the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the cutting-edge science and sheer hard work behind it. This is their story of fighting a pandemic as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Sarah and Cath share the heart-stopping moments in the eye of the storm, they separate fact from fiction, they explain how they made a safe vaccine in record time with the eyes of the world watching and they give us hope for the future.

A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them. One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him....

When the Widdershins sisters and Granny are called away in deepest winter to look after cousin Clarissa, it doesn’t take long for adventure—or trouble—to find them. The town of Little Nipping has plenty to explore with its frozen lake and winter market, as well as being haunted by a doomed highwayman, searching for lost treasure. But the legends are true, and seeing a ghostly figure one night, the girls realise that Granny is in terrible danger.

Eleven-year-old Zebedee Bolt is on the run. Again. Only this time it’s not the police who find him. It’s an evil harpy called Morg. And when she hauls him into Crackledawn, an Unmapped kingdom that conjures sunlight for our world, Zeb discovers running away only gets you so far. When magic’s involved, you’ve got to pick a side. And though Zeb vowed he wouldn’t trust anyone ever again, he didn’t expect to stumble aboard The Kerfuffle, an enchanted boat belonging to a girl called Oonie and her talking chameleon, Mrs Fickletint.

It is midnight in Crackledawn—a midnight full of magic. Sea dragons stir in the depths of the ocean, silver whales surface beneath the moon and sand goblins line the shores. Everyone is waiting for the phoenix, the guardian of the kingdom’s magic, to rise up from the forests of Everdark. But there is no sign of the phoenix tonight. Something else surges up out of Everdark instead: a harpy bent on stealing Crackledawn’s magic.

Deep within Tanglefern Forest, Moll Pecksniff and her wildcat, Gryff, are waiting for a sign from the Old Magic before they continue their quest to find the last Amulet of Truth and free their world from the Shadowmasks’ terrible magic. Still missing fellow Tribe member Alfie, and armed only with a mysterious set of clues, Moll sets out on an adventure across the northern wilderness with Gryff and her friend Siddy at her side. They must brave the Lost Isles, scale the Barbed Peaks and face witches, goblins and giants who lurk at every turn...while the Shadowmasks draw ever closer.

Talented yet relatively unknown actress and celebration cake baker extraordinaire Olivia Lambert is running out of time. Approaching 40, she’s yet to land the role that will launch her television career, and she’s desperate to be a mum. Her new man, Phil Grimshaw from the Bluebell Cliff Hotel, seems the perfect match but seems to be in no rush to settle down. Having ditched her childhood sweetheart and fiancé, Tom Boyd, when he backtracked about being a dad, Olivia dreads making the same mistake again.

Thea has a secret. She can tell how long someone has left to live just by touching them. Not only that, but she can transfer life from one person to another – something she finds out the hard way when her best friend Ruth suffers a fatal head injury on a night out. Desperate to save her, Thea touches the arm of the man responsible when he comes to check if Ruth is all right. As Ruth comes to, the man quietly slumps to the ground, dead. Thea realises that she has a godlike power: but despite deciding to use her ability for good, she can’t help but sometimes use it for her own benefit.

A Dorset summer, a chance meeting, and Joe and Alice, both 18, fall into step as if they have known each other forever. But their idyll is shattered as quickly as it began. Joe leaves without warning; Alice heads off to Cambridge University and slowly picks up the pieces of her broken heart. Years later, when she catches the attention of gorgeous, gifted, rich boy Lukas, Alice is carried along by his charm and swept up in his ambitious plans for a future together. Until news of Joe reaches her once more, but he's out of reach....

Three sisters trapped by an ancient curse. Three magical objects with the power to change their fate. Will they be enough to break the curse? Or will they lead the sisters even deeper into danger? The enchanting new story from Michelle Harrison, author of the best-selling Thirteen Treasures trilogy.

The fairies stole her brother...and now Red is trapped. In the dangerous fairy realm, she strikes a bargain. Her brother will be returned, but only if she can complete a perilous magical quest in the human world. If she fails, she will lose him - and her own freedom - for ever. With the help of Tanya and Fabian, Red's desperate task begins - but a shocking discovery turns it into a race against time. And even if the friends succeed, will the fairies keep their promise?

Gina Mills is desperate to be a newsreader, but her boss, the director of the struggling Channel Eight, won't help. Walking home one night, Gina stumbles upon a dead body, and after calling the police, she makes the split-second decision to report the murder live. When questioned by the police, Gina can't remember specific details about her discovery, but these memory gaps are explained away as shock. But when Gina finds a second body, it's clear she's being targeted. But why?

Agatha Christie revelled in the use of poison to kill off unfortunate victims in her books; indeed, she employed it more than any other murder method, with the poison itself often being a central part of the novel. Her choice of deadly substances was far from random—the characteristics of each often provide vital clues to the discovery of the murderer. Christie's extensive chemical knowledge provides the backdrop for A Is for Arsenic, in which Kathryn Harkup investigates the poisons used by the murderer in fourteen classic Agatha Christie mysteries.

Twelve-year-old Moll Pecksniff wakes one night in the middle of the forest, lured there by a recurring nightmare - the one with the drums and the rattles and the masks. The Dreamsnatcher is waiting. He has already taken her dreams, and now he wants her life. Because Moll is more important than she know.... The Oracle Bones foretold that she and Gryff, a wildcat that has always been by her side, are the only ones who can fight back against the Dreamsnatcher's dark magic. Suddenly everything is at stake, and Moll is drawn into a world full of secrets, magic and adventure.