Showing results by narrator "Adjoa Andoh" in All Categories

Noo Saro-Wiwa was brought up in England, but every summer she was dragged back to Nigeria - a country she viewed as an annoying parallel universe where she had to relinquish all her creature comforts and sense of individuality. Then her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was murdered there, and she didn't return for 10 years. Recently, she decided to rediscover and come to terms with the country her father loved.

Once upon a time, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories - fantastical yarns of wondrous creatures in faraway places-bewitched children across the world. But times change. Today, Kipling's writing tells us a different tale; of a love of Empire, and the troubling legacy of British colonialism. In Not So Stories, writers of colour from around the world reclaim these stories and remake them into something new. Something different.

Ten-year-old Mayowa has always thought that her Grandpa Edward, who dyes his beard emerald green and jumps on books in private, is rather unusual. Until one day she jumps on a book for herself, and uncovers a huge family secret … Mayowa can book jump. By jumping on a book, she can harness the emotions inside it and channel them directly into other people. And when the opportunity to use her power to save the lives of countless refugees presents itself, Mayowa wants to jump in with both feet.

Libby has a nice life with a gorgeous husband and a big home by the sea. But over time she is becoming more unsure if Jack has ever loved her – and if he is over the death of Eve, his first wife. When fate intervenes in their relationship, Libby decides to find out all she can about the man she hastily married and the seemingly perfect Eve. Eventually Libby stumbles across some startling truths about Eve, and is soon unearthing more and more devastating family secrets.

A beautifully written story about two children trying to find their way in a world that's grey and cold, and what happens when the sky turns blue. "I've put this story together from the diaries I kept when Zac and I were children. I wrote them because I felt we were almost invisible and I wanted to make sure our story was told, and also in the hope that life would get better for the small unloved girl that was me, and my even smaller unloved brother. And if life didn't get better or at least more interesting I was going to make it up...."

The kidnapping of a 12-year-old diabetic boy has blown the case of some missing children wide apart and the finger is pointing at the heart of the Met. Boss Corrigan sends in the only cop in his team who would care more about the life of a boy than about her own career. Detective Inspector Hanlon. And then he sends someone to spy on her.

Tamia Challey is horrified when her husband, Scott, is accused of something terrible - but when she discovers who his accuser is, everything goes into free fall. Backed into a corner and unsure what to think, Tamia is forced to choose who she instinctively believes. But this choice has dire consequences for all concerned, especially when matters take a tragic turn.

When a frightened Russian woman seeks DCI Hanlon's help in finding her missing husband, Hanlon's not keen on the case. Until she hears a name she recognises only too well: Arkady Belanov, sadistic pimp and owner of an exclusive brothel in Oxford is involved. When her former partner and friend disappears, Hanlon is forced into an uneasy alliance with the London underworld to rescue him from the blood-stained hands of the Russian mafia.

Finnish teen eco-blogger, Ulli Earthgirl, wins a competition to join a low-carbon expedition to the North Pole by foot, to measure the melting ice. Blogging her way across the Arctic, she has to navigate deadly cracks in the ice, as well as the treacherous currents of environmental controversy in the blogosphere. Soon she's afloat in both worlds, as all her certainties begin to dissolve.

What would you do for the friend who broke your heart? Best friends Kamryn Matika and Adele Brannon thought nothing could come between them - until Adele did the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn's fiance, Nate. Worse still, she got pregnant and had his child. When Kamryn discovered the truth about their betrayal she vowed never to see any of them again.

When a seventeen-year-old Moldovan boy is found dead on Hampstead Heath, the case falls to DCI Karen Shields and her overstretched team. Karen knows she needs a result. What she doesn't know is that her new case is tied inextricably to a much larger web of gang warfare and organised crime which infiltrates almost every aspect of London society.

It's been 18 months since my husband was murdered and I've decided to finish writing The Flavours of Love, the cookbook he started before he died. Everyone thinks I'm coping so well without him - they have no idea what I've been hiding or what I did back then to protect my family. But now that my 14-year-old daughter has confessed a devastating secret, and my husband's killer, who was never caught, has started to write to me, I know it's only a matter of time before the truth about me and what I've done will be revealed.

No one is perfectly happy, but when are we happy enough? Laura is a happily married mother of two until an ex-lover contacts her. Suddenly passion and excitement are rekindled, but how much happiness has she a right to expect, and what about the pain she would cause to achieve it? Unknown to Laura, several others in her Sussex village are also living with their own unresolved crises, where every decision they take has an impact on those around them.

Can't Tell Nathan Caton Nothing tells the story of young, up-and-coming comedian Nathan Caton, who becomes the first in his family to graduate from university - only to opt for a career in comedy - much to his family's annoyance who want him to get a 'proper job' using his architecture degree. Can Nathan persuade his family to support his career choice?

It's Christmas Day, 2067. 'Silent Night' drifts across the ruins of a wrecked spaceship, listing helplessly in the black. A sole woman, May, stirs within - the last person left alive of a disastrous first manned mission to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. There is only one person who can help her - her ex-husband, Stephen, a NASA scientist who was heading up the mission back on Earth. Until, that is, she broke his heart and he left both her and the mission.

Tom and Rosie are solo parents living 250 miles apart. Both recently divorced, bruised and lonely, they're looking for a cyber pal who understands what they're going through. So when they log on to a parenting advice website, they make an instant, sparky connection. Gradually, their online friendship becomes something more, and a 'will they/won't they' relationship develops via emails, text, phone calls and the SPP forum.

Charlie, a curious boy with a dangerous Dictaphone habit, eavesdrops on the eccentric guests of the Mirage Hotel as the African nation of Bwalo prepares for the annual appearance of its Glorious Leader Tafumo. Sean, an Irishman who's given his heart (and the best part of his liver) to Bwalo, struggles to write the great African novel - if only his crazed fiancée and fierce thirst would stop distracting him.

A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was 10 years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed Fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children.

Philosophy lecturer Dr Gideon Fuller, with his penchant for high-end sadistic sex, is in the frame, but Hanlon is not convinced. From the specialist brothels in Oxford and Soho to the inner sanctum of a Russian people trafficker with a taste for hurting women, the trail leads Hanlon deeper and deeper into danger - until she herself becomes the killer's next target.

Three stories that explore the most evocative experience of summer - outdoor swimming. 'To Brixton Beach': A mysterious swimmer spends all day in the pool at Brockwell Lido. Written by Stella Duffy. Read by Adjoa Andoh. 'Lido Lover': An Englishwoman finds a kind of fulfilment on the Venetian Lido. Written by Michele Roberts. Read by Joanna Tope. 'The Horizon Pool': An unexpected swimming companion in the UK's northernmost outdoor pool - the Trinkie in Wick - may hold the key to recovery for a teenage boy. Written by Linda Cracknell. Read by Finn den Hertog.