Narrator

Helen Lloyd

Helen Lloyd
  • London, 1866. Dr. Barnabus Milligan has always felt called to help people, whether that means setting a broken bone or rescuing the impoverished women of London from their desperate lives on the streets, as part of his work with the Dread Penny Society.

    Three years ago, he helped rescue Gemma Kincaid by secretly marrying her to protect her from her family of notorious grave robbers. But six months after Gemma and Barnabus exchanged vows, she realized her love for her new husband was unrequited. To protect her heart, she left, telling Barnabus to contact her if his feelings for her ever grew beyond a sense of duty.

    When Barnabus sends a letter to Gemma inviting her to return home, she hopes to find a true connection between them. But unfortunately, he only wants her help to foil the Kincaids, who have been terrorizing the boroughs of London, eager to gain both money and power.

    Heartbroken, Gemma agrees to help, but she warns Barnabus that she will not stay for long and that once she goes, he will never see her again.

    Yet as the couple follows the clues that seem to connect the Kincaids to the Mastiff, the leader of London’s criminal network, Gemma and Barnabus realize they might make a better match than either of them suspected. Perhaps the marriage that had once saved Gemma’s life might now save Barnabus―and his lonely heart.

    But before the once-confirmed bachelor can properly court his secret bride, they will need to evade the dangerous forces that are drawing ever closer to the hopeful lovers and the entire Dread Penny Society itself.

  • A snowy Christmas gathering on an island off the Cornish coast goes murderously wrong in this festive Golden Age mystery.

    December 1938, and storm clouds hover once again over Europe. Josephine Tey and Archie Penrose gather with friends for a Cornish Christmas, but two strange and brutal deaths on St. Michael’s Mount—and the unexpected arrival of a world famous film star, in need of sanctuary—interrupt the festivities. Cut off by the sea and a relentless blizzard, the hunt for a murderer begins.

    Pivoting on a real moment in history, the ninth novel in the Josephine Tey series draws on all the much-loved conventions of the Golden Age Christmas mystery, while giving them the contemporary twist which has come to distinguish the books so far.

  • A thrilling history of MI9—the WWII organization that engineered the escape of Allied forces from behind enemy lines

    When Allied fighters were trapped behind enemy lines, one branch of military intelligence helped them escape: MI9. The organization set up clandestine routes that zigzagged across Nazi-occupied Europe, enabling soldiers and airmen to make their way home. Secret agents and resistance fighters risked their lives and those of their families to hide the men.

    Drawing on declassified files and eye-witness testimonies from across Europe and the United States, Helen Fry provides a significant reassessment of MI9’s wartime role. Central to its success were figures such as Airey Neave, Jimmy Langley, Sam Derry, and Mary Lindell, who was one of only a few women parachuted into enemy territory for MI9. This astonishing account combines escape and evasion tales with the previously untold stories behind the establishment of MI9—and reveals how the organization saved thousands of lives.

  • New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens immerses you in the simple joys of a long-ago country-village Christmas, featuring a grandmother, her grandchildren, her unwed son, a determined not-so-young lady, foreign diplomats, undercover guards, and agents of Napoleon.

    At Hartington Manor in the village of Little Moseley, Therese, Lady Osbaldestone, and her household are once again enjoying the company of her intrepid grandchildren, Jamie, George, and Lottie, when they are unexpectedly joined by her ladyship’s youngest and still-unwed son, also the children’s favorite uncle, Christopher.

    As the Foreign Office’s master intelligencer, Christopher has been ordered into hiding until the department can appropriately deal with the French agent spotted following him in London. Christopher chose to seek refuge in Little Moseley because it’s such a tiny village that anyone without a reason to be there stands out. Neither he nor his office-appointed bodyguard expect to encounter any dramas.

    Then Christopher spots a lady from London he believes has been hunting him with matrimonial intent. He can’t understand how she tracked him to the village, but determined to avoid her, he enlists the children’s help. The children discover their information-gathering skills are in high demand, and while engaging with the villagers as they usually do and taking part in the village’s traditional events, they do their best to learn what Miss Marion Sewell is up to.

    But upon reflection, Christopher realizes it’s unlikely the Marion he was so attracted to years before has changed all that much, and he starts to wonder if what she wants to tell him is actually something he might want to hear. Unfortunately, he has set wheels in motion that are not easy to redirect. Although Marion tries to approach him several times, he and she fail to make contact.

    Then just when it seems they will finally connect, a dangerous stranger lures Marion away. Fearing the worst, Christopher gives chase—trailed by his bodyguard, the children, and a small troop of helpful younger gentlemen.

    What they discover at nearby Parteger Hall is not at all what anyone expected, and as the action unfolds, the assembled company band together to protect a secret vital to the resolution of the war against Napoleon.

  • Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas CarolA Ghost Story of Christmas in Five Staves when he was 31; the first edition was published on 19th December 1843 and had sold out just four days later and by the end of 1844, there were already 13 reprints. Now with numerous adaptations for film, television, radio, stage, and indeed, audiobooks, A Christmas Carol has, for many, become an essential part of Christmas!

    Raconteurs Audio has created this audio anthology to include Dickens’ two Christmas novellas, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, as well as a collection of his lesser known short stories with a Christmas theme.

    A Christmas Carol

    Stave 1 - Marley’s Ghost read by Liam Gerrard
    Stave 2 - The First of Three Spirits read by Tim Bruce
    Stave 3 - The Second of Three Spirits read by James Gillies
    Stave 4 - The Last of the Spirits read by Greg Wagland
    Stave 5 - The End of It read by Malk Williams

    Music

    Stave 1 - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - English Traditional
    Stave 2 - The Three Kings - Peter Cornelius
    Stave 3 - Gabriel’s Message - Basque Noel
    Stave 4 - A Coventry Carol - English Traditional
    Stave 5 - This Is the Truth - English Traditional
    Finale - In Dulci Jubilo - German Traditional

    Original music arranged and produced by Kelvin Towse for this audiobook production.

    Festive Tales

    The Haunted House read by Greg Wagland
    A Christmas Tree read by Nigel Patterson
    The Chimes read by James Gillies
    The Christmas Goblin read by Liam Gerrard
    The Cricket on the Hearth read by Helen Lloyd
    Nobody’s Story read by Malk Williams
    A Child’s Dream of a Star read by Tim Bruce
    What Christmas Is as We Grow Older read by James Gillies

    These stories originally published between 1843 and 1871 are in the public domain. The traditional music is also in the public domain.

  • Two Worlds and in Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan presents a stunning retrospective of the first ten years of the author’s work. It is a compilation of more than 200,000 words of short fiction, including many of her most acclaimed stories as well as some of the author’s personal favorites; several previously uncollected, hard-to-find pieces; her sci-fi novella, The Dry Salvages; and a rare collaboration with Poppy Z. Brite.

  • Herbert George Wells was one of the most prolific and visionary British writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. H. G. Wells, as he is universally known, is now best remembered for his science fiction novels, although he wrote across many genres, including nonfiction. His fiction embraces history, science fiction, horror, satire, fantasy, and social commentary. Wells was also a futurist, foreseeing air travel, tanks (as in “The Land Ironclads”—part of this anthology) space travel, nuclear weapons, and even satellite television. Amongst his writings are dozens of short stories; some are very well known, others less so.

    When planning this collection, Raconteurs sought stories that we enjoyed ourselves and which embody the range of H. G. Wells’s imagination and talent. This collection of thirteen short stories includes gothic horror, fantasy, ghost stories, science fiction, satire, and stories of domestic and social commentary. It is a collection that we hope will intrigue and entertain you—and leave you wanting to hear more.

    H. G. Wells’s Short Stories - Volume One is produced by Raconteurs in partnership with Spoken Realms and includes:

    “The Magic Shop” – read by James Gillies
    “The Remarkable Case of Davidson’s Eyes” – read by Nigel Patterson
    “The Door in the Wall” – read by Greg Wagland
    “The Man Who Could Work Miracles” – read by Malk Williams
    “The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham” – read by Tim Bruce
    “The Diamond Maker” – read by Liam Gerrard
    “Miss Winchelsea’s Heart” – read by Helen Lloyd
    “A Moonlight Fable” – read by James Gillies
    “The Red Room” – read by Nigel Patterson
    “The Star” – read by Greg Wagland
    “The Land Ironclads” – read by Malk Williams
    “The Jilting of Jane” – read by Tim Bruce
    “The Cone” – read by Liam Gerrard

  • A darkly luminous new anthology collecting the most terrifying horror stories by renowned female authors, presenting anew these forgotten classics to the modern reader

    Readers are well aware that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; few know how many other tales of terror she created. In addition to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some surprisingly effective horror stories. The year after Little Women appeared, Louisa May Alcott published one of the first mummy tales. These ladies weren’t alone. From the earliest days of gothic and horror fiction, women were exploring the frontiers of fear, dreaming dark dreams that will still keep you up at night.

    More Deadly than the Male includes unexpected horror tales by Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and forgotten writers like Mary Cholmondely and Charlotte Riddell, whose work deserves a modern audience. Listeners will be drawn in by the familiar names and intrigued by their rare stories.

    In The Beckside Boggle, Alice Rea brings a common piece of English folklore to hair-raising life, while Helene Blavatsky, best known as the founder of the spiritualist Theosophical Society, conjures up a solid and satisfying ghost story in The Cave of the Echoes. Edith Wharton’s great novel The Age of Innocence won her the Pulitzer prize, yet her horror stories are known only to a comparative few.

    Listeners will discover lost and forgotten women who wrote horror every bit as effectively as their male contemporaries. They will learn about their lives and careers, the challenges they faced as women working in a male-dominated field, the way they overcame those challenges, and the way they approached the genre―which was often subtler, more psychological, and more disturbing.

  • #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens brings you the delights of a long-ago country-village Christmas, featuring a grandmother, her grandchildren, an artifact hunter, the lady who catches his eye, and three ancient coins that draw them all together in a Christmas treasure hunt.

    Therese, Lady Osbaldestone, and her household again welcome her younger daughter’s children, Jamie, George, and Lottie, plus their cousins Melissa and Mandy, all of whom have insisted on spending the three weeks prior to Christmas at Therese’s house, Hartington Manor, in the village of Little Moseley.

    The children are looking forward to the village’s traditional events, and this year, Therese has arranged a new distraction—the plum puddings she and her staff are making for the entire village. But while cleaning the coins donated as the puddings’ good-luck tokens, the children discover that three aren’t coins of the realm. When consulted, Reverend Colebatch summons a friend, an archaeological scholar from Oxford, who confirms the coins are Roman, raising the possibility of a Roman treasure buried somewhere near. Unfortunately, Professor Webster is facing a deadline and cannot assist in the search, but along with his niece Honor, he will stay in the village, writing, remaining available for consultation should the children and their helpers uncover more treasure.

    It soon becomes clear that discovering the source of the coins—or even which villager donated them—isn’t a straightforward matter. Then the children come across a personable gentleman who knows a great deal about Roman antiquities. He introduces himself as Callum Harris, and they agree to allow him to help, and he gets their search back on track.

    But while the manor five, assisted by the gentlemen from Fulsom Hall, scour the village for who had the coins and search the countryside for signs of excavation and Harris combs through the village’s country-house libraries, amassing evidence of a Roman compound somewhere near, the site from which the coins actually came remains a frustrating mystery.

    Then Therese recognizes Harris, who is more than he’s pretending to be. She also notes the romance burgeoning between Harris and Honor Webster, and given the girl doesn’t know Harris’s full name, let alone his fraught relationship with her uncle, Therese steps in. But while she can engineer a successful resolution to one romance-of-the-season, as well as a reconciliation long overdue, another romance that strikes much closer to home is beyond her ability to manipulate.

    Meanwhile, the search for the source of the coins goes on, but time is running out. Will Therese’s grandchildren and their Fulsom Hall helpers locate the Roman merchant’s villa Harris is sure lies near before they all must leave the village for Christmas with their families?

  • At once a compelling murder mystery and a moving exploration of love and grief, critically acclaimed author Nicola Upson’s eighth Josephine Tey mystery is a force to be reckoned with.

    In the summer of 1915, the sudden death of a young girl brings grief and notoriety to Charleston Farmhouse on the Sussex Downs.

    Years later, Josephine Tey returns to the same house—now much changed—and remembers the two women with whom she once lodged as a young teacher during the Great War. As past and present collide, with murders decades apart, Josephine is forced to face the possibility that the scandal which threatened to destroy those women’s lives hid a much darker secret.

  • A decomposing body … a severed head in a closet … a macabre meeting with “Mother”—mystery writer Lorinda Lucas tosses yet another paperback in the trash, appalled at the gruesome direction of today’s crime fiction. She’s even more disturbed at the half-starved state of Roscoe, the cat next door. Before Lorinda left for her latest book tour, Roscoe was as plump and pampered as her own two felines, Had-I and But-Known.

    It only takes a modicum of sleuthing to find out that in Lorinda’s absence Roscoe’s owner, Macho Magee, has acquired a new girlfriend—a harridan who has put the gentle Macho and his pet on a strict diet. And that’s only the first disturbing news in Brimful Coffers, the once-quiet village that now includes a writer’s colony. Lorinda soon discovers that a hit-and-run has ended a child’s life, professional jealousy has taken a deadly twist, and murder is just around the catty-corner …

  • Where is Wendy? Leading a labor strike against the Lost Boys, of course. In Jane Yolen’s first full collection in more than ten years, discover new and uncollected tales of beloved characters, literary legends, and much more.

    A Scottish academic unearths ancient evil in a fishing village. Edgar Allan Poe’s young bride is beguiled by a most unusual bird. Dorothy, lifted from Kansas, returns as a gymnastic sophisticate. Emily Dickinson dwells in possibility and sails away in a starship made of light. Alice’s wicked nemesis has jaws and claws but really needs a sense of humor.

    Enter the Emerald Circus and be astonished by the transformations within.

  • A charming and clever traditional mystery debut set at a bucolic Welsh convent, The Shadow of Death introduces Sister Agatha, a mystery loving nun who finds herself in the midst of a real-life murder case.

    The sisters of Gwenafwy Abbey have cherished their contemplative life—days spent in prayer, reflection, tending the convent’s vegetable gardens and making their award-winning organic cheese, Heavenly Gouda. Life seems perfect, except for Sister Agatha, a die-hard mystery fan who despairs of ever finding any real life inspiration for her own novel. That is, until the abbey’s sexton is found dead under an avalanche of gouda. Despite the reservations of the local constable, Sister Agatha is convinced it’s murder and the game is afoot.

    Armed only with the notes she’s scribbled during her favorite podcast, How to Write a Mystery Novel, as well as lessons learned from crime heroes ranging from Hercule Poirot to Stephanie Plum, Sister Agatha leads the nuns of Gwenafwy Abbey (and her unwitting sidekick, Father Selwyn) as they begin a race against time to resolve the death of Jacob, save the abbey, exonerate a beloved postulant, and restore the good name of their cheese.

  • #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens brings you a heartwarming tale of a long-ago country village Christmas, a grandmother, three eager grandchildren, one moody teenage granddaughter, an earnest young lady, a gentleman in hiding, and an elusive book of Christmas carols.

    Therese, Lady Osbaldestone, and her household are quietly delighted when her younger daughter’s three children, Jamie, George, and Lottie, insist on returning to Therese’s house, Hartington Manor in the village Little Moseley, to spend the three weeks leading up to Christmas participating in the village’s traditional events.

    Then out of the blue, one of Therese’s older granddaughters, Melissa, arrives on the doorstep. Her mother, Therese’s older daughter, begs Therese to take Melissa in until the family gathering at Christmas—otherwise, Melissa has nowhere else to go.

    Despite having no experience dealing with moody, reticent teenagers like Melissa, Therese welcomes Melissa warmly. The younger children are happy to include their cousin in their plans—and despite her initial aloofness, Melissa discovers she’s not too old to enjoy the simple delights of a village Christmas.

    The previous year, Therese learned the trick to keeping her unexpected guests out of mischief. She casts around and discovers that the new organist, who plays superbly, has a strange failing. He requires the written music in front of him before he can play a piece, and the church’s book of Christmas carols has gone missing.

    Therese immediately volunteers the services of her grandchildren, who are only too happy to fling themselves into the search to find the missing book of carols. Its disappearance threatens one of the village’s most valued Christmas traditions—the Carol Service—yet as the book has always been freely loaned within the village, no one imagines that it won’t be found with a little application.

    But as Therese’s intrepid four follow the trail of the book from house to house, the mystery of where the book has vanished to only deepens. Then the organist hears the children singing and invites them to form a special guest choir. The children love singing, and provided they find the book in time, they’ll be able to put on an extra-special service for the village.

    While the urgency and their desire to finding the missing book escalates, the children—being Therese’s grandchildren—get distracted by the potential for romance that buds, burgeons, and blooms before them.

    Yet as Christmas nears, the questions remain: Will the four unravel the twisted trail of the missing book in time to save the village’s Carol Service? And will they succeed in nudging the organist and the harpist they’ve found to play alongside him into seizing the happy-ever-after that hovers before the pair’s noses?

  • Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn make sleuthing a work of art. But will they paint themselves into a corner when they investigate the Village Art Society president’s death?

    As Yuletide settles upon Gwenafwy Abbey, the rural Welsh convent’s peace is shattered when Tiffany Reese, president of the Village Art Society, is found dead on the floor of the parish hall. Sister Agatha, whose interests lie more with reading and writing mystery stories than with making the abbey’s world-renowned organic gouda, is not shy about inserting herself into the case. With the not-entirely-eager assistance of Father Selwyn, she begins her investigation.

    Sister Agatha has no shortage of suspects to check off her naughty-or-nice list, until finally, Tiffany’s half-brother, Kendrick Geddings, emerges as the prime suspect. There never was any love lost between Tiffany and Kendrick, and of late they had been locked in a vicious battle for control of the family estate. But if Sister Agatha thinks she has the case wrapped up, she’ll have to think again.

    As the days of Advent tick by, Sister Agatha is determined to crack the case by Christmas in The Hour of Death, Jane Willan’s perfectly puzzling second Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn Mystery.

  • It’s a case of cold feet―and cold-blooded murder―as ninety-two-year-old poet/sleuth Victoria Trumbull gets more than she bargained for after hosting an ill-fated wedding.

    A wedding on picturesque Martha’s Vineyard promises to be the affair of the season when Penny Arbuthnot asks her cousin, feisty ninety-two-year-old poet Victoria Trumbull, if she can use her property for the reception. Victoria agrees―but she has no idea what’s in store for the hapless couple.

    For one, Penny is seriously in debt and desperate to marry money. She thinks she’s on the road to riches when she hooks Rocco Bufano, whose father is a multi-billionaire. But unbeknownst to Penny, Rocco’s been disowned by dad. He’s also in hock up to his ears and thinks he’s bagged the catch of a lifetime in a wealthy Vineyard native. He also knows that someone is out to kill him. In fact, several guests have a reason to off Rocco, among them an autistic savant with a prodigious knowledge of murder weapons.

    Victoria has assumed the reception will be a modest lemonade-and-gingersnap affair―but when a body is found in her cellar, it may be a happily-never-after in Widow’s Wreath, the fourteenth engaging installment in Cynthia Riggs’ beloved Martha’s Vineyard mysteries.

  • Three years after being widowed, Lady Therese Osbaldestone finally settles into her dower property of Hartington Manor in the village of Little Moseley in Hampshire. She is in two minds as to whether life in the small village will generate sufficient interest to keep her amused over the months when she is not in London or visiting friends around the country. But she will see.

    It’s December, 1810, and Therese is looking forward to her usual Christmas with her family at Winslow Abbey, her youngest daughter, Celia’s home. But then a carriage rolls up and disgorges Celia’s three oldest children. Their father has contracted mumps, and their mother has sent the three—Jamie, George, and Lottie—to spend this Christmas with their grandmama in Little Moseley.

    Therese has never had to manage small children, not even her own. She assumes the children will keep themselves amused, but quickly learns that what amuses three inquisitive, curious, and confident youngsters isn’t compatible with village peace. Just when it seems she will have to set her mind to inventing something, she and the children learn that with only twelve days to go before Christmas, the village flock of geese has vanished.

    Every household in the village is now missing the centerpiece of their Christmas feast. But how could an entire flock go missing without the slightest trace? The children are as mystified and as curious as Therese—and she seizes on the mystery as the perfect distraction for the three children as well as herself.

    But while searching for the geese, she and her three helpers stumble on two locals who, it is clear, are in dire need of assistance in sorting out their lives. Never one to shy from a little matchmaking, Therese undertakes to guide Miss Eugenia Fitzgibbon into the arms of the determinedly reclusive Lord Longfellow. To her considerable surprise, she discovers that her grandchildren have inherited skills and talents from both her late husband as well as herself. And with all the customary village events held in the lead up to Christmas, she and her three helpers have opportunities galore in which to subtly nudge and steer.

    Yet while their matchmaking appears to be succeeding, neither they nor anyone else have found so much as a feather from the village’s geese. Larceny is ruled out; a flock of that size could not have been taken from the area without someone noticing. So where could the birds be? And with the days passing and Christmas inexorably approaching, will they find the blasted birds in time?