Showing results by narrator "Nneka Okoye" in All Categories

What is it like to be spring cleaned? Find out in this tragicomic tale about a self-absorbed Hair Spider, an anxious Fluff Ball and a friendly Dust Bunny. The perilous journey of these three friends is sure to suck you in.

Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior? These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from listening to Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them. But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute.

Marca Nbaro had always dreamed of serving aboard the Greatships, with their vast cargo holds and a crew that could fill a city. They are the lifeblood of human-occupied space, transporting an unimaginable volume - and value - of goods from City, the greatest human orbital, all the way to Tradepoint at the other, to trade for xenoglas with an unknowable alien species. And now, out in the darkness of space, something is targeting them.

Solari—children with superpowers—have always been native to Nigeria, but Onyeka and her friends have been alerted to one hidden in England. Tasked with retrieving the young Solari, they successfully complete their mission, arriving safe and sound back at the Academy of the Sun with Tobi in tow. Tobi’s identity and superpower remain a mystery, until a breadcrumb trail leads Onyeka to the truth. But someone else has uncovered the secret, and unlike Onyeka, they don’t have Tobi’s best interests at heart. Can our superhero save the day once again?

City girl Tia Solanké is dreading the festive season. She and her boyfriend are on a break and the last thing she wants is to spend Christmas away from London. Dragged to Saiyan Hedge Farm by her mother, Tia takes an instant dislike to the countryside estate. She falls in horse manure, is chased by sheep and the Wi-Fi sucks. How can she stalk her ex and concoct a foolproof plan to win him back from here?

When Gozie and Obianuju meet in August 1978, it is nothing short of fate. He is the perfect man: charismatic, handsome, Christian and—most importantly—Igbo. He reminds her of her beloved Uncle Ikenna, her mother’s brother who disappeared fighting in the Civil War that devastated Nigeria less than a decade before. It is why, when Gozie asks her to marry him within months of meeting, she says yes, despite her lingering and uncertain feelings for Akin—a man her mother would never accept, as his tribe fought on the other side of the war.

Nice Leng`ete was raised in a Maasai village in Kenya. In 1998, when Nice was six, her parents fell sick and died, and Nice and her sister, Soila, were taken in by their father’s brother, who had little interest in the girls beyond what their dowries might fetch. Fearing “the cut” (female genital mutilation, a painful and sometimes deadly ritualistic surgery), which was the fate of all Maasai women, Nice and Soila climbed a tree to hide.

Everybody knows that in 1938, runaway heiress artist Juliette Willoughby perished in an accidental studio fire in Paris, alongside her masterpiece Self Portrait As Sphinx. Fifty years later, two Cambridge art history students are confounded when they stumble across proof that the fire was no accident but something more sinister. What they uncover threatens the very foundation of Juliette’s aristocratic family and revives rumors of the infamous curse that has haunted the Willoughbys for generations. But what does their discovery mean? And how is it connected to a murder in present-day Dubai?

Every morning is the same for Eliza: she swims in Hampstead Ponds, diving into her memories, reliving the heady days of her teenage friendship with Eric and Maggie. The obsession, the adoration, and the sense of belonging she always craved was perfect, until everything was destroyed in a single afternoon. With guilt never far from the surface, she still asks herself: what really happened that day?

We begin with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago. From here, Montefiore takes us on an exhilarating epic journey through the families that have shaped our world: the Caesars, Medicis and Incas, Ottomans and Mughals, Bonapartes, Habsburgs and Zulus, Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Krupps, Churchills, Kennedys, Castros, Nehrus, Pahlavis and Kenyattas, Saudis, Kims and Assads.

A high-born Nigerian goddess, who has been beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover, longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether she should uphold her family’s politics or be true to her heart. In her debut collection, internationally acclaimed writer Bolu Babalola retells the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology with incredible new detail and vivacity.

Normal Women is a radical retelling of our nation’s story – not of the rise and fall of kings and the occasional queen – but of social and cultural change, powered by the determination, persistence and effectiveness of women – from 1066 to modern times. Did women really do nothing to shape England’s culture and traditions in nine centuries of turmoil, plague, famine, religious reform and the rise of empire and industry?

A century ago, scientists theorised that a habitable planet existed in a nearby solar system. Today, 10 astronauts will leave a dying Earth to find it. Four are decorated veterans of the 20th century’s space race. And six are teenagers, graduates of the exclusive Dalton Academy, who’ve been in training for this mission for most of their lives. It will take the team 23 years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years spent in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no-one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong.

Early 1900s London: Taken from his homeland, twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of the time locked away in the attic of a large house by the sea. The only time Celestine isn’t bound by confines of the small space is when he is acting as an unpaid servant to English explorer Sir Richard Babbington, As the years pass, he desperately clings on to memories of his family in Africa, even as he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name . . .

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families let alone raise them. But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality tv show.

A Broken People’s Playlist is set to the soundtrack of life, comprised of twelve music-inspired tales about love, the human condition, micro-moments, and the search for meaning and sometimes, redemption. It is also Chimeka Garricks’s love letter to his native city, Port Harcourt, introducing us to a cast of indelible characters in these loosely interlocked tales.

Following the events of Artifact Space, the galaxy continues to change and expand. Frontiers are challenged and what was once a safe space becomes contested, hostile, and unpredictable. From normal people caught up in the unstoppable machinations of politics and war, to spies faced with making the ultimate sacrifice for their nations, these stories follow the DHC as it faces a challenge to everything it holds dear - human rights, fairness and equality. When a rogue system questions their values and power, how can they stay true to their beliefs and protect their citizens?

Everyone says falling in love is supposed to be easy. But what happens when you meet the perfect man…in your dreams? Especially when you find out he was real and died one year ago–on the bridge you had agreed to meet on for your first date. Wouldn’t you try to go back in time and change the course of destiny to create your very own happy-ever-after? But the path to true love is never without complications, and meddling with the past can have unexpected consequences…

Onyeka and her superhero friends are on the run. Having exposed head teacher Dr. Dòyìnbó’s hidden agenda behind the Academy of the Sun, they’re living as fugitives, laying low as they try to figure out their next move. Despite their best efforts, Onyeka’s parents are still missing, and students at the Academy are still in danger. But when their safe house is discovered, Onyeka must turn to the only allies they have left: a group of rebels called the rogues. Joining forces, will the groups defeat their shared nemesis, or is there a new danger on the horizon?