Showing results by narrator "Eve Karpf" in All Categories

Creakie Hall is falling down but there is no money in the bank so Aunt Gardenia Bogey-Mandeville needs to come up with a money making scheme pretty quickly or she and her niece and nephew will be out on the streets. It seems unlikely that opening the Hall as a hotel will be very successful, especially when the first guests through the door are two stuffy, fussy hotel inspectors, but with the 'help' of a pair of ancient ghosts who float down from the attic, all is not lost.

Bennett may not be the best school in the world - but it's theirs. And Barny, Spag and Clipper certainly don't want to get sent off to snobby King's Road School instead. So when Bennett School is threatened with demolition, the three friends draw up a plan of campaign to save it. But everything they do seems to go disastrously and hilariously wrong...

When most of Maggie Jordan’s family are killed in a freak flood in the small coastal village of Heymouth, she is forced to find work in one of Glasgow’s carpet mills. She becomes engaged to Nevil Sanderson, who suddenly decides he must go to Spain and join the Republicans in their fight against Franco. Although she struggles on without him, Maggie eventually realises her place is by his side and journeys to Spain to join him. But the newly promoted Nevil has become distant and ruthless, and is fiercely jealous of her new friendship with American journalist Howard Taft.

It is May 1926. Glasgow is crippled by the General Strike and the future looks bleak for John Forsyth. Made redundant from his factory job and with no prospect of employment, he and his family only hold together through the determination of his ambitious wife, Madge. Even though this means a dramatic move to the farthest reaches of England - to Devon.As the family begin a new life in the village of Atherton, their fortunes change.

The first time Jessie laid her eyes on Tommy McBride was in July 1947, when they were still at school - and long before she knew anything about heartbreak or pain. Then she was the sheltered, dreamy minister’s daughter, determined to take a bite out of life. And he was the fighter from the wrong side of the tracks, hell-bent on proving himself in the world. They had nothing in common, separate destinies. But in 1947 the world was about to move into new decades of turbulence and change - and it was only the fighters and the dreamers who would make it theirs….

The fourth story featuring the madcap ten-year-old, Flossie Teacake. Her older sister's magic fur coat transforms Flossie into Floz, a teenager who can go anywhere and do anything - including buying a lottery ticket and winning a million pounds.

When Katie's sister, Gillian, announces that she is marrying the appalling Christopher, Katie is horrified. When she realises she will have to be a bridesmaid, she feels sick! She is to have a boring teacher for a brother-in-law, and she'll have to wear a frilly blue dress.... Katie's promise to be on her best behaviour at the wedding goes horribly wrong as she tumbles headlong into the wedding cake before the celebrations have even begun.

Katie thinks looking after a baby will be easy. But after Emily has covered herself in sticky golden syrup, newspaper print, scrambled egg, a few leaves and plenty of boot polish, Katie has changed her mind! And a week in a holiday camp sounds awful to Katie she’s sure she’ll be bored stiff! But then she meets Antonia, whose family wins all the competitions, and suddenly Katie finds lots of opportunities for her family to show off their talents!

Star Spooks: Hollywood has come to Creakie Hall! But is Chubby Cellophane really a world-famous director or is he a fake? Once again, the family ghosts, Miasma and Marmaduke, come to the rescue with some out-of-this-world special effects. Funky Phantoms:
Ghost hunters have arrived at Creakie Hall! Miasma and Marmaduke are sure they're imposters who are up to no good....

Anne Kingsmill was born in April 1661 (an exact date is not known) in Sydmonton, Hampshire. Throughout her life, Anne was involved in several Court cases that dragged on for years. These involved both a share of her parent’s estate for her education and later her and her husband’s share of an inheritance. In 1682, Anne became a maid of honour to Mary of Modena (wife of James, Duke of York, and later King James II) at St James’ Palace. Anne's interest in poetry began at the palace, and she started writing her own verse.

In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. This volume is dedicated to one such recognised master of the short story, namely Katherine Mansfield, whose innovative stream of consciousness and symbolic narrative style profoundly influenced Virginia Woolf. She was born on 14th October 1888 into a prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand, the middle child of five. A gifted cellist who at one point considered taking it up professionally, her first attempts at writing were published in school magazines.

Able to write comfortably in a number of genres, HG Wells was especially applauded for his science fiction works such as The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, but his forays into the social conditions of the times, with classics such as Kipps, were almost as commercially successful. His short stories are miniature masterpieces, many of which bring new and incredible ideas of science fiction to the edge of present-day science fact. Wells also received four nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

As a poetical movement, Georgian poetry is easy to classify. It began naturally enough in 1910, when George V ascended to the throne of England. Edward Marsh, a civil servant, polymath and arts patron, decided that the verse of that time needed to be seen in its own right and from 1912-1922 set out to publish anthologies. Marsh agreed a deal with the poet and bookseller Harold Munro, who had recently opened The Poetry Bookshop in London’s Devonshire Street to publish the books in return for a share of the profits.

The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected, their talents endure. Among them is one of the first published female poets, Anne Bradstreet. Born in England, she moved to America in her early years, and from there her poetic legacy spread to other continents.

Sheila Beattie knew exactly what her future would be. She would marry her sweetheart Eric, a fisherman like her father, and they would raise their family and dream their simple dreams in the village in which they’d been born. Her life lay before her, happy, safe and secure. But she was sixteen - and about to discover in this world there is nothing certain but change. After all, no one and nothing can be trusted - except the voice of your own heart...

We begin with one of Hardy’s best regarded stories, 'The Fiddler of the Reels'. Here Hardy exposes a supernatural and demonic theme, against a realistic and historical background of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the first trains. A typical Wessex girl is gripped by the power of music and dance when a lone fiddler casts his spell on her, causing her cloying but plain suitor to leave suddenly for London.

An essential for life. Without it life is impossible. Was it always that way? In this volume of stories, water becomes the landscape and narrative, a character more deadly and perhaps more aware of its power than us mere mortals. We are beguiled by its sight, whether softly breaking waves on a sandy beach or a thunderous storm engulfing the cliff face. But also in other forms; as lakes and lagoons. Water is everywhere, and where there is water is the shadow of menace.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.