Latest Releases
Explore our latest releases and find your next audiobook.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: David Hobbs
Duration: 3 hrs
India, 1919. A man is found dead. A note has been left in the dead man's mouth. It warns the English to leave India. If they don't, more blood will be spilled.
Two police officers, Captain Wyndham and Sergeant Banerjee must solve the crime quickly. But there are some people who will do anything to stop them.
- Thrillers
Read by: Miscellaneous
Duration: 8 hrs 53 mins
When Lena overhears a conversation between her next-door-neighbours she thinks she must have misheard. After all, the Morgans are a kind, retired couple who have moved to a suburban street in Bristol where nothing ever happens. But it sounded like they were planning a crime.
Her family and friends tell her that she's made a mistake. Yet Lena can't stop thinking about it. Because what if they are about to do something terrible? What if she can prevent it?
And what if, in doing so, it might help ease her conscience about her own dark past...
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: James Langton
Duration: 7 hrs 56 mins
New York, 1910. George Dillman and Genevieve Masefield have crossed the Atlantic Ocean numerous times in their capacity as ship’s detectives. On those crossings they’ve had the pleasure, and in some cases the trouble, of sailing with very famous passengers. Dukes. Duchesses. Artists. Actors. Musicians. Royalty. But few names have quite the level of fame and fortune as their fellow traveller Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Now aboard the Celtic, Dillman and Masefield have a particular stolen book to recover and an elusive fugitive to apprehend, but will the famous writer help or hinder them?
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Mark Billingham
Duration: 11 hrs 14 mins
How do you catch a killer who is yet to kill?
We've all heard about the signs: coldness, cruelty, mistreatment of animals. DI Tom Thorne knows the psychological profile of a psychopath all too well, so when pets start disappearing on suburban London streets, he sees a chance to stop a future murderer.
Others are less convinced, so Thorne relies on DI Nicola Tanner to help him solve the case, before the culprit starts hunting people. The journey brings them face to face with a killer who will tear their lives apart.
Book 15 in the Tom Thorne series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Mark Billingham
Duration: 10 hrs 21 mins
Sarah thinks of herself as a normal single mum. It's what she wants others to think of her. But the truth is, she needs something new, something thrilling.
Meanwhile, DI Tom Thorne is investigating a woman's suicide, convinced she was driven to do it by a man who preys on vulnerable women.
A man who is about to change Sarah's life.
Book 16 in the Tom Thorne series.
- Thrillers
Read by: Matt Bates
Duration: 12 hrs 41 mins
Professor Hans Rekke: born into a wealthy Stockholm family, world authority on interrogation techniques, capable of vertiginous feats of logic and observation... But he might just fall apart when the going gets tough, leading to substance abuse and despair.
Micaela Vargas: community police officer, born to Chilean political refugees in a tough suburb, with two brothers on the shady side of the law.
Vargas feels she has something to prove. She's tenacious and uncompromising, but she needs Rekke's unique mind to help her solve the case. Rekke has it all - wealth, reputation - but also a tendency to throw it all away. He needs Vargas to help him get back on an even keel so he can focus his mind on finding the killer before they're both silenced for good.
Book 1 in the Rekke series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Matt Addis
Duration: 10 hrs
Ryan Wilkins grew up on a trailer park, a member of what many people would call the criminal classes. As a young Detective Inspector, he's lost none of his disgust with privileged elites - or his objectionable manners. But he notices things; they stick to his eyes. His professional partner, DI Ray Wilkins, of affluent Nigerian-London heritage, is an impeccably groomed, smooth-talking graduate of Balliol College, Oxford. You wouldn't think they would get on. They don't.
But when a young woman is found strangled at Barnabas Hall, they're forced to.
As tensions rise, things aren't going well. Ray is in despair. Ryan is in disciplinary measures. But their investigation gradually disentangles the links between a Syrian refugee lawyer now working in the college kitchens, a priceless copy of the Koran in the college collection and the identity of the dead woman.
Book 1 in the DI Ryan Wilkins series.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Joanne Harris
Duration: 11 hrs 29 mins
On a warm July evening, Sylviane Rochas scatters her mother's ashes in New York and lets the changing wind blow her to the French seaside town of Marseille.
For the first time in her life, Vianne holds the future in her own hands. Charming her way into a job as a waitress in a local bistrot, she knows that she is not here to stay - when her child is born in a few months, she must be gone.
As she discovers the joy of cooking, making recipes her own with the addition of bittersweet chocolate spices, she realises that it possesses its own magic in this town full of secrets.
Yet Vianne will never forget her mother's warning: that there is danger in revealing the true desires of those around her - and she must flee these cobbled streets before it's too late...
- Thrillers
Read by: Miscellaneous
Duration: 12 hrs 46 mins
Convicted of murder at seventeen, infamous killer and true crime celebrity Orianna Negi has always maintained her innocence.
Orianna has a blind spot over that fateful day: she can't remember what happened. Forensic psychologist Annie Ledet is tasked with unlocking the truth.
Orianna grew up in Eden Falls, ruled by the insular Wyclerc dynasty and its ruthless patriarch , Amos. As their sessions progress, Annie reaches into Orianna's past to a shattering realisation....
- Love Stories
Read by: Laura Kirman
Duration: 10 hrs 21 mins
Sophy Stevens always thought she would have everything sorted by the time she was thirty. Instead, she is freshly fired, recently dumped and sleeping on her mum's sofa.
So when her absent dad offers her a job at his vintage clothes shop in Primrose Hill, it's one she can't refuse. It will only be for a few months until she is back on her feet, after all.
But the Vintage Dress Shop is more magical than she could have even imagined. In spite of herself, Sophy starts to fall in love with the store and the process of matching the perfect item with every customer.
With each new treasure Sophy uncovers, she begins to wonder if, like these vintage clothes, the store is the key to her second chance... and then there's Charles, who might just end up mending her broken heart...
Book 1 in the Vintage Dress Shop series.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Christian Rodska
Duration: 10 hrs 42 mins
Following his recovery after a savage wounding in America, Kydd returns to England to re-assume command of his ship-of-the-line, Thunderer, which is sent to the remote station of Bermuda.
Book 26 in the Thomas Kydd adventure series.
- Cosy Crime: Gentle Mysteries
Read by: Penelope Keith
Duration: 6 hrs
After being nearly killed by both a hired hit man and her former secretary, Agatha Raisin could use some low-key cases. So when Robert Smedley walks through the door of her detective agency, determined to prove that his wife is cheating on him, Raisin Investigations immediately offers to help.
Unfortunately for Agatha, Mabel Smedley appears to be the perfect wife: young, pretty, and a regular volunteer at church. But just as Agatha is ready to give up, Smedley is poisoned with weed killer, leaving Mabel, the prime suspect, to inherit a fortune.
With no one left to pay her, Agatha has to drop the investigation... that is, until her old friend Sir Charles Fraith turns up again to rekindle her curiosity in the case.
Book 16 in the Agatha Raisin mysteries.
- Cosy Crime: Gentle Mysteries
Read by: Simon Brett
Duration: 6 hrs 44 mins
Meet Major Bricket, an infrequent resident of Highfield House in Stunston Peveril, Suffolk. In the past the Major's work assignments, frequently in foreign countries, have prevented him from spending much time there and as a result, there is an air of mystery around him while everyone in the village speculates on the nature of his occupation.
But now the Major has retired and has come home for good in his open-topped little red sports car... and what a homecoming it is, for lying spreadeagled on his lawn in the summer sunshine is the corpse of a clown.
Fortunately Major Bricket's past clandestine career means that he is now very well placed to solve the mystery of the dead clown on his camomile lawn…
Book 1 in the Major Bricket mysteries.
- General Fiction
Read by: Clare Corbett
Duration: 9 hrs 17 mins
Rosemary has lived in Brixton all her life, but everything she knows is changing. Only the local lido, where she swims every day, remains a constant reminder of the past and her beloved husband George.
Kate has just moved and feels adrift in a city that is too big for her. She's on the bottom rung of her career as a local journalist, and is determined to make something of it.
So when the lido is threatened with closure, Kate knows this story could be her chance to shine. But for Rosemary, it could be the end of everything. Together they are determined to make a stand, and to prove that the pool is more than just a place to swim - it is the heart of the community.
- Thrillers
Read by: Katie Scarfe
Duration: 16 hrs 4 mins
Ross Ransome is at the top of his profession; one of the most successful, and certainly one of the richest, plastic surgeons in the business. Such a man would expect his wife to be perfect - and why not? After all, he has spent enough hours in surgery to get her that way.
But when his wife falls ill she turns her back on conventional medicine, and her arid marriage, and seeks help from the world of alternative medicine and a charismatic therapist who promises not just medical salvation.
For Ransome, this is the ultimate betrayal. It defies logic, and Ross Ransome is a profoundly logical man. Logically, he can see no reason why any man should have his wife when he can't. It's all completely rational..
- Love Stories
Read by: Kirsty Dillon
Duration: 10 hrs 46 mins
Elena Godwin could never have known that her dream holiday to Mexico would change her life forever. She thought that she was in charge of her own destiny. But on a gorgeous summer evening, her whole world is ripped from her feet in a single moment.
Ten years later, she still can't forget the face of the stranger who held her whilst everything she knew was destroyed. Thrown back together again, Elena starts to uncover the truth around that fateful night - and questions whether she made the right decision all those years ago.
She only met him for a moment, but maybe it's not too late...
- Thrillers
Read by: Will Patton
Duration: 14 hrs 21 mins
Who is going to be the fish in this relationship, and who is going to be the fisherman?
BILL HODGES. Retired cop, tormented by 'the Mercedes massacre', a case he never solved.
BRADY HARTSFIELD. Perpetrator of that notorious crime, and preparing to kill again.
Now each is closing in on the other in a mega-stakes race against time from worldwide bestselling master of suspense, Stephen King.
Book 1 in the Bill Hodges series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Tom Lawrence
Duration: 10 hrs 26 mins
When a development in South London catches fire mid-construction, a close-knit team of fire fighters runs in to save a man spotted at the window.
They come out without a body. They quit the service. They plan never to speak to each other again.
Five years later one of them is set alight at his own wedding. Soon after, a second is found, nothing but a smoking corpse. It appears that someone knows what they did that night. What they chose over their duty. And there are still three men left to burn...
DI Alex Finn and his new partner DC Mattie Paulsen are an unlikely pairing, but they need to discover who is behind these killings before the next man faces the fire.
Book 1 in the DI Alex Finn mysteries.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Karen Cass
Duration: 13 hrs 23 mins
Rosa Kusstatscher has built a global fashion empire upon her ability to find the perfect outfit for any occasion. But tonight, as she prepares for the most important meeting of her life, her usual certainty eludes her.
What brought her to this moment? As she struggles to select her dress and choose the right shade of lipstick, Rosa begins to tell her incredible story. The story of a poor country girl from a village high in the mountains of Italy. Of Nazi occupation and fleeing in the night. Of hope and heartbreak in Switzerland; glamour and love in Paris. Of ambition and devastation in Rio de Janeiro; success and self-discovery in New York.
A life spent running, she sees now. But she will run no longer.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Colleen Prendergast
Duration: 7 hrs 37 mins
When librarian and budding private investigator Kitt Hartley visits her ex-assistant Grace Edwards in Durham, she soon learns of an unsolved murder.
A year ago Jodie Perkins, a Mechanics student, disappeared after her student-radio broadcast was cut short with a deafening scream. The police suspect Jodie was murdered although her body was never found.
Keen to be on the front line of one of Kitt's investigations, Grace convinces Kit to use her recent private investigator training to solve the mystery. Can Kitt and Grace uncover the truth?
Book 4 in the Kitt Hartley mysteries.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Julie Maisey
Duration: 9 hrs 42 mins
Ali Dawson and her cold case team investigate crimes so old, they're frozen - or so their inside joke goes. Most people don't know that they travel back in time to complete their research.
The latest assignment sees Ali venture back farther than they have dared before: to 1850s London in order to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of MP Isaac Templeton. Rumour has it that Cain was part of a sinister group called The Collectors; to become a member, you had to kill a woman...
Fearing for her safety in the middle of a freezing Victorian winter, Ali finds herself stuck in time, unable to make her way back to her life, her beloved colleagues, and her son, Finn, who suddenly finds himself in legal trouble in the present day.
Could the two cases be connected?
Book 1 in the Ali Dawson mysteries.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Ralph Lister
Duration: 24 hrs 31 mins
Part One contains the second half of the complete novel.
After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen: Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Ralph Lister
Duration: 29 hrs 27 mins
Part Two contains the second half of the complete novel.
After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen: Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed.
- Contemporary Fiction
Read by: Hillary Huber
Duration: 19 hrs 4 mins
Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighbourhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life's challenges.
Book 2 in the Neapolitan series.
- Contemporary Fiction
Read by: Hillary Huber
Duration: 18 hrs 26 mins
Both Elena and Lila are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up - a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books.
In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city's obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood.
The final book in the Neapolitan series.
- Thrillers
Read by: Will Damron and Christine Lakin
Duration: 8 hrs 49 mins
Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new townhouse he shares with his fiancée, he's desperate to make ends meet.
Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she?
Because something isn't quite right. The neighbours start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon, Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets...
Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realises it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.
- Contemporary Fiction
Read by: Hillary Huber
Duration: 16 hrs 43 mins
Lila, after separating from her husband, is living with her young son in a new neighbourhood of Naples and working at a local factory. Elena has left Naples, earned a degree from an elite college, and published a novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned and fascinating interlocutors. The era, with its dramatic changes in sexual politics and social costumes, with its seemingly limitless number of new possibilities, is rendered with breathtaking vigour.
Book 3 in the Neapolitan series.
- Adventure Stories
Read by: David Thorpe
Duration: 12 hrs 6 mins
AD 42, Germany. Tough, brutal and unforgiving. That's how new recruit Cato is finding life in the Roman Second Legion. He may have contacts in high places, but he could really use a friend amongst his fellow soldiers right now.
Cato has been promoted above his comrades at the order of the Emperor and is deeply resented by the other men. But he quickly earns the respect of his Centurion, Macro, a battle-hardened veteran as rough and ready as Cato is quick-witted and well-educated. They are poles apart, but soon realise they have a lot to learn from one another.
On a campaign to Britannia - a land of utter barbarity - an enduring friendship begins. But as they undertake a special mission to thwart a conspiracy against the Emperor they rapidly find themselves in a desperate fight to survive...
Book 1 in the Eagles of the Empire series.
- Adventure Stories
Read by: David Thorpe
Duration: 13 hrs 36 mins
Britannia, AD 43. Bleak, rainy and full of vicious savages, Britannia is a land that Cato, solider of the Second Legion, wishes Rome didn't want to conquer.
And as right-hand man to Centurion Macro, Cato sees the very worst of his native Britons, battling alongside his commander in bloodier combat than he could ever have imagined.
But the Britons are fighting back with Roman weapons - which means someone in their own ranks is supplying arms to the enemy. Cato and Macro are about to discover even deadlier adversaries than the British barbarians...
Book 2 in the Eagles of the Empire series.
- Adventure Stories
Read by: David Thorpe
Duration: 12 hrs 4 mins
Britannia, AD 44. Cato, a thoughtful junior officer in the Roman army, and his commanding centurion, Macro, are simply pawns in Rome's lust to conquer Britain. During the freezing winter, the two men and their legion fight the native savages in hand-to-hand battles that haunt Cato for days after.
But in a place full of enemies, the most vicious are the Druids of the Dark Moon; brutal, merciless men who have captured the wife and children of General Plautius himself.
So Macro and Cato are given a mission: to travel deep into enemy territory and recover the hostages. If they fail, the fate of the Roman army may just hang in the balance...
Book 3 in the Eagles of the Empire series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: James Macpherson
Duration: 7 hrs 39 mins
A dissident Russian poet is found dead - at the same time a delegation of Russian businessmen arrives in town. For some, it is crucial that the case is closed quickly, clinically and with the minimum of attention.
But DI Rebus and DS Siobhan Clarke believe this is something more than a random attack - especially after a particularly nasty second killing. Then, a brutal and premeditated assault on a local gangster puts Rebus in the frame - and he may not survive long enough to solve anything...
Book 17 in the Rebus series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: James Macpherson
Duration: 3 hrs 28 mins
A junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat, spread-eagled, cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, a five-pointed star daubed on the wall above. Just another dead addict - until John Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurks behind the façade of the Edinburgh familiar to tourists. Only Rebus seems to care about a death which looks more like a murder every day, about a seductive danger he can almost taste, appealing to the darkest corners of his mind...
Book 2 in the Rebus series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: James Macpherson
Duration: 11 hrs 42 mins
DI Rebus is buried under a pile of paperwork but an escalating dispute between the upstart Tommy Telford and Big Ger Cafferty's gang gives Rebus an escape clause. Telford is known to have close links with a Chechen gangster bringing refugees into Britain as prostitutes.
When Rebus takes under his wing a distraught Bosnian call girl, it gives him a personal reason to make sure Telford goes back to Paisley and pronto. Then Rebus's daughter is the victim of an all too professional hit-and-run and Rebus knows that there is now nothing he won't do to bring down prime suspect Tommy Telford - even if it means cutting a deal with the devil.
Book 9 in the Rebus series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: January LaVoy
Duration: 8 hrs 45 mins
The most daring and devastating heist in literary history targets a high security vault located deep beneath Princeton University. Valued at $25 million, the five manuscripts of F. Scott Fitzgerald's only novels are amongst the most valuable in the world. After an initial flurry of arrests, both they and the ruthless gang of thieves who took them have vanished without trace. Dealing in stolen books is a dark business, and few are initiated to its arts - which puts Bruce Kable right on the FBI's Rare Asset Recovery Unit's watch list.
A struggling writer burdened by debts, Mercer Mann spent summers on Florida's idyllic Camino Island as a kid. Now she is being made an offer she can't refuse: to return to the peace of the island, to write her novel - and get close to a certain infamous bookseller, and his interesting collection of manuscripts....
Book 1 in the Camino series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Mark Billingham
Duration: 11 hrs 28 mins
It was a vicious, calculated murder. The killer selected his victim at Euston station, followed her home on the tube, strangled her to death in front of her child. At the same time, killed in the same way, a second body is discovered at the back of King's Cross station. And this grisly event eerily echoes the murder of two other women, stabbed to death months before on the same day.
It is DI Tom Thorne who sees the link and comes to the horrifying conclusion. This is not a serial killer the police are up against.
This is two of them - and two killers are way more deadly than one...
Book 2 in the DI Tom Thorne series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Mark Billingham
Duration: 10 hrs 51 mins
It's only ten days since Douglas Remfry's release from prison, having served seven years for rape, and now he's dead: naked on a bare mattress in a grubby north London hotel room, his head hooded and his hands tied with a brown leather belt.
Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out some punishment of his own.
And when a second sex offender is found dead, DI Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating vigilante on his hands...
Book 3 in the DI Tom Thorne series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Peter Noble
Duration: 9 hrs 34 mins
The event of the Périgord tourist season is the re-enactment of the liberation of the historic town of Sarlat from the English in 1370. But it all goes wrong when the man playing the part of the French general is almost killed in the heat of the action.
The immediate question for chief of police Bruno Courrèges is: was this an accident - or deliberate? The stakes rise when Bruno learns that the man, Kerquelin, was running Frenchelon, the secret French electronic intelligence base nearby, after being recruited from a brilliant Silicon Valley career.
As he investigates, Bruno discovers that Kerquelin's wound was faked, that he is alive and well and secretly negotiating a massive deal to build a semi-conductor industry in France. But then a whole new and dangerous player emerges, determined to nip the deal in the bud.
Book 16 in the Dordogne Mystery series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Peter Forbes
Duration: 10 hrs 3 mins
Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Enzo Macleod is running out of time to crack the most confounding of unsolved French murders.
His daughter is nearly killed, Enzo is mugged - and then he is arrested. Someone is trying to destroy his character. Someone is framing him for murder.
Killers from the past will stop at nothing to halt Enzo, who must use all his forensic skills to solve the case - before they succeed.
Book 3 in the Enzo Files.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Peter Forbes
Duration: 13 hrs 7 mins
In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree.
A week later a famous art critic is viciously murdered in a nearby house.The deaths occurred more than seventy years apart.
Asked by a colleague to inspect the site of the former, forensics expert Enzo Macleod quickly finds himself embroiled in the investigation of the latter. Two extraordinary narratives are set in train - one historical, unfolding in the treacherous wartime years of Occupied France; the other contemporary, set in the autumn of 2020 as France re-enters Covid lockdown. And Enzo's investigations reveal an unexpected link between the murders - the Mona Lisa.
Book 7 in the Enzo Files.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Peter Forbes
Duration: 9 hrs 23 mins
A young meteorologist checking a mountain top weather station in Kinlochleven discovers the body of a missing man entombed in ice.
Cameron Brodie, a Glasgow detective, sets out on a hazardous journey to the isolated and ice-bound village. He has his own reasons for wanting to investigate a murder case so far from his beat.
Brodie must face up to the ghosts of his past and to a killer determined to bury forever the chilling secret that his investigation threatens to expose.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Rachel Atkins
Duration: 11 hrs 55 mins
Meet the Bright Young Things, the rabble-rousing hedonists of the 1920s whose treasure hunts were a media obsession. One such game takes place at the 18th birthday party of Pamela Mitford, but ends in tragedy as cruel, charismatic Adrian Curtis is pushed to his death from the church neighbouring the Mitford home.
The police quickly identify the killer as a maid, Dulcie. But Louisa Cannon, chaperone to the Mitford girls and a former criminal herself, believes Dulcie to be innocent, and sets out to clear the girl's name... all while the real killer may only be steps away.
Book 2 in the Mitford Murders series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Rachel Atkins
Duration: 9 hrs 42 mins
It's former lady's maid Louisa Cannon's wedding day, but the fantasy is shattered shortly after when she is approached by a secretive man asking her to spy on Diana Mitford - who is having an affair with the infamous Oswald Mosley - and her similarly fascist sister Unity.
Thus as summer 1933 dawns, Louisa finds herself accompanying the Mitfords on a glitzy cruise, full of the starriest members of Society. But the waters run red when a man is found attacked, with suspects everywhere.
Back in London, the case is taken by lawyer Tom Mitford, and Louisa finds herself caught between worlds: of a love lost to blood, a family divided and a country caught in conflict.
Book 4 in the Mitford Murders series.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Rachel Atkins
Duration: 10 hrs 16 mins
1937. War with Germany is dawning, and a civil war already raging in Spain. Split across political lines, the six Mitford sisters are more divided than ever. Meanwhile their former maid Louisa Cannon is now a private detective, working with her ex-policeman husband Guy Sullivan.
Louisa and Guy are surprised when a call comes in from novelist Nancy Mitford requesting that they look into the disappearance of her Communist sister Jessica, nicknamed Decca. It quickly becomes clear that Decca may have made for the war in Spain - and not alone.
As a second, separate missing person case is opened, Louisa and Guy discover that every marriage has its secrets - but some are more deadly than others...
Book 5 in the Mitford Murders series.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Rachel Atkins
Duration: 10 hrs 10 mins
It's 1941, and the Mitford household is splintered by the vicissitudes of war. To bring the clan together - maybe for one last time - Deborah invites them to Chatsworth for Christmas, along with a selection of society's most impressive and glamorous guests, as well as old family friend Louisa Cannon, a private detective.
One night, a psychic arrives, and to liven things up Deborah agrees she may host a séance. But entertainment turns to dark mystery as the psychic reveals that a maid was murdered in this very same house - and she can prove it.
Louisa steps forward to try to solve the cold case. But with a house full of people who want nothing more than to bury their secrets, will she be able to unmask the murderer? And how deep does the truth lie?
Book 6 in the Mitford Murders series.
- General Fiction
Read by: Miscellaneous
Duration: 11 hrs 35 mins
Max and Pip are the strongest couple you know. Only now they're facing the most important decision of their lives - and they don't agree.
With the consequences of an impossible choice threatening to devastate them both, nothing will ever be the same again.
But anything can happen after the end...
- General Fiction
Read by: Jilly Bond
Duration: 32 hrs 39 mins
There's nothing like the contentment and security that money can bring. That's how it is for Lucinda, Elizabeth and Flora, living the risk-free dream in the glittering eighties. Houses, holidays, happiness - everything is there for the taking.
The financial slide comes crashing into their lives with a vengeance, and everything they've built up so carefully dissolves into a pool of hopelessness, taking self-respect and relationships with it.
Now, the secrets will out and within a year, someone will be dead.
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Sandra Duncan
Duration: 28 hrs 26 mins
The House of Farrell - home of The Cream, an iconic face product that has seen women flocking to its bijoux flagship store in the Berkeley Arcade since 1953. The legendary Athina Farrell remains the company's figurehead while Florence Hamilton plies their cosmetics with the utmost discretion. She is sales advisor - and holder of secrets - extraordinaire.
But of course the world of cosmetics is changing and the once glorious House of Farrell is now in decline, its customers tempted away by more fashionable brands.
Enter Bianca Bailey, formidable business woman, mother of three, and someone who always gets her way...
- Love Stories
Read by: Katherine Press
Duration: 12 hrs 5 mins
Nick is the most intriguing man Nella has met in a while. He's a 9 in the looks department (no one gets a 10), he makes her laugh, and he keeps her company when she ends up in A&E. But they live hundreds of miles apart.
Then Nella loses her job. There's a perfect role on offer at a Cotswolds holiday retreat. The catch is that her boss would be Nick. And that makes Nick the one man she can't risk falling in love with.
Meanwhile a Hollywood star has found a haven at the retreat. Lizzie's sworn off people - especially men - until her friendly new neighbours entice her out of her shell. Maybe she needs a flirtation - with gorgeous Nick, perhaps? Not with taciturn local Matthew, though, who definitely isn't a member of her fan club.
- Love Stories
Read by: Dino Fetscher
Duration: 10 hrs 43 mins
2002. Danny arrives at Manchester University determined not to hide from the world any longer. This is the year his life will begin.
He locks eyes with a handsome stranger across the hall at the Fresher's Fair. It starts with a wink and soon Danny and Guy are best friends.
2022. Now, both single for the first time in years, Danny and Guy return to the confetti-covered streets of the Gay Village for Manchester Pride.
After years of shared adventures and lost dreams, Danny finally plans to share the secret he has been keeping for two decades. He has always been in love with Guy
Could this weekend be the end of a twenty-year friendship... or the start of something new and even more beautiful?
- Love Stories
Read by: Imogen Stubbs
Duration: 11 hrs 22 mins
Over the last few months, Connie's whole world has fallen apart. Her husband's run off with an older woman, the magazine she works for has gone bust and she's having to sell the family home. So when her beloved godmother begs her to help run the beautiful Château Villette, it couldn't come at a better time...
No one knows the château quite like Connie. She spent a blissful summer there in her twenties, learning to cook delicious French food for the guests, ironing the lavender-scented sheets - and trying to resist the very handsome neighbour, Remy.
As soon as she arrives, it's clear that the château is close to crumbling and Connie knows she's going to have her work cut out. Could it be the fresh start she didn't even know she needed?
- Historical Fiction
Read by: Simon Mattacks
Duration: 10 hrs 6 mins
Berlin. 1940. Hitler's rule casts a menacing shadow over the city. As the distant war moves closer, Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke fights to keep criminals off his patch. But he is walking a tightrope. If his secret relationship with a Jewish woman is exposed, his career will be over. And her fate will be far, far worse.
In Hitler's regime, Berlin's gangsters and pimps are more brazen than ever. When innocent victims are caught in the crossfire between warring gangs, Schenke wants the perpetrators punished. But Nazi party members with absolute power will do anything to protect their sleazy friends. They believe no one is incorruptible. All they need is to find out Schenke's secrets…
Will Schenke's relentless pursuit bring the criminals to justice - or is a deadly net closing around him from which it will be impossible to break free?
Book 3 in the CI Schenke series.
- Cosy Crime: Gentle Mysteries
Read by: Richard Coles
Duration: 8 hrs 29 mins
It's spring 1990, and in Champton the whole village is aflutter as a glamorous Hollywood movie has taken over Lord de Floures' Champton House as its set location.
As the actors and extras hired from the village don their farthingales, gowns and crowns for a masque set in the 1600s, a murder interrupts filming on set - and it's an ingenious one...
Can Daniel solve the mystery with help from his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Neil Vanloo - even when things are so sticky between them?
Book 4 in the Canon Clement series.
- Fantasy Stories
Read by: Andrew Wincott
Duration: 15 hrs
The Hayholt is besieged by the Norns. Once the home of their immortal brethren, the Sithi, now capital of the kingdom of men, the fabled castle is under attack. And as the world is distracted by this strike against humankind, the Norns' deathless witch-queen Utuk'ku turns towards the mysterious fateful valley called Tanakirú - the Vale of Mists.
Meanwhile, Queen Miriamele hurries to save the Hayholt and capture the treacherous noble Pasevalles, but arrives to discover the traitor has escaped.
And inside Tanakirú the bond between Prince Morgan and Nezeru, a renegade Norn, has become something deeper and stranger than either of them could have anticipated. They journey ever deeper to the heart of the valley's mystery and come face to face at last with the ancient secret that has kindled the Norn Queen's war…
Book 4 in The Last King of Osten Ard series.
- Fantasy Stories
Read by: Jack Hawkins
Duration: 11 hrs 45 mins
When a televangelist with connections to 10 Downing Street seems able to work miracles, the Laundry takes an interest. But an agency that answers to the Prime Minister can't spy on him themselves, and Bob Howard’s shadowy superiors come up with a compromise - they hire 'freelancers', with Bob in charge.
British citizens who discover the occult are either forcibly recruited by the Laundry or disposed of, and Bob's never heard of freelancers before. Officially they don't exist. Anyone who's big and bad enough to remain independent is going to be hard to handle, and Bob's not too sure that the one-week 'people management' course he was sent on in Milton Keynes is going to be enough…
Book 4 in the Laundry File series.
- Fantasy Stories
Read by: Jack Hawkins
Duration: 13 hrs 13 mins
Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as 'the Laundry'. When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess - and deal with the witnesses.
There's one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades, and that's vampires. Mention them to a seasoned agent and you'll be laughed out of the room.
But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf's most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm that leaves them fearing daylight and craving O positive, someone doesn't want the Laundry to know. And Bob gets caught right in the middle.
Book 5 in the Laundry Files series.
- Fantasy Stories
Read by: Caroline Guthrie
Duration: 14 hrs 51 mins
Dr Mo O'Brien is an intelligence agent at the top secret government agency known as 'the Laundry'.
But the Laundry is recovering from a devastating attack and when average citizens all over the country start to develop supernatural powers, the police are called in to help. Mo is appointed as official police liaison, but in between dealing with police bureaucracy, superpowered members of the public and disgruntled politicians, Mo discovers to her horror that she can no longer rely on her marriage, nor on the weapon that has been at her side for eight years of undercover work, the possessed violin known as 'Lecter'.
If this wasn't bad enough, a mysterious figure known as Dr Freudstein is committing heists and sending increasingly threatening messages to the police. Who is Freudstein and what is he planning?
Book 6 in the Laundry Files series.
- Thrillers
Read by: Nadia Clifford
Duration: 6 hrs
Bright, promising Emma is entangled in a toxic romance with her old professor - and she's losing control.
Cruel, charming Tom is idolized by his students and peers - confident he holds all the cards.
In their small Oxford home, he manipulates and undermines her every thought and act. Soon, he will push her to the limit and she must decide: to remain quiet and submit, or to take her revenge.
- Science Fiction
Read by: Miscellaneous
Duration: 8 hrs 30 mins
Over 100 generations, Mia's family has shaped Earth's history to push humanity to the stars, making brutal, wrenching choices along the way.
And now Mia finds herself about to help launch the first people into space. She can't take them to the stars, not quite yet. But with her adversary almost upon her, and with the future of the planet at stake, it's becoming clearer that obeying the First Rule is no longer an option.
For the first time since her line's first generation, Mia will have to choose to stand her ground, knowing that the overwhelming odds mean that she risks not only her bloodline, but also the future of the human race.
- Detective & Mystery Stories
Read by: Aurora Dawson-Hunte and Taj Atwall
Duration: 10 hrs 30 mins
Lauren, Kat and Flora are half-sisters who share a famous artist father - and a terrible secret.
Over the years they've grown into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where they once sat for their father's most celebrated painting, Girls and Birdcage, reunites them.
Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the events of the summer - twenty years before - that the family daren't discuss. And there is someone in the shadows watching their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting - and what they did.
- Plays Theatre & Dance
Read by: Miscellaneous
Duration: 4 hrs 30 mins
One of the great Jacobean playwrights and a contemporary of William Shakespeare, John Webster is best known for his classic revenge tragedies based on real events in Renaissance Italy, The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. Both are included here, along with two insightful programmes putting the plays in their historical context, and probing the life of their mysterious author - a shadowy character about whom very little is known.