Showing results by narrator "Shelley Atkinson" in All Categories

Molly and Andrew are just trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays when a freak snowstorm grounds their flight. As the snow falls over the city and over the heads of two friends who are sure they’re not meant to be together, the universe might just have a plan of its own.

From best-selling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed historical and contemporary commercial novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and complex near-future thriller combining history, science, magic, mystery, intrigue, and adventure that questions the very foundations of the modern world.

When grandmother Maureen Phelan is surprised in her home by a stranger, she clubs the intruder with a Holy Stone. The consequences of this unplanned murder connect four misfits struggling against their meager circumstances. Ryan is a fifteen-year-old drug dealer desperate not to turn out like his alcoholic father, Tony, whose feud with his next-door neighbor threatens to ruin his family. Georgie is a sex worker who half-heartedly joins a born-again movement to escape her profession and drug habit.

Emily Feeney has always loved the festive season, so when she invites some of her favourite people to Christmas dinner at her restaurant, she has an afternoon of delicious fare and seasonal fun in mind. But as the big day draws near, her plans start to look a bit uncertain. Her partner Bill is preoccupied by family worries, and both he and Emily have been skirting around a big unanswered question. When events finally force Emily to issue an ultimatum, Bill must choose between the two women he loves.

Arriving in Sandy Cove to views of the shimmering ocean, Tara O’Rourke is excited to get to work. She’s been sent from New York City to take photos of Ireland for a travel magazine, and she knows the perfect area to visit: the mysterious, picturesque Wild Rose Bay. Staying in her sister Kate’s sweet little cottage, the long nights and beach strolls inspire Tara. But Kate isn’t pleased with Tara’s assignment: She doesn’t want the untouched beauty of the area spoiled by tourists. And she encounters more opposition from Kate’s handsome friend Mick O’Dwyer.

Though they come from the same small Irish village, lonely widow Ruby and struggling single mother Frankie couldn’t be more different. Then they discover the Moonlight Gardening Club, founded to remind its members that even on the darkest of nights, beauty and light can still be found. As they plant flowers chosen specially to be enjoyed under a carpet of stars in the gentle glow of moonlight, an unexpected friendship starts to bloom – and it might be just what each of them needs. But when shocking secrets from the past are revealed, both their worlds are turned upside down.

Tristan Lyons, Mel Stokes, and their fellow outcasts from the Department of Diachronic Operations (D.O.D.O.) fight to stop the powerful Irish witch Gráinne from using time travel to reverse the evolution of all modern technology. Chief amongst Gráinne’s plots: to encrypt cataclysmic spells into Shakespeare’s “cursed” play, Macbeth. When her fellow rogue agents fall victim to Gráinne’s schemes, Melisande Stokes is forced to send Tristan’s untested, wayward sister Robin back in time to 1606 London.

Charged with drama and beauty, this memorable collection by a master storyteller weaves a magical world of possibility and power from female myths of physical renewal, creation and change. It is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, Sharon Blackie brings to life women's remarkable ability to transform themselves in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances.

When her adorable baby brother is replaced by an ugly, ill-tempered changeling, Mollie is determined to find the so-called Kinde Folke who took baby Thomas, return the changeling she calls Guest, and make them give Thomas back. Natural and magical obstacles and her own reckless temperament make her journey arduous and full of dangers, and a plot rich in surprises and twists makes this book a must-listen for Mary Downing Hahn’s fans.

When Anna Crowe is killed in her sleep alongside her children, the quiet local community of Corbally is shocked. It’s also a chilling reminder of when her sister, Janey, disappeared as a baby, 29 years ago, never to be seen again. Detective Iris Locke is assigned to the case, and, after a year undercover which ended in failure when her cover got blown, she’s desperate to make her mark - and to live up to the reputation of her ex-cop father, the former head of the Limerick Murder Squad.

I planned the perfect vacation. But now my son is missing. Everyone believes my husband Donovan and I have it all—a loving marriage, two adorable children and the dream house. But beneath the surface of our enviable American lifestyle lies a secret that binds us tighter than our vows.

Like all 20-year-olds, Ryan Cusack is trying to get his head around who he is. This is not a good time for his boss to exploit his dual heritage by opening a new black market route from Italy to Ireland. It is certainly not a good time for his adored girlfriend to decide he's irreparably corrupted. And he really wishes he hadn't accidentally caught the eye of an ornery grandmother who fancies herself his saviour.

Death is no stranger to Detective Chief Superintendent Frankie Sheehan, but she isn’t the only one from her small, coastal suburb to be intimately acquainted with it. Years ago, teenager Seán Hennessey shocked the tight-knit community when he was convicted of the brutal murder of his parents and attempted slaying of his sister, though he always maintained his innocence. Now, Seán is finally being released from prison - but when his newfound freedom coincides with the discovery of two bodies, the alleged connection between the cases only serves to pull Frankie further from answers.

As the tears roll down my cheeks, I’m shaking as I stare at the faded newspaper photograph of my beloved father. In one moment, my world has been turned upside down. I’m already exhausted by grief, I’m not thinking straight, shattered by his death. But finding this old photograph could change everything I thought I knew about who I am… A shiver runs through me as the idea that my life is not what it seems begins to take hold. My younger sisters are so different to me, so calm and perfect. I’ve never fitted into this family; I’ve never belonged.

This is the story of George and Alice, two lonely hearts unknowingly orbiting each other's lives. But will their paths converge—and what will happen if they do?

On a lonely cliff beside the vast blue sea there is a house. In the house there lives a girl, and in the girl there lives a dream. Soon she'll be as free as the fishes that swim beneath the water. But until then she bides her time and lives quietly, her every move ruled over by an uncaring, heartless stepmother. The hope for freedom is all she has to hold onto. So close she can almost taste it. But when her stepmother’s estranged younger brother comes to stay, he presents a mystery that lures her in.

When Chef Emily is left at the altar in front of her family and friends, she swears off love and instead throws herself into her new business: a restaurant with a difference. There's only one communal table, designed with the single diner in mind. Now it's two years later, and with her business thriving with regular customers, romance is still the last thing on Emily's mind - until she receives a letter from her ex who is returning home from Canada with a burning question for her....

A riveting and though-provoking read, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Kerry Lonsdale and Carolyn Brown, from the best-selling author of The Missing Wife. What do you do when the man in your life lets you down? Show him the door? Chuck his clothes out of the window? Cut the crotch from his trousers? If only it was that easy - especially when you've got an eight-year-old daughter to think about and a part-time job that barely pays the milk bill.

In the early 1980s, The Diamonds - Ireland's trailblazing all-woman rock band - were on the brink of international success. Their debut single 'Too Much Not Enough' was soaring the British charts. Then, as suddenly as they'd arrived, they vanished. It was the last anyone would hear of songwriter, guitarist and legend-in-the-making Birdy Troy. Stacey Nash, host of the popular podcast 'Whatever Happened To...?', becomes fascinated with the band that broke up before she was born. And as problems mount in her own life, Stacey is drawn deeper into unravelling the mystery.

The ocean covers seventy per cent of the surface of our planet, and two thirds of this lie beyond national borders. Owned by all nations and no nation simultaneously, these waters are home to some of the richest and most biodiverse environments on the planet. But they are also home to atrocities beyond most of our imaginations. Here, out of sight and often out of mind, industry and economic progress rule and lax enforcement and apathy are the status quo, underscored by a battle to control, profit from, protect, or obliterate the world's largest, wildest commons.