Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley Crossley" in All Categories

William Marble is in serious debt, struggling to keep his family afloat, and close to facing bankruptcy when an opportunity presents itself. His rich nephew visits one night, giving Marble the chance to slip poison into his drink. When Marble has all the money he has ever dreamed of, he thinks life will surely be easier for him. Instead, his troubles are just beginning, as things are about to get a whole lot worse. Slowly William’s family becomes caught in a dangerous web of fear, secrets, and blackmail.

Lieutenant Kramer and Sergeant Zondi have their hands full. On the same day that an adult entertainer is found strangled to death in her dressing room, her pet python wrapped dead around her neck, beloved candy shop owner "Lucky" Siyayo is shot at his counter in a botched robbery. The detective duo quickly realize neither death is as simple as it appears.

An internationally best-selling author, Carole Mortimer has penned over 150 romance novels in her remarkable career. The Duke’s Cinderella Bride stars brooding Hawk St. Claire, Duke of Stourbridge and seemingly plain servant girl Jane Smith. After a chance encounter Jane pays the price for their inappropriate behavior when she is removed from her household. Soon the duke takes in this genteel lass and makes her his ward.

An elderly inventor, burning with manic creativity, tries to reconcile with his estranged gay son. A bereaved boy draws a thuggish classmate into a relationship of escalating guilt and violence. A genteel middle-aged woman, a longtime resident of a psychiatric hospital, becomes the confidante of a lovelorn teenaged volunteer. Told with Chekhovian restraint and compassion, and conveying both the sorrow of life and the courage with which people rise to meet it, You Are Not a Stranger Here is a triumph of storytelling.

Long ago, in a land by the sea, 12-year-old Aaron lives with his mother in the wooded countryside. Because the boy is mute, he depends on his mother completely. But when a sudden blizzard strands his mother in a distant town, Aaron finds himself alone for the first time in his life. Setting out in the snow to look for his mother, the boy embarks on a perilous, silent journey that will carry him to the eerie Half-a-Moon Inn. There, held captive by the sharp-eyed Miss Grackle, Aaron will discover her wicked powers.

Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds has done much to obscure the real brilliance of the original work. Written at a time when "science-fiction" did not exist as a genre, The War of the Worlds was a new departure in literature. Author H.G. Wells, deeply committed to social improvement in turn-of-the-century Britain, used extra-terrestrial invasion to predict the results of a not-entirely-impossible violent upheaval in contemporary society: for "Martians" read "bolsheviks."

On a sharp winter's morning, a man turns his back on prison. This is the story of Joseph, who killed his wife, Zoe. Of their three children who witnessed the event. Of Zoe's parents, Hannah and Frederick, who are bringing up the children and can't forgive or understand Joseph. They slowly adjust to life without Zoe, until the day Joseph is released from prison...

In The Last of All Possible Worlds, royalty, bankers, lovers, and wives intertwine to create a vivid portrait of Europe in the early 1900s. We meet wise and worldly Prince Sobieski, Vienna's ambassador in London, his enchanting wife, her English lover, and her enigmatic lifelong companion, Josefa. When Sobieski's illegitimate daughter makes a demand of her influential father, the unspoken rules of the family are challenged.

Oscar Wilde’s classic story of a young man who sells his soul in exchange for eternal beauty and youth continues to thrill generations of readers. Written by a man who was every bit as flamboyant and unconventional as its hero, The Picture of Dorian Gray is as haunting today as when it first shocked the British public in 1891. Dorian Gray, young, intelligent, sophisticated, gazes on his freshly painted portrait.

It is 1537, a time of revolution that sees the greatest changes in England since 1066. Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church. The country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers ever seen. And under the orders of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent throughout the country to investigate the monasteries.

Eleven-year-old Amelia Fairwick is eagerly waiting for her widowed father to return from his business trip. But a letter arrives with shattering news - Papa has been lost in a terrible hotel fire. Now Amelia must leave her London home to live in America with a relative she has never met. Amelia thinks things can’t get much worse when stern Cousin Charlotte travels with her on the voyage across the Atlantic. Amelia must stay alone in the cabin, talking to no one. But the day the ship arrives in New York City is worst of all....

Paris, 1393. A masquerade ball at the palace ends in tragedy, with four revelers burned to death. Was it an accident...or did someone deliberately hurl a flaming torch at the dancers? Convinced it was an act of murder and that the king himself was the real target, Queen Isabeau has asked Christine de Pizan to spend time at court in an attempt to uncover the identity of the would-be assassin.

Cambridge, October 1933. Inside the old All Hallows Church on All Hallows' Eve, Dr. Adelaide Hartest witnesses the final moments of a dying stranger. Despite the dagger plunged into the stranger's chest and his last-minute confession, the death is ruled a suicide. The victim, it is revealed, is known to Scotland Yard, and Assistant Commissioner Joe Sandilands is sent up from London to investigate.

A talented healer, Merlin has traveled extensively, becoming a trusted advisor to rulers and kings the world over. But when Merlin finds his way back to Britain, he comes under the attention of the brutal war leader Uther Pendragon. Uther wants Merlin to use his powers for evil to help him conquer women and kingdoms alike, but when Merlin protests, the insatiable Uther threatens to eliminate anyone close to him, and thousands of lives are at risk.

Paris, 1399. Scribe Christine de Pizan is sent to the Priory of Poissy by the palace to copy a manuscript for the prioress. But the prioress already has many copyists at the priory, and Christine senses that something is amiss. Her suspicions are confirmed when the prioress reveals that one of the sisters has been found murdered in the cloister.

A trip to London turns deadly...until a cat helps foil a nearly purrfect crime. Larkin's Luxury Tours Number 79 is a traveler's nightmare. The problems started in Zurich, when one of the group died under mysterious circumstances. Now the remaining tour members have landed in London, tight lipped, fearful, and ready to ask for their money back. It's up to Doug Perkins of PR firm Perkins and Tate to restore their spirits.

When the wealthy and powerful Ludovic Degroof’s jewelry store is broken into, nothing is stolen, but the jewels have been dissolved in jars of aqua regia, an acid so strong it can even melt gold. In the empty safe is a scrap of paper on which a strange square has been drawn. At first, Inspector Van In pays little attention to the paper. But when Degroof’s offspring also receive letters with this same square, Van In and the beautiful new DA Hannelore Martens find themselves unraveling a complex web.

The birth of the Royal Air Force marked a pivotal moment in military history. World War I was frozen in the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, which gave strategic urgency to any means of directly attacking enemy resources and morale. The new technologies of air power held promise, and by 1917 German bombers had begun attacking British cities.

This is the story of Billy and the baron's entrancing daughter, Karin, and the dangerous paths they travel as their childhood attachment deepens to a complex love overshadowed by the rise of the Nazis. Their story takes us from a golden Edwardian summer on the Isle of Wight to London under zeppelin attack to Ireland on the brink of its War of Independence and at last to Germany in the darkening Weimar period, where Billy and Karin come of age in a country wounded by war and seething with hatred.

The Reign of Terror has ended, and Napoleon Bonaparte has seized power, but shifting political loyalties still tear apart families and lovers. On Christmas Eve 1800, a bomb explodes along Bonaparte's route, narrowly missing him but striking dozens of bystanders. Chief Inspector Roch Miquel, a young policeman with a bright future and a beautiful mistress, must arrest the assassins before they attack again.