Showing results by narrator "Joshua Manning" in Literature & Fiction

Former SAS Sergeant Major John Carr is relaxing on a Spanish beach, when a man with dark eyes attracts his attention. Fixated on a group of young Britons, the man doesn’t notice Carr and soon moves on. Within the hour, the Costa del Sol will be plunged into one of the most audacious and horrifying terrorist attacks Europe has ever seen. In a co-ordinated strike, armed men storm both the beach and a cruise ship anchored further up the coast. But the terrorists - hiding personal greed under the veil of religious extremism - have an even bolder plan.

Upon the cliffs of a remote Scottish island, Lòn Haven, stands a lighthouse. A lighthouse that weathered more than storms. Mysterious and terrible events have happened on this island. It started with a witch hunt. Now, centuries later, islanders are vanishing without explanation. Coincidence? Or curse? Liv Stay flees to the island with her three daughters, in search of a home. She doesn’t believe in witches, or dark omens, or hauntings. But within months, her daughter Luna will be the only one of them left.

When MacThomas Pockets finished his last tour as part of the Scottish Special Forces, he was hired to consult for a film director to finesse some scenes that weren't working. In a twist he never saw coming, he ended up moving to L.A. to work as the bodyguard for movie star Maybe Joe Sue.

Everyone's invited. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone's talking about it. In a remote hunting lodge, deep in the Scottish wilderness, old friends gather for New Year. The beautiful one. The golden couple. The volatile one. The new parents. The quiet one. The city boy. The outsider. The victim. Not an accident - a murder among friends.

John Carr has recently left the SAS, after a long and distinguished career, and is now working for a Russian oligarch in the murky world of private security. But an incident from his past - in which three terrorists were brutally killed - suddenly comes back to haunt him. Tracked by a hit man out for revenge, John Carr is forced to step over the line to defend himself and his family. It's a cruel and violent world - and one he thought he'd left behind.

Komméno Island, Greece: I don't know where I am, who I am. Help me. A woman is washed up on a remote Greek island with no recollection of who she is or how she got there. Potter's Lane, Twickenham, London: Eloïse Shelley is officially missing. Lochlan's wife has vanished into thin air, leaving their toddler and 12-week-old baby alone. Her money, car and passport are all in the house, with no signs of foul play. Every clue the police turn up means someone has told a lie....

Returning to her legendary short stories, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams offers a much-anticipated follow-up to Ninety-Nine Stories of God, which The New York Times Book Review called a “treasure trove of bafflements and tiny masterpieces.” Concerning the Future of Souls balances the extraordinary and the humble, the bizarre and the beatific, as Azrael—transporter of souls and the most troubled and thoughtful of the angels—confronts the holy impossibility of his task, his uneasy relationship with Death, and his friendship with the Devil.

Billy Maguire, on his way to Scotland for a reunion with his university friends, stops for a few drinks en route. Then, on the deserted roads leading to the remote location, he manages to run over a pedestrian. The man is alive, and Billy puts him in the back seat of his car, planning to leave him outside the nearest hospital. But then the man dies—and Billy panics.

Phoebe and Sam meet by chance at St Pancras station. Heading in opposite directions, both seeking their own adventures, meeting the love of their lives wasn’t part of the plan. So they make a promise: to meet again in the same place in 12 months' time if they still want to be together. But is life ever as simple as that? This is a story of what-ifs and maybes - and how one decision can change your life forever....

It’s 1923, and at Thistlecrook House, a forbidding home on the Scottish border, the roaring '20s seem not to have arrived. But Simon Christie has - a young man who can’t believe his luck when he gets a job cataloguing the infamous art collection of the Mordrake family. Yet from the moment he gets off the train at the deserted village station he can’t shift a headache and a sense that there’s more to the house and its gruesome selection of pictures.

A well-known and often told tale of murder and grave robbing in Victorian Edinburgh, supposedly in the interests of science. With the desecration of the bodies, a worthy comeuppance follows. 'The Body Snatcher' is taken from the second volume of the Victorian Anthologies Horror series, featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known. With music by Benedict Edwards.

Psychotherapist Lulu is sure she’s the luckiest woman alive. She has a wonderful job and is married to the love of her life, Nick—who also happens to be ridiculously handsome and fabulously wealthy. But now a shadow has fallen on her perfect life. She can see that Nick is struggling with demons from his past. When he was sixteen, his entire family disappeared without a trace and Nick has always insisted that his stepmother—whom he hated—was to blame, that she did something terrible to his beloved father and baby sister.

Phoebe and Sam meet by chance at St Pancras station in London. Heading in opposite directions, both seeking their own adventures, meeting the love of their lives wasn’t part of the plan. So they make a promise: to meet again in the same place in 12 months' time if they still want to be together. But is life ever as simple as that? This is a story of what-ifs and maybes - and how one decision can change your life forever.

The neighborhood of Oleander Court is the poster child for suburban bliss. The residents compare lawns beautified by hired help. They monitor home values. They toss perfect furniture because they wanted tapioca, not beige. But when a string of murders rips through the neighborhood, suspicions abound as new secrets come to light. And as more and more bodies are taken away, it becomes clear that the killer is strategically selecting each and every victim, picking off the shallowest, most wasteful of the lot in spectacular fashion and leaving everyone in the neighborhood to wonder Who’s next?

An affectionate but take-no-prisoners send-up of the massive literary and television franchise, Lame of Thrones offers fans a way of reentering the fictional world they have come to love and merrily explodes all of its conventions - as well as their expectations of the characters - to hilarious ends. It may even leave you more satisfied than the actual TV ending of Game of Thrones. In fact, if it doesn't the Lampoon has really dropped the ball.

London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only senior inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles.

An American travel writer who has never found a place to belong and a reclusive Scot with a surprising secret find a shocking connection when she enters a Highlands manor house that has been turned into a three-week long Edwardian experience.

Abandoned at a monastery as a young child, Alexander serves two masters - God and the fading memories of his past life - the one he never got to live. As he nears the day to take his vows, he’s sent on a last sojourn into the real world, but what begins as a test of faith becomes a journey to manhood. Born from the line of two kings, Lady Sibylla Mac William is abandoned by her sire as a child and then ruled illegitimate. Though she lives a happy life under her uncle’s protection, Sibylla craves something more.

Evan West lives, breathes, and exists for everything film. His heart beats at 24 frames per second. He aspires to be much more than a film trailer editor, but he’s lucky to live and work in Hollywood. When Evan crashes into a telephone pole one night, he’s thrust into a temporal vortex—and suddenly transported back to Hollywood in 1946 during the making of the beloved Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life.

Some discoveries are better left unmade. Peter thought he was done with grave robbing, but when a former business partner lures him out to Dungarradh, a small Scottish island with a big secret, he finds himself waist deep in more than local folklore. Is the disappearance of his teammate truly the work of the legendary fae, or is a sinister force at play?