Showing results by narrator "Lillian Rachel" in All Categories

During the Middle Ages, a peasant's superstition held that a mother mourning the death of her child could "sell her sorrow" by selling a nail from her child's coffin to a peddler. Lady Celeste is overwhelmed with grief when her infant son dies. Desperate to find relief, she escapes the convent where her husband has sent her to recover and begs a passing peddler to buy her sorrow. Jean, the cynical peddler she meets, is nobody’s fool; he does not believe in superstitions and insists Celeste include the valuable ruby ring on her finger along with the nail in return for his coin.

Freydis Eiriksdatter, one of the most remarkable women of the Viking age, leads a harsh life amongst the towering cliffs and great glaciers of Greenland. She has the warrior spirit of her father, Eirik the Red, and as Christianity conquers Greenland, she continues to worship the old Norse gods. Like her brother, Leif Eiriksson, she’s cursed with an adventurer’s soul. Her biggest desire is to become a legendary explorer. Driven by ambition, curiosity—a restless hunger for more—she sets out on a hazardous voyage to Vinland.

Quinton Errington is perfectly happy teaching at Cambridge, with his elder brother carrying the duties of being the duke of Wesley. But when a trip to celebrate his brother’s last week of bachelorhood ends in tragedy, Quinton, now the duke of Wesley, would give anything to have his brother back. Now, under the most heartbreaking of circumstances, Wesley's would-be bride, Catherine Greatheart, is left wanting. Her only protection left, her grandmother, has fallen ill, and Catherine has nowhere left to turn but to the family she was so close to being part of.

World-famous detective Hercule Poirot has retired to the English village of King's Abbot, determined to dedicate his little grey cells to the growing of vegetable marrows. But when Roger Ackroyd, a local businessman and former acquaintance, is stabbed to death, the man's niece begs Poirot to investigate. Poirot enlists the local doctor to be his assistant and scribe, and the two of them sift through clues to try to discern the ones that will lead them to the killer.

Between 1895 and 1901 H. G. Wells wrote six science fiction novels, which have become among the most celebrated examples of the genre. In this collection, Wells explores a number of topics that have since become very common subjects in science fiction, including time travel, celestial beings, eugenics, alien invasion, and space exploration.

Betrayed by her father and sold as payment of a Roman tax debt to fight in Londinium's arena, gladiatrix-slave Rhyddes feels like a wild beast in a gilded cage. Celtic warrior blood flows in her veins, but Roman masters own her body. She clings to her vow that no man shall claim her soul, though Marcus Calpurnius Aquila, son of the Roman governor, makes her yearn for a love she believes impossible. Groomed to follow in his father's footsteps and trapped in a politically advantageous betrothal, Aquila prefers the purity of combat on the amphitheater sands to imperial politics.

Frances Hodgson Burnet's 1911 novel is about Mary Lennox, an unloved orphan who journeys from India to Yorkshire to live at Misselthwaite Manor, the home of her uncle Archibald Craven. Under the influence of the beautiful countryside and its kind inhabitants, Mary begins to blossom. She soon discovers there are secrets of many kinds both inside and outside her uncle's estate. In particular, she longs to discover the key to a hidden garden that has been shut away for 10 years.

Prayer & Praise is a treasure trove of thought-provoking messages inspired by the lines of Austen's three preserved prayers. Atop a solid foundation of scripture, these 50 devotional segments (each finishing with prayer and praise) enlist familiar characters and situations from Austen novels to illustrate spiritual principles - in creative, often surprising, ways!

Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel takes place over the course of a single June day in the lives of some very different Londoners: wealthy society hostess Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a party; her old friend Peter Walsh, recently returned from India, whose proposal of marriage Clarissa rejected years ago; Septimus Warren Smith, a WWI veteran suffering from shell shock; and his Italian-born wife, Rezia, who is trying to care for him as best she can. Woolf's beautiful prose captures the minds and souls of these vivid characters.

Adelynn Spencer, a spirited member of the Edwardian London upper class, struggles under the conditions of her engagement to Detective Inspector Baze Ford. But during the gala announcing their betrothal, events take a fatal turn when Adelynn experiences a vivid dream of a man dying with a knife buried in his chest. To her alarm, Baze and his men later discover the man exactly as she witnessed. As Baze wrestles with the decision to harden his heart or take action to protect the woman who means everything to him, Adelynn ventures further into the clutches of magic and murder.

Never has this book been more timely. Religious intolerance, the resurgence of fundamentalism, hate crimes, repressive laws, and mass shootings are pervasive in today’s world. Selina O’Grady asks how and why our societies came to be as tolerant or intolerant as they are; whether tolerance can be expected to heal today’s festering wound between Islam and the post-Christian West; or whether something deeper than tolerance is needed.

The Wonderful Visit tells the story of an angel who finds himself unexpectedly marooned on Earth. Wells used John Ruskin's remark that an angel appearing on earth in Victorian England would be shot on sight as the inspiration for this tale of a celestial being who is completely out of place in human society. Ironically, the angel's first confidant and protector is a clergyman, who never recovers from the eventual and inevitable disappearance of the angel. Wells dwells in detail on the contrast between the idealism of the celestial visitor and the discourtesy of his hosts.

You’ve spent years training to be an expert in your field. Years hunched over books and articles, writing essays late into the night on the science and art of your chosen profession. Through hard work and determination, alongside lots of experience, you’ve now become pretty good at it. So good in fact, that you have been asked to stop doing it all the time. You’ve been asked to be a manager.

Nigella Parker has a deep-rooted fear of fire and a talent for solving arson cases. When a charred figure is found beside Sir Christopher Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire of London, Nigella is dragged into a case pitting her against a murderous artist creating sculptures using burnt flesh. Nigella partners with Colm O’Leary of Scotland Yard to track the arsonist. The pair are more than colleagues. But their past isn’t the only buried history as they race to connect the dots between an antique nail and a long-forgotten architect dwarfed by the life's work of Sir Christopher Wren.

Lord Rowles Haywind has always shied away from the spotlight of the dukedom, worried it would bring too much attention to the family secret. Now that he is the new Duke, he has more responsibility than he ever dreamed of. He needs help, but he's not sure he can trust anyone enough. Lady Joan's penetrating insights reassure Rowles as no one ever has. But she has a secret of her own that would cause a terrible scandal. She longs to tell Rowles the truth about her work for the war office, but she's afraid it'll ruin the connection they've rekindled.

There are no fish, in the future. We killed them. But it's not just the ghosts of the shoals making artist Cally Dune unhappy. Her husband has gone. Vanished, after being called up for the President's new "Training Scheme". "Nobody ever comes back the same." Worried whispers drift through the pubs, gathering like rainclouds to drip their paranoia into Cally's mind, which is already marinaded in grief for Simon and fear about being called to Training herself.

An inspirational Seattle-based startup, The First Hill, originally designed to preserve the legacy of terminally ill cancer patients, winds up becoming the go-to digital platform for preserving all important moments in history - past, present, and the future moments to come. Written in a documentary style, the narrator takes you back in time to mindful moments in each founders' past that inspired them to create, and leave behind, a world-changing legacy.

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel, first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. A work of considerable power and intensity set in the Yorkshire moors in the late 18th century - the bleak and wild moorland often reflected in the natures of the characters. Unsettling at times, the novel is a heady mix of gritty realism, romance, Gothic horror, and tragedy.

In the tumultuous year before war breaks out, a plane crashes on a country lane, and four people are brought together in the aftermath. Miriam is recovering from another miscarriage and learns to fly as an escape from the disappointments in her life. Audrey is a middle-aged upper-class activist who has shunned her society, travels the UK lecturing on reproductive rights, and lives in a gypsy caravan—and whose daily ritual includes a swim in a nearby river. As Little as Nothing beautifully explores resilience, the strength of new bonds, and the ways we reinvent ourselves.

Three years ago Melisende’s husband, Simon, went off with Lord Barnard and his men to join King Phillip of France on the Third Crusade. Now Lord Barnard is dead and his son, Lord Charles, has come home from the crusades with the last of their men - and Simon is not among them. Lord Charles claims Simon died saving his life. Melisende suspects there is more to the story. Left to fend for herself and her two young children, Melisende is determined to discover what really happened to Simon at the battle for Acre.