Showing results by narrator "Anne Flosnik" in All Categories

This biography evokes the pervasive importance of religion to Queen Victoria's life, but also that life's centrality to the religion of Victorians around the globe. The first comprehensive exploration of Victoria's religiosity, it shows how moments in her life - from her accession to her marriage and her successive bereavements - enlarged how she defined and lived her faith.

When a loathsome rake steals one of her most cherished family heirlooms - and nearly her virtue as well! - Francesca Dunroy devises the perfect plan to put him in his place. At a ball being held in her honor - she didn't "take" in her first season, now her family is determined to get her a match in her second - she'll offer him a clandestine kiss sure to convince him to return what is rightfully hers. But in the dark hallways surrounding the ballroom, Francesca makes a terrifying mistake. She seduces the wrong man!

Of all the dukes in England, Jered Marcus Benton, the Duke of Bradford, was the wealthiest, most handsome — and most arrogant. And of all London’s ladies, he wanted the tender obedience of only one — Caroline Richmond. She was a ravishing beauty from Boston, with a mysterious past and a fiery spirit. Drawn to the powerful duke, undeterred by his presumptuous airs, Caroline was determined to win his lasting love.

Margaret of Ashbury is ready to settle down; the medieval healer is looking forward to an uneventful life in the country. And, indeed, life with her true love and a brood of rambunctious children is nearly perfect—except for her husband Gregory’s ever-meddling family. Finding himself deep in debt once again, Gregory’s father has plotted to sell Margaret’s daughter off in marriage to save his woodlands from a greedy abbot.

When Ryder Sherbrooke finds a child nearly beaten to death in an alley in Eastbourne, he takes her home to Brandon House. She doesn't speak for six months. Her first words, oddly enough, are a haunting song.

The Strange Visitation at Wolffe Hall: The year is 1841 and Grayson Sherbrooke, a popular author of gothic paranormal mysteries, lives on the coast of Northern England with his 4-year-old-son, Pip. The Resident Evil at Blackthorn Manor: In Grayson Sherbrooke’s second Otherworldly Adventure, he goes to Scotland to Vere Castle, the home of his aunt and uncle. The Ancient Spirits of Sedgwick House: When Grayson Sherbrooke takes his son Pip to the home of Lord Lyle for a month of fun and relaxation, little does he know what awaits him.

Expert Sherlockians Laurie King and Leslie Klinger put forth the question: What happens when great writers/creators who are not known as Sherlock Holmes devotees admit to being inspired by Conan Doyle stories? While some are highly regarded mystery writers, others are best known for their work in the fields of fantasy or science fiction. All of these talented authors, however, share a great admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle and his greatest creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Spanning half a century of Elizabethan and Jacobean history and sweeping from the lowest reaches of society to the royal court, this richly textured novel tells the real story of Shakespeare in love.

New Zealand, 1893: William Martyn is better educated and more cultivated than the other men breaking their backs searching for gold near Queenstown. William is the son of landed Irish nobility, and he comes to town ready to invest in the best equipment. On his search for supplies, he encounters spirited and beautiful young Elaine O’Keefe, who promptly falls in love with him.

Margaret, a resourceful midwife, is living with the insufferable relatives of her third husband, Gilbert de Vilers, known as Gregory. She is carving out a life for herself and her daughters despite the hostility and greed of her in-laws. But when Gregory is captured in France and held for ransom, Margaret knows she must take action - her in-laws are too tight with money to be of any use - so she teams up with her old friends Mother Hilde, the herbalist, and Brother Malachi, an alchemist on a quest for the secret of changing base metals into gold.

Explore offers first-hand accounts from the world's boldest explorers, men and women encountering storms, starvation, cannibals, and disease in their pursuit of adventure. From the mountains of the Himalaya and the jungles of New Guinea, to the ice floes of the Arctic and the ruins of Peru, Explore will take you off the map to those few refuges where true discovery is still possible.

Georgina Whitmore, not accustomed to any man being unaffected by her charms, is plagued with the disappearance and rejection of Simon Fancourt. Twelve years later, Mr. Fancourt returns to British society with two children and a mad hunger for justice. Racing against time, Simon works to uncover the men responsible for his wife's horrific murder, protect his children, and fulfill his father's unexpected will by marrying Georgina—the last thing in the world he wants to do. Though her heart throbs to accept, she would rather lose him again than have his name without his love.

England, 1455 - King Henry VI is proving to be an unstable monarch, prone to bouts of mysterious illness and susceptible to manipulation from others. Richard of York, the most powerful magnate in the land, steps in to manage affairs whilst Henry is unwell. Many people prefer York's rule, which does not please the queen. The country begins to divide and plots start to hatch. York himself is directly descended from the royal family line, in fact, a little more directly than Henry, but he puts this fact aside and strives only to serve the king.

It is 1936 and Spain is on the brink of civil war. Across Europe, young men are enlisting in the International Brigade to free their Spanish brethren from the grip of fascism, leaving sisters and lovers at home. But not all women are content to be left behind. In Britain, Charlotte McBain and Libby Forbes, friends from opposite sides of the class divide, are determined to do what they can; in Spain, Rosita García Díaz, fiercely loyal to her family and country, cannot stand by and watch.

Simon the Loyal has vowed never to love, for love makes a warrior weak. His arranged marriage to a beautiful Norman heiress would be duty and no more. But more than duty stirs his blood when he first sees Ariane. She has known only coldness from men - and a betrayal so deep it all but killed her soul. Wanting no man, trusting no man, speaking only through the sad songs she draws from her harp, Ariane comes to Simon an unwilling bride.

Mary Lennox is sent to Misselthwaite Manor in Yorkshire England after her parents die from Cholera. Also living in the manor house is her sickly cousin Colin, who is every bit as spoiled as she. Mary and Colin are like two peas in a pod, closed up in a gloomy old manor on the Yorkshire moors, until a secret garden captures their imaginations. As spring brings new life to the Earth, Mary and Colin's sour natures begin to change.

1306 – A week before Lady Rose Munro is to wed a neighboring laird, she is abducted on the road by a wicked and dangerously handsome stranger. Highland warrior, Malcolm Montgomery has been ordered by King Robert the Bruce to steal Rose and her son from the suspected traitor she is about to marry—gifting him with an ancient and much sought after dagger as payment. Rose shouldn't trust her captor. Shouldn't feel her body heat at his simple touch, or allow him to press his fervent lips to hers… Malcolm shouldn't be seducing the woman he is sworn to protect.

At 16, Nancy, the only member of her family to survive the Great Famine, leaves her small island for the mainland. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she feels irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair that soon throws her into a fight for her life. In 1920, Nancy's son Jer has lived through battles of his own as a soldier in the Great War. Now drunk in a jail cell, he struggles to piece together where he has come from and who he wants to be.

Banished from her uncaring family home for her growing friendship with older neighbor St. John, Alexandria Thaine is unprepared for the new life she encounters with her distant cousins in England's West Country. She blossoms under the warmth of the Falconers, and as she throws herself into the thrilling danger of the family's smuggling trade, Alex forms an unbreakable bond with the eldest son, Rane. But just as Alex begins to imagine a future in Devon with Rane at her side, the death of her older sister forces her back home to care for her sister's motherless twins.

Cecily Hanson longs to live life on her own terms - to leave the shadow of her overbearing mother and marry her childhood sweetheart once he returns from the Great War. But when her fiancé is lost at sea, this future is shattered. Looking for meaning again, she decides to perform for the troops in France. Life on the front line is both rewarding and terrifying, and Cecily soon finds herself more involved - and more in danger - than she ever thought possible. And her family has followed her to France, with her mother seemingly set on a path of self-destruction.