Showing results by narrator "Stanley McGeagh" in All Categories

When eccentric Young Master Rourke dies in suspicious circumstances, troubletwisters Jack and Jaide are sent on a mission by their father to retrieve a lost Golden Card from somewhere within the vast Rourke estate. But secret agents for The Evil are also in pursuit of the card, and the troubletwister twins know that whoever finds it first will gain access to a Gift more powerful or terrible than any other.

Pigsticks and Harold set off on a journey to the Ends of the Earth armed only with a sense of adventure (Pigsticks'), common sense (Harold's), and a lot of cake. They pick their way through jungles, trek across deserts, and climb a huge mountain, but the Ends of the Earth are always just out of reach. When their last crumb of cake is stolen and it doesn't look like they'll ever make it home again, they finally find the Ends of the Earth - in the last place they'd ever think to look.

With an autobiographical foreword from the author, this collection traces Dick King-Smith's journey from boy to farmer, from soldier to favourite children's author - always in the company of his irrepressible animal friends. From Dodo the film-star Daschund to a cabbage-eating shark; from a night of badger-biffing to a tortie cat with 104 kittens; from the cat who thinks he s one of the dogs to a dog who fosters orphaned kittens...wherever Dick King-Smith goes, curious animals are sure to follow.

Long ago, in the cold lands of the North, there lived a troll named Ulf who had a very bad habit he liked to eat fingers! Many, many men, women and children had found their hands a finger short thanks to the razor-sharp teeth of the Finger-eater. And who knows how many more might have suffered the same fate if it hadn't been for the actions of a resolute girl called Gudrun!

When Mr. Tipkins, a gift-giver from the Department of Wishes of Faerie, arrives to give a wish to a newborn baby in the village of Widdershins, he isn't in the best of moods. His uncharacteristic burst of bad temper begins a chain reaction that has consequences no one can foresee. The Truth About Magic is a story of mistakes and of deception, of wizards (good and bad), and of what happens when perfectly ordinary wishes go wrong.

It's not easy having a younger brother, William finds. Especially one like Charlie who shows off, asks a million questions, and will say "absolutely" all the time. But when Charlie is in trouble, William is the first to come to the rescue. After all, they are friends and brothers.

Pigsticks and Harold travel through time in the fourth book of Alex Milway's hilarious series. When Pigsticks wants to win first prize at the Tuptown Science Fair, there's only one place to look for help - the future! But his rusty time machine is hard to control and soon Pigsticks and Harold are landing in trouble all throughout history. Will they make it home, or be lost in time...forever?

There's a thief on the loose in Tuptown, and the annual Butterfly Ball will be cancelled unless someone is brought to justice. Luckily Pigsticks has crime fighting in his blood and a magnifying glass in his hand. Will Detective Pigsticks and his keen-eyed assistant, Harold, solve the crime? And can they do it in time to save the Butterfly Ball?

Pigsticks and Harold embark on a pirate adventure in the third book of the hilarious Pigsticks and Harold series.

Disaster strikes when Pigsticks' old enemy, Sir Percival Snout, turns up in Tuptown and claims the whole town belongs to him. Pigsticks and Harold need to raise a fortune to buy it back - and fast. Luckily, Pigsticks' great-great-grandpig was a pirate, and his buried treasure has never been found.

Clair-de-Lune has lived all her life with her grandmother at the top of a very tall, very old building. Her mother, a ballerina, died on stage when Clair-de-Lune was a baby. Ever since that day, she has not uttered a word. Then she meets tiny, brave Bonaventure (a talking dancer-mouse) who takes her to the monastery hidden in a secret fold of Clair-de-Lune's apartment building. Magical, whimsical and delightful, this wonderful story will entertain readers of all ages from eight to 80!

Furious about his banishment from Faerie, Rathalorn's one aim is to go back and wreak his revenge. To do this he needs something he no longer has: powerful magic. He finds what he is looking for in the Magical Twins, a pair of mysterious young fairground wizards. But with great power comes great danger.

Aristotle is a bold little cat who is always getting himself into danger. He lives with a good witch called Bella Donna who thinks he'll make a proper witch's cat one day – if he can live long enough. Like all cats, Aristotle has nine lives – and he needs every single one of them.

Charles Parnell Cassidy is a powerful politician. Martin Gregory is his disenchanted protégé, who, having married Cassidy's daughter and become a success on his own terms, scorns his father-in-law. When the terminally ill Cassidy arrives in London to die, he makes Gregory the executor of his will and sets a complex trap by offering him the keys to a vast empire of wealth and corruption, spanning Australia and Southeast Asia.

Derrick "Taffy" Rees was a 12-year-old Welsh boy when he saw a newspaper advertisement which offered children a free passage to Australia. So in 1938 Derrick set sail for Australia, with his mother's permission, and took along his two young sisters - aged eight and ten. Derrick "Taffy" Rees is now 75, and he tells his story in By Then I Was Thirteen.

His best-selling books are violent, terrifying, brilliantly written and have sold millions of copies around the world, but Stieg Larsson was not there to witness any of their international success.That his fame is entirely posthumous demonstrates the dizzying speed with which his star has risen. However, when one looks a little deeper at the man behind these phenomenal novels, it becomes clear that Larsson’s life would have been remembered as extraordinary, even if his Millennium trilogy had never been published.

In 1839, John Harrington voyages 12,000 miles from Ireland into the unknown to take up a sheep-run in the southern regions of Australia. From a distinguished family of Anglo-Irish aristocrats who have fallen on hard times, the youngest son has been sent to the remotest part of the world to make his fortune. For 20 years, Harrington prospers, but he is plagued by a sense of dislocation and loneliness in a hostile place. When he is joined by his drunken brother and married sister, tragedy and violence ensue.

"Isn’t he e-nor-mous!" says the giant father when his first twin son is born. "There’s a-lot-uv-’im!" notes the giant mother when the second twin boy arrives. And as Normus (a vegetarian) and Lottavim (a carnivore) grow and grow, the two are hugely happy - playing Roll the Boulder, singing badly, and doing everything together: waking up, going to sleep, even sneezing. So when they reach the age of 20 and the height of 12 feet, it's not surprising that they each think the same thought at exactly the same time: "It's about time I found a wife!"

Bryn and his family have just moved to a new house by the lake. The area is beautiful, teeming with wildlife. But soon there are scars on the landscape where the houses are being built - bulldozers tear at the earth, the sound of machinery rends the air. Once again the Min Min stirs.... And this time it has chosen Bryn.

The parping pantpiper is on the rampage in Pete's classroom. This stinky little ickimal must be stopped and fast! Binko the alien and Pete are back in their second adventure, and this time it's a tale of killer wedgies, mouse sausages, and pants aplenty. The second in this super-fun series, at the heart of which is the friendship between a human boy and an alien child who share a passion for mischief and a talent for causing havoc.

John Ross is a heartbeat away from the American presidency. The darling of the Right, his meteoric rise to the top seems unstoppable...until FBI agents Stephanie Martin and Mark Elliott come across information connecting him to a shadowy group of right-wing extremists with links going back to the medieval Knights Templar and Richard I of England. As their investigation deepens, Stephanie and Mark reveal an association prepared to ally itself with organised crime, infiltrate secret services, and bolster right-wing religious and nationalist groups in its quest for power.