Showing results by publisher "Highbridge Audio" in Literature & Fiction

Following the death of her uncle Cornelius Vanderbilt in September 1899, a somber Emma is in no mood for one of Newport's extravagant parties. But to keep Vanderbilt's reckless son, Neily, out of trouble, she agrees to accompany him to an Elizabethan fete on the lavish grounds of Wakehurst. Held in Wakehurst's English-style gardens, the festivities will include a swordplay demonstration, an archery competition, scenes from Shakespeare's plays, and even a joust. As Emma wanders the grounds distracted by grief, she overhears an argument between a man and a woman behind a tall hedge.

Lars Horn's Voice of the Fish, the latest Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winner, is an interwoven essay collection that explores the trans experience through themes of water, fish, and mythology, set against the backdrop of travels in Russia and a back injury that left Horn temporarily unable to speak. In Horn's adept hands, the collection takes shape as a unified book: short vignettes about fish, reliquaries, and antiquities serve as interludes between longer essays, knitting together a sinuous, wave-like form that flows across the book.

Henchmen of a vicious drug syndicate have snatched ten missionaries in a remote area of Venezuela and are holding them for ransom. The high-priority rescue op comes as a personal plea from FBI Director Irene Rivers, who has a very special interest in one of the hostages. The mission is strictly off the books, and there can be no international incident. Just get in and get out—and keep the precious cargo safe.

Between ornate bridal gown fittings and meetings with Lyndy's distant relatives, Stella finally feels less like an out-of-place American and more like a respected aristocrat. Everything changes as the arrival of an anonymous gift and return of her overbearing father cast a dark shadow over the festivities, conjuring difficult memories and new fears....

New York City, 1899. When it comes to show business, Gilded Age opera singer Ella Shane wears the pants. The unconventional diva breaks the mold by assuming "trouser roles"-male characters played by women - and captivating audiences far and wide with her travelling theater company. But Ella's flair for the dramatic takes a terrifying turn when an overacting Juliet to her Romeo drinks real poison during the final act of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

It was supposed to be a simple caviar heist. Dortmunder is almost in the building when the alarm sounds, forcing him up the fire escape and onto the roof. He leaps onto the next building, smashing his ankle and landing in the den of the worst kind of creature he can imagine: nuns.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.

While almost all of Marguerite Duras's novels have been translated into English, her debut The Impudent Ones (Les Impudents) has been a glaring exception - until now. Fans of Duras will be thrilled to discover the germ of her bold, vital prose and signature blend of memoir and fiction in this intense and mournful story of the Taneran family, which introduces Duras' classic themes of familial conflict, illicit romance, and scandal in the sleepy suburbs and southwest provinces of postwar France.

A French invasion fleet is poised to cross the Channel and storm the beaches of southern England. A member of Napoleon's inner circle contacts the British naval intelligence service in hopes of defecting to London. His escape plan calls for a rendezvous at an international chess tournament in Frankfurt. Naval intelligence sends its top man and best chess player, Captain Thomas Grey, to orchestrate the Frenchman's escape to England. But Grey's mission changes dramatically when the defector demands that his pro-Napoleon daughter come with him—expecting Grey to act as kidnapper.

The Byzantine Fire is much more than a flawless ninety-carat ruby. As a stone it's worth over a million dollars, a value vastly increased by its pure gold band - but its history is what makes it priceless. A ring that has been fought for with sword and pen and passed from nation to nation by all manner of theft and trickery, has finally made its way to the United States. The US agrees to return it to Turkey, but it's about to be stolen twice more.

"The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do / without," Diane Seuss writes in this brilliant, candid work, her most personal collection to date. These poems tell the story of a life at risk of spilling over the edge of the page, from Seuss's working-class childhood in rural Michigan to the dangerous allures of New York City and back again. With sheer virtuosity, Seuss moves nimbly across thought and time, poetry and punk, AIDS and addiction, Christ and motherhood, showing us what we can do, what we can do without, and what we offer to one another when we have nothing left to spare.

August 1901: A fundraiser for a new Rhode Island Audubon Society brings Emma to Vinland, the Viking-themed seaside home of her relative, Florence Vanderbilt Twombly, where the guest of honor is Edith Roosevelt, wife of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Emma's observation of harmless philanthropy is proven wrong the following morning when one of Mrs. Twombly's houseguests from the luncheon becomes mysteriously and dangerously ill. Accompanying police detective Jesse Whyte, Emma discovers a box of petit fours supposedly sent by Mrs. Roosevelt.

1901: To showcase the marvels of his new "cottage," the newly completed Bellevue Avenue estate, one of the first homes in America to be wired for electricity with no backup power system, coal baron Edward Berwind throws a grand party. Emma and Derrick are invited to the fete, which culminates not only in a fabulous musicale but an unforeseen tragedy—a chambermaid is found dead in the coal tunnel. In short order, it is also discovered that a guest's diamond necklace is missing and a laborer has disappeared.

On a rainy night in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, a woman throws a doll from the fifth-floor window of a gutted tenement, then leaps herself. From his own apartment a few blocks away, freelance photographer David Corman listens to the radio reports as they come over his headset. Corman is a man at the edge, threatened with eviction, besieged by his wife’s attempt to regain custody of their daughter, yet reluctant to give up the life that permits him to roam the night. In the woman’s dying fall, he sees the chance to sell a story....

On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef, who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know, and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss.

A gardener finds love recultivating his soul; a reminiscing horse thief awaits retribution; a wayward stepson rediscovers his father in rows of filbert trees. Barry Lopez embraces fable, historical fiction, and contemporary social realism in these spellbinding stories, all informed by his deep spiritual connection to the natural world.

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth.

April 1903: Emma and Derrick Andrews have been invited to the wedding of her cousin Reggie Vanderbilt and heiress Cathleen Neilson at the Bellevue Mansion, Arleigh. Their hosts are a popular young couple who are leasing the home for the summer—Harry and Elizabeth "Bessie" Lehr. Known for his practical jokes, Harry is the toast of parties, earning a reputation as the court jester of the Gilded Age. However, as Emma soon learns, behind closed doors he is dead serious.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Never before in audio, these vintage stories are the darkest of the dark, and the best of the best.

Crime fiction fans old and new will delight in rediscovering these taut, character-rich, heart-stopping tales, now on audio for the first time.