Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Contemporary Fiction

Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire – but that doesn’t stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to ‘Biscuit’, Lord Biskerton, who doesn’t have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann – just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine.

Just before dawn one late-summer morning, Captain Bruno Courrèges is roused from sleep by the wail of the town siren atop the Mairie, summoning the volunteer firemen of St Denis. Bruno, the only policeman in the small Périgord town, follows the fire engines towards the site of a large barn, now engulfed in flames, the surrounding fields ablaze. Everything points to arson. A Californian wine maker is planning to buy up half the valley to create a huge wine-producing operation.

The mid-'70s: at an all-boys Catholic school in Melbourne, Timothy Conigrave falls wildly and sweetly in love with the captain of the football team. So begins a relationship that weathers disapproval, separation and ultimately death. With honesty and insight, Holding the Man explores the highs and lows of any partnership and the strength of heart both men have to find when they test positive for HIV. This is a book as refreshing and uplifting as it is moving - a funny and sad and celebratory account of growing up gay.

On a lake deep in the Minnesota woods, Kathy Wade comforts her husband John, a rising political star, after a devastating electoral defeat in which he's been pursued by rumors of the atrocities he committed in Vietnam. But it is clear that something is horribly wrong between them - too much has been hidden. Then Kathy vanishes, along with their boat.

Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking.

Goodwood is a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone. It's a place where it's impossible to keep a secret. In 1992, when Jean Brown is 17, a terrible thing happens. Two terrible things. Rosie White, the coolest girl in town, vanishes overnight. One week later, Goodwood's most popular resident, Bart McDonald, sets off on a fishing trip and never comes home. People die in Goodwood, of course, but never like this. They don't just disappear.

「夢を、見ないか」異物混入、政治家、アイドル、人々の集まる広場、巨獣、投げる矢、動かない鳥……。現実を動かすものはいったい――。

毎日こつこつと働き、余暇には本を読み、紅茶を淹れて音楽を聴く。つつましく生きてきた律子に人生の終盤、ある奇跡が訪れる。

＜彼女は善い魔法使いとなり、出会ったひとびとを救い、幸福にするための力を手に入れるのですが、それは世界の片隅で起きるひそかな物語、ほんとうに小さな魔法です。

It’s high summer when Molly Pargeter drags her amiably bickering family to a rented Tuscan villa for the holidays. Molly is sure that the house is the perfect setting for their three-week getaway, but soon she becomes fascinated by the lives of the absent owners and things start to go horribly wrong.

Eine junge Journalistin trifft eine Diva, die im Verborgenen lebt – der neue bewegende Roman von SPIEGEL-Bestsellerautorin Sibylle Weischenberg. Hinter den Geheimnissen ihres Herzens ist das Leben. Die junge Journalistin Sophie beobachtet von ihrem Fenster aus, wie eine elegant gekleidete ältere Dame die benachbarte Villa betritt. Sie glaubt Luise Radell gesehen zu haben, den großen Filmstar der 1950er-Jahre – die tragische Diva, die so plötzlich aus der Öffentlichkeit verschwunden war. Sophie gelingt es schließlich, Luise Radell zu einem Gespräch zu überreden, und beginnt, hinter ihre Fassade zu blicken.

In una scuola serale a nord di Milano, un giovane professore insegna italiano a una classe di immigrati di diverse nazionalità: magrebini, albanesi, sudamericani, perfino un quarantenne con tre figli e una laurea in ingegneria, conseguita in Iraq. Tra di loro ci sono Cesar e Apollinaire, padre e figlio sbarcati in Italia dalla Costa d’Avorio, Amin l’albanese, partito a bordo di un gommone e arrivato a Brindisi a nuoto, Rafkani e Mohammed, il più silenzioso degli alunni.

Perché Antoine Duris, stimato professore di storia dell'arte a Lione ed esperto di Modigliani, si è licenziato dall'oggi al domani, ha chiuso ogni contatto con il mondo e si è candidato come guardiano di sala al Musée d'Orsay? Che cosa nasconde la sua ostinata reticenza? È questo che si chiede Mathilde Mattel, la responsabile delle risorse umane che, tra qualche perplessità, lo ha assunto. Nessuno sembra riuscire nemmeno a intuire che cosa si celi in questo strano personaggio, che contempla per ore il ritratto di Jeanne Hébuterne, la musa di Modigliani dal tragico destino.

When Lisa Jones and her boyfriend George take on the run-down Rocks Hotel, they aim to do for Mariscombe what Rick Stein did for Padstow and set up a chic maritime retreat. But renovating a hotel is about more than stripped wooden floors and Egyptian cotton sheets, particularly when the locals are shifty and unhelpful. Especially Bruno Thorne, the tall, dark and surly owner of the nearby Mariscombe Hotel, where life is one long holiday; for the staff, anyway.

It is the early 1960s in a country village in Ireland. Caithleen Brady and her attractive friend, Baba, are on the verge of womanhood and dreaming of spreading their wings in a wider world - of discovering love and luxury and liquor and above all, fun. With bawdy innocence, shrewd for all their inexperience, the girls romp their way through convent school to the bright lights of Dublin – where Caithleen finds that suave, idealised lovers rarely survive the real world.

Essays in Love is a stunningly original love story. Taking in Aristotle, Wittgenstein, history, religion and Groucho Marx, Alain de Botton charts the progress of a love affair from the first kiss to argument and reconciliation, from intimacy and tenderness to the onset of anxiety and heartbreak.

When Lord Petrefact hires Walden Yapp, Professor of Demotic Historiography at Kloone University, to write a scurrilous family history Yapp finds plenty of material in Buscott village, where Frederick Petrefact is running the Mill and adding new vices to the family collection. If Yapp can lay his hands on the Petrefact Papers in the Buscott Museum he may be able to expose the multi-national capitalism of the Petrefacts to the whole world.

It was a preference for cricket over schoolwork that united Mike and Psmith in their reluctance to attend their new school, Sedleigh. The school insists that its attendees be keen, but it is sorely unprepared for boys of such foresight and resources as Mike and Psmith who have decided to indulge in all manner of high-jinks and adventures.

「君はこれから世界でいちばんタフな15歳の少年になる」――15歳の誕生日がやってきたとき、僕は家を出て遠くの知らない街に行き、小さな図書館の片隅で暮らすようになった。

四国の図書館に着いたカフカ少年が出会ったのは、30年前のヒットソング、夏の海辺の少年の絵、15歳の美しい少女――。一方、猫と交流ができる老人ナカタさんも、ホシノ青年に助けられながら旅を続ける。

Adapted For The Film Slumdog Millionaire. Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammad Thomas has been arrested after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have accused him of cheating his way to victory. Twelve extraordinary events in street-kid Ram's life - how he was adopted as a foundling orphan by a priest; came to have three names; fooled a professional hit man; even fell in love - give him the crucial answers.