Showing results by narrator "Jerome Pride" in All Categories

Witches only exist in stories. Everyone knows that. But what if the stories are real? FOUR FRIENDS. FOUR TRUTHS. ONE NIGHTMARE. If you wander into the wood . If you hear scratching sounds from the Old Quarry . If you go too close to the edge . WATCH. OUT...

Charity Mupanga, the resilient and maternal proprietor of Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot) faces her toughest challenge in Dizzy Worms, the final novel in Michael Holman’s acclaimed trilogy set in the African slum of Kireba. Faced with a Health and Safety closure, Charity has a week to appeal and the chances of success seem negligible: elections are imminent, and Kireba is due to become a showcase of President Josiah Nduka's "slum rehabilitation program", backed by gullible foreign donors.

In 1945 two returning soldiers meet on a train bound for Zululand. They have nothing in common: Joe King is a British-South African landowner; Wilson Mpande a Zulu tribesman. Yet destiny will link them for generations. Michael King and Dyson Mpande, the sons of enemies, share a precious friendship that defies race and colour. But as the realities of apartheid transform an angry South Africa, the fate of the Zulu nation is as precarious as that of the endangered black rhinoceros, hunted for its horn. Each must fight for what he loves most.

John Franklin always wanted to be a sailor. As a volunteer in the Royal Navy at age fourteen, he found himself in the Battle of Copenhagan, but nothing could prepare him for the adventure of a lifetime, when he set off in 1801 with his cousin Matthew Flinders on HMS Investigator as it sought to chart the first circumnavigation of Australia. Taking on responsibility for the chronometers, under the jealous eye of Flinders' younger brother, the young midshipman found all the action, adventure and excitement he'd hoped for in his new life at sea.

Charity Mupanga is the widowed owner of Harrods International Bar (and Nightspot) - a favourite meeting place for the movers and shakers of Kibera. Well-meant but inept efforts to foil the lawyers who are sending her threatening letters are made by Edward Furniver, a former fund manager who runs Kibera's co-operative bank and who seeks Charity's hand in marriage, bring Harrods International Bar to the brink of disaster, and Charity close to despair.

Cal's got this thing about fire. It's nothing big at first, just lighting matches, watching matches burn, enjoying the calming effects of the flame... It helps him cope with stuff. Then he meets Abby, and things start to get out of control. She winds him up, playing with him until he thinks he might lose his santiy, and suddenly the matches just aren't enough anymore.

Eleven-year-old Novi just wants to blend in - not easy when you're named after a silkworm and have the most eccentric family in town. A descendent of the first Italian silk growers in northern New South Wales, he is an obsessive artist with a habit of drawing the stories of the people around him, and a secret conviction that the river murdered his grandfather. Young teacher Dom Best is new in town and must overcome his lack of confidence to support Novi's talent.

Ferdinand Mlambo, the youngest boy ever to become senior kitchen toto at State House, is in deep trouble. Disloyalty to Kuwisha's Life President Nduka has not only cost him his prestigious job: the sinister chief steward to the president, Lovemore Mboga, has humiliated Mlambo by stripping him of his name. Word goes out: henceforth, he will be known as Fatboy. But with the help of Titus Ntoto, leader of the notorious Mboya Boys gang of street children, Mlambo sets out on a quest to recover his name and dignity.

Fires light the sky over Kibera - East Africa's largest slum. It is the prelude to the bloody violence that erupts during Kenya's presidential elections. Joshua Otieng is caught between the brutal realities of life in the slum, and his dream of a return to the glories of his ancestral past. Mayasa is a young woman he believes could share his dreams, but he becomes inexorably swept along in the tide of tribal conflict surrounding the upcoming elections.

Hedley Hopkins has a few problems: he is the new kid at school, straight off the boat from England in the 1950s. The only friends he has made are the kids at the Loony Bin. But if he could just fulfill a dare and dig out the hideous skull hidden in a grave in the sand dunes, he could impress the bullies at school and become their friend. But Hedley is not so sure. Weird things are happening to his body. Is he being punished for his terrible actions?