Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Historical

It’s 1863. Napoleon III has installed a foreign monarch in Mexico to squash the current regime. Maximilian von Habsburg of Austria accepts the emperor’s crown. But it is his wife, the brilliant and ambitious Princess Charlotte, who throws herself passionately into the role. Known to the people as Empress Carlota, she rules deftly from behind the scenes while her husband contents himself with philandering and decorating the palace. But Carlota bears a guilty secret.

Vienna, 1800. Countess Julie Guicciardi's life is about to change forever. The spirited eighteen-year-old is taking piano lessons with Ludwig van Beethoven, the most talented piano virtuoso in the musical capital of Europe. She is captivated by his volatile genius, while he is drawn to her curiosity and disarming candor. Between them, a unique romance. But Beethoven has a secret he's yet to share, and Julie is harboring a secret of her own, one so scandalous it could destroy their perfect love story.

Without family or means, the strong-willed Lucy Snowe escapes the English countryside for the town of Villette. Though overwhelmed by a new culture and a foreign language, Lucy finds employment at an all-girls boarding school. Her self-reliance is soon compromised by her affections for two men: the kindhearted Dr. Bretton and the imperious professor M. Paul Emanuel. As Lucy longs for both independence and passion in a patriarchal society, fate plays its hand.

When Adeline, Dowager Countess of Wake, learns of her husband’s sudden death, she realizes she’s free. At last, she can do, go, and be as she pleases. Finally, she can have the life she has always dreamed of. She doesn’t need, or want, to remarry. Especially not the supremely dashing future Marquis of Marksworth, who makes Adeline yearn for his desire. Lord Lyonwood, son of a philandering marquis, will not be like his father. He wants to run his estates and watch them flourish - and find a wife who brings love to his life.

Lily Darling knew that marrying a con man was a risk, but her new husband swore those days were behind him. Then he disappears without a word, taking all of her money with him. So when her scoundrel of a husband mysteriously returns, years later, hoping to set things right, Lily guards her heart. But curse the man for being just as breathlessly handsome as the day she last saw him.

1958. Kate Morgan is looking for an escape, and she gets her chance by honoring a cryptic plea from her grandfather: Find the beautiful stranger. The search takes her to Hotel del Coronado, the beachfront landmark on the Southern California coast where filming is underway on the movie Some Like It Hot. For a movie lover like Kate, it’s a fantasy come true. So is the offer of a position at the glamorous hotel. But as sure as she is that Coronado is her future, Kate discovers it’s also where the ghosts of the past have come to stay.

Sweden, 1913. Having petitioned the court for independence from her aristocratic family, the young and vibrant Agneta Lejongård takes control of her destiny. In Stockholm, she explores her bohemian passions in art and free love, joins the suffragette movement with her best friend, and defiantly resists the expectations of women in high society. Then comes news of a tragic accident and an urgent summons to return to the family’s manor house in the country. As for Agneta’s forward path in life, she must now follow it back home.

Brianda, a young engineer, leaves her comfortable life in Madrid to learn more about her ancestors. When she travels to a cold, isolated village high in the Pyrenees to explore her roots, Brianda discovers a family secret - and a new love interest. The mysterious Corso, who is challenging destiny by restoring the neglected manor he has inherited, offers to help Brianda in her research. Together they uncover another woman named Brianda in the family archives, a woman who lived four centuries ago.

Despite all that Clara Berg has achieved as a wife, mother, and chemist - especially for a woman in turn-of-the-century Berlin - ending her abusive marriage comes at great cost. The judge hands her inheritance - her parents' pharmacy - over to her ex-husband. Now, with her reputation in near ruins thanks to the scandal that rocked her marriage, no reputable chemist will hire her. Worst of all, she has lost all rights to her young son and daughter.

Dear Listener, I began writing the Night Trilogy in 1987. I’m very proud of all three novels. Perhaps Night Fire is my favorite simply because it’s so different from the other two. In Night Fire, Arielle Leslie is a sixteen-year-old forced to wed Paisley Cochrane,a sadistic old man who abuses her. When he dies, she believes herself free. But she’s not. Burke Drummond, Earl of Ravensworth, a young man she’d worshipped three years before, is home from the wars, and he wants her.

April 1831, her grace Corinne Monroe wants her widowed son, Lord Julian, to marry her best friend’s daughter, Miss Sophie Wilkie. Julian last saw Sophie when she was twelve years old, silent, skinny, and always staring at him. However, his mother is nothing if not persuasive, and Julian reluctantly accompanies her to London to meet the young lady. And he knows that whatever happens isn’t going to be good. Lord Devlin Monroe, Julian’s nephew, is very fond of his intriguing reputation in society: he delights, he frightens, he brings on delicious shudders. He’s enjoying a pleasant bachelor life....

Twenty-year-old Jessie Warfield is branded a disgrace for riding as a jockey on her father's racehorses, wearing men's clothing, exposing her skin to the sun and, in general, not acting like a lady at all.

On the eve of her 19th birthday, the vivacious Caroline Derwent-Jones looks forward to being free of her oafish guardian, Mr. Ffalkes. But Mr. Ffalkes has other plans for Caroline and her inheritance, so Caroline must escape. In her flight, Caroline encounters Lord Chilton of Mount Hawke, Frederic North Nightingale, and finds herself tangled in mystery and romance.

When Amy Layton’s family learned she planned to steal her sister’s fiancé, Amy left home in disgrace. But in 1922, she returns to Powell Springs to escape the violent man she married. Despite the town’s gossip, Amy is determined to rebuild her shattered life with the boardinghouse she inherited…and little else.

After being seduced and ruined by her worst enemy, Juliette Andrews has vowed to marry no man - especially not Dr. Paul Fraser, her childhood sweetheart. Content to bury herself in accounts and numbers, she refuses to let the devastatingly handsome Highlander back into her life.

When I inherited this isolated land near the Mexican border, I knew running it would be difficult and dangerous - very different from my privileged life in Louisiana, where I was the genteel Miss Trilby Lang. But I certainly didn't expect that my neighbor, Thorn Vance, would be challenging me at every turn. Or that his brusque, ruggedly appealing ways would prove a dangerous temptation that I'm finding harder and harder to resist. Now, with trouble sweeping the territory, I need his help.

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.

Paradise calls to Chase Wilcox. A man of science, he is drawn to the lush beauty of the island of Hawaii and the secrets it holds - while escaping the destruction of his own personal world. The island is home to many unexpected wonders, which is why Nicole Ballard could never leave. Nicole and Chase will be forced to confront their own lingering inner darkness, while resisting a newly inflamed need to touch, to give...to care.