Literature Tragedy

A chance invitation from friends saves Ruth Averill's life on the night her uncle's old house in Starvel Hollow is consumed by fire, killing him and incinerating the fortune he kept in cash. Dismissed at the inquest as a tragic accident, the case is closed - until Scotland Yard is alerted to the circulation of bank notes supposedly destroyed in the inferno. Inspector Joseph French suspects that dark deeds were done in the Hollow that night and begins to uncover a brutal crime involving arson, murder and body snatching.

Thomas Middleton's classic tale of corruption and revenge in a 16th-century Italian court. Vendice's wife has been poisoned by the hand of the lecherous Duke, and now he seeks to bring an end to the Duke and his house.

At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster.

The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila. For all the benefits of a more relaxed way of life, Wexford misses being the law. But a chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, changes everything. Tom Ede is now a detective superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a difficult case.

A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.

Shakespeare writes about the plight of Romeo and Juliet with a lot of empathy and views their tragedy as a result of bad fate, rather than a problem with their characters. We sense from the very start that their relationship is doomed. Romeo and Juliet are portrayed as sincere and virtuous young people who are madly in love, but because of the feud between their families, their relationship has to end. As they won't even consider a separation, the only way out of the situation they find themselves in is by taking their own lives.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often shortened to Hamlet, is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1602. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother.

Eldene McGrady is the mother of two teenage children. Taylor, a strapping six-foot 15-and-half-year-old, and his little sister, Patty, who is 14, just 11 months younger than Taylor. Eldene is suddenly widowed due to an accident in which her husband, Jake, is killed. Her grief is such that she just can't continue their life in Baltimoret, selling all her holdings and deciding, along with her children, to plan and join a wagon train and move West to the Oregon Territory.

This classic novel describes an ambitious poor relative of a rich man who secures an opportunity in his uncle’s factory and has a social leap to prospectively marry another rich man’s daughter in town. Similar to Gatsby and published in the same year, 1925.

Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader Caius Marcius Coriolanus. The tragedy is one of the last two tragedies written by Shakespeare, along with Antony and Cleopatra. Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his military success against various uprisings challenging the government of Rome. Following this success, Coriolanus becomes active in politics and seeks political leadership.

Hero and Leander is a Greek myth concerning the tragic story of two lovers. One was a priestess of Aphrodite who lived in a tower in Sestos, and the other a young man from Abydos on the opposite side of the strait. Leander fell in love with Hero and would swim every night across the Hellespont to spend time with her, with Hero's lamp at the top of her tower as his guiding light, and they shared a warm summer of love.

Wednesdays at One is a haunting, psychological story of one man’s obsessive search for answers, the woman who leads the way, and the secret that threatens to destroy everything that matters to him: his career, his family, and his mind.

Pride, justice, and vengeance. Aristocracy and democracy vie for ultimate power over Rome, and each faction violently erupts when Coriolanus takes the political stage. After receiving glorious accolades for taking an enemy city when the plebian soldiers cowered without the gates, the common people find his arrogance and pride offensive. Now, banished from the very city for which he was prepared to lay down his life, he strikes up an unholy alliance with his country's enemies.

Maddie Castle is broken. Ever since the tragedy that struck on her twins' 10th birthday, she's been trying to fit the pieces together, to get back to the life she led before. Maddie, her husband, Dom, and their children, Aidan and Annabel, lived in a comfortable home on a quiet street in a London suburb. Life was busy and satisfying. They were happy. Weren't they? Now, a disoriented and grieving Maddie floats like a ghost through each day, hardly sleeping, eating, or speaking. It's easier to stay locked in her own head than to torment herself by reliving what happened.

Patch has decided that this is the year he will get a boyfriend, so it's goodbye to his French pen-pal Jean-Pierre and hello to the world! Unfortunately, the only other "out" boys in his school year are dating each other, so finding a boyfriend isn't going to be easy . . . Until fate finally intervenes and two new mysterious boys join drama club: Peter, who’s just moved from New York (very chic) and his best friend, Sam. Patch is confident that one of them will be his first boyfriend.

Simple, potent, and direct to the heartstings, this mix of traditional and original tales draws the listener into a transformational journey of the soul. These six stories exemplify the meaning of true love, the selfless acts that accompany it, and the consequences that can follow.

This multi-voice production of The Tragedy of Macbeth features an all-star cast under the direction of acclaimed producer Paul Alan Ruben, a Grammy Award-winning veteran of the audiobook industry. With five AudioFile magazine Golden Voice recipients, multiple Grammy and SOVAS nominations, and countless Earphones and Audie Awards, this phenomenal cast brings Shakespeare's work to life.

Jane Hamilton, award-winning author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, is back in top form with a richly textured novel about a tragic accident and its effects on two generations of a family. When Aaron Maciver's beautiful young wife, Madeline, suffers brain damage in a bike accident, she is left with the intellectual powers of a six-year-old.

When Celine Lowry leaves Viewpoint, Virginia for the west with her husband and four children, the last thing she expects is to lose her whole family and be captured by Indians. Thinking that her life might be over, she’s surprised when she gets a second chance at love with a recently widowed man too.

When Caroline Sears receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970, and it seems that nothing can be done. But her brother-in-law, a physicist, tells her that perhaps there is. Hunter had appeared in their lives just a few years before - and his appearance was as mysterious as his past. With no family, no friends, and a background shrouded in secrets, Hunter embraced the Sears family and never looked back.