Showing results by narrator "Matthew Lloyd" in All Categories

Bryen spent ten years fighting for his life on the white sand of the Pit. But now he faces a new challenge deadlier even than constant combat against man and beast in the Colosseum. Forced into a new form of servitude, Bryen is compelled to become a Protector and charged with guarding the Lady of the Southern Marches from both steel and magic. For she holds the key to power in Caledonia. Gain her, and you gain the Kingdom.

September 1888. A 29-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle practices medicine by day and writes at night. His first Sherlock Holmes story has only netted him 25 pounds. Embittered by the experience, he vows never to write another "crime story". Then a messenger arrives with a mysterious summons from former Prime Minister William Gladstone, asking him to come to London immediately. Once there, he is offered one month's employment to assist the Metropolitan Police as a "consultant" in their hunt for the serial killer soon to be known as Jack the Ripper.

There’s something very wrong at the Otterside care home. When Sam Applewhite tries to help a friend who’s lost a beloved pet she finds that it’s just the first in a series of seemingly unconnected deaths. Is it her imagination, or do all of them somehow point back to the same residential home for seniors? Sam’s skills are in demand elsewhere however, as she must orchestrate a safety drill with animal actors, cook dinner on an abandoned oil rig, and keep an eye on those vikings who are building a longship.

Published anonymously on January 10, 1776, Thomas Paine's legendary work made the case for American independence. An immediate sensation across the thirteen colonies, Common Sense extolled Paine's belief that government should be simple and represent the will of the people, acting not as an oppressor but as a body to protect society. His clear and persuasive argument appealed to the common people, impressing on them the importance of secession from Great Britain.

Music journalist Mike Barnes (MOJO, The Wire, Prog, and author of the acclaimed biography Captain Beefheart) goes back to the birth of progressive rock and surveys the cultural conditions and attitudes that fed into, and were in turn affected by, this remarkable musical phenomenon.

In Emaneska, to consort with magick is to court death. Banned by the Arka Empire, magick's purging has finally brought peace to war-torn Emaneska. Like any dutiful citizen, Mithrid Fenn wants nothing to do with magick. But when an illegal spellbook washes up on a beach after a battle between giant, unknown ships, Mithrid Fenn is thrust into a war she never knew existed. Her family slaughtered, Mithrid finds herself hunted by daemons and the emperor's assassins.

Acquired wisdom has always put Sgt. Pepper at the head of the class, but it was Revolver that truly signaled The Beatles' sea change from a functional band to a studio-based ensemble. These changes began before Rubber Soul but came to fruition on Revolver, which took an astonishing 300 hours to produce, far more than any rock record before it.

People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different way. By telling the stories of these borders, we can learn a lot about how political identities are shaped, why the world looks the way it does―and about human folly.

For Lord Anthony Hetheridge, this wet April should be full of promise. His wife, Kate, is on bedrest for her final month of pregnancy, and his friend DI Deepal "Paul" Bhar's firstborn, a darling baby girl, has already arrived. Wellegrave House is restored, and the Hetheridges are back where they belong, in the heart of Mayfair. But inside Scotland Yard, the institution Tony served for so many years, something is very wrong.

Cowardice in a legionary carries a heavy punishment: the sentence of decimation—to live or die at the whim of the gods with the unlucky ones clubbed to death by their fellow soldiers. Ursus, the man killed in Quintus's group, lays a heavy charge on the youth, asking him to look after the remaining men and to take care of his family back in Rome.

To tie in with the release of his first James Bond film, Live and Let Die, Roger Moore agreed to keep a day-by-day diary throughout the film's production which was published just ahead of the premiere in July 1973. From the previous October, when he was unveiled as the new 007, through to his first scenes on location in New Orleans and his final shot in New York, Moore describes his whirlwind journey as cinema's most famous secret agent. Taking in the sights of Jamaica before returning to Pinewood Studios, Moore's razor wit and unique brand of humor is ever present.

When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala, he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve. Set on the exotic island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and absorbing mystery spiced with humor and a colorful cast of characters.

The works of the English political economist David Ricardo (1772-1823), and particularly his most important work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, lie at the heart of the laissez faire school of economics, preceded by Adam Smith and followed by John Stuart Mill. Economic growth, economic freedom - free trade rather than mercantilism, or controlled trade - was the fundamental attitude. Having been disowned by his Sephardic Jewish family for marrying outside the faith at the age of 21, Ricardo went on to make his own fortune.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

A decade ago, teacher Nathan Brookes saw four of his students walk up a hill and vanish. Only one returned, Olivia, starved, terrified, and with no memory of where she’d been. Questioned by the police but released for lack of evidence, Nathan spent the years trying to forget. When a body is found in the same ancient woodland where they disappeared, it is first believed to be one of the missing children but is soon identified as a Bronze Age warrior, nothing more than an archaeological curiosity. Yet Nathan starts to have horrific visions of the students, alive but trapped.

In London's fashionable Chelsea, a Halloween bash goes terribly wrong. Emmeline Wardle, daughter of a frozen-foods baron, throws a party that results in the demise of two university schoolmates. Handsome golden boy Trevor Parsons is dead. So is pasty computer nerd Clive French. Both died on the Wardle estate within minutes of one another, and both died the same way - an axe to the skull. Given the social connections of all involved, New Scotland Yard sends a real baron to investigate.

Though best known now for his collection of lively and vivid Parallel Lives from ancient Greece and Rome, Plutarch (c46 CD-120 CE) was, for centuries, more respected for his Moralia, a remarkable and wide-ranging collection of essays and speeches. No fewer than 78 in total, they range over a broad list of topics in which Plutarch observes, dispenses wisdom, admonishes, entertains and informs: covering social issues and politics, manners and religion - in short, life in general.

After centuries locked in an endless cycle of poverty, persecution, and barbarity, Europe has finally emerged into the Age of Enlightenment. Scientists, philosophers, scholars, and poets alike believe this to be a new era of reason and hope for all. But the forces of darkness haven’t completely dissipated, as Spain hunts and butchers any who dare to defy its ironclad Catholic orthodoxy. Only one nation can fight the black shadow that threatens this new age, and that is Britain, now ruled by a brilliant young Queen Elizabeth I.

Nora Cooper is about to get her shot at 'the big time.' The Paradise Bay Resort is hosting the World Bartending Championships and she's been asked to lead the hospitality team. If all goes well, she'll be getting the promotion she's been working toward for years. There's only one problem—billionaire Theo Rojas, the major sponsor of the event, who seems determined to make Nora's life a living hell.

Adam of Beneficence wanted to be a magician, and even undertook a magical apprenticeship, but there isn’t a single spark of magic in his entire body. In desperation, his master arranged for him to study at Heart’s Eye University, a former school of magic that has become a university, a place where magicians and mundanes can work to combine their talents and forge the future together. But all is not well at Heart’s Eye. The magical and mundane apprentices resent and fear each other, and outside, powerful forces are gathering to snuff out the future before it can take shape.