Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Regency

Welcome to England, 1809. London is a violent, intolerant city, exhausted by years of war, beset by soaring prices and political tensions. By day, John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a multicultural, working-class congregation in Southwark. But by night, he crosses the river to the secret and glamorous world of a gay molly house on Vere Street, where ordinary men reinvent themselves as funny, flirtatious drag queens and rent boys cavort with labourers and princes alike. There, Church becomes the first minister to offer marriages between men, at enormous risk.

Diana Boyle, a wealthy young widow, has no desire to ever marry again. Particularly not to someone who merely wants her for her fortune. So when she discovers that she’s listed in a directory of rich, single women she is furious, and rightly so. She confronts Maxwell Dean, the man who published the Bachelor’s Directory, and is horrified to find he is far more attractive than his actions have led her to expect. However, Diana is unmoved by Max’s explanation that he authored the list to assist younger sons like himself who cannot afford to marry unless it’s to a woman of means.

Cailin Audley doesn’t fit in with Polite Society. A life spent among the working class taught her to value her independence in a way no newfound fortune or glittering ballroom could ever erase. When a major misstep sees the new heiress whisked away to the English countryside, Cailin soon realizes the vexing lengths her family will go to see her settled. But having risked her heart once before, Cailin has no interest in the men of the ton—especially not the frustratingly charming duke of St. James.

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank, and with her cousin Edmund Bertram as her sole ally. When her uncle Sir Thomas Birtram travels to Antigua, siblings Mary and Henry Crawford arrive in the neighbourhood, bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation.

Despite a hero’s return to England from the Napoleonic Wars, Wesley Audley isolates from the ton. Deep wounds from the horrors of combat—and the despair of a broken heart—left him scarred. As he struggles to cope and resume his place in Polite Society, Wesley is quick to cut himself off from everyone…except for Ellie Balfour.

The Pink Carnation, history's most elusive spy and England's only hope for preventing a Napoleonic invasion, returns in Lauren Willig's dazzling, imaginative new historical romance. The Masque of the Black Tulip opens with the murder of a courier from the London War Office, his confidential dispatch for the Pink Carnation stolen.

1841. Mr Montgomery Hurst of Radcliffe Park is getting married. To the great consternation of the county of Wickenshire, he is not marrying the daughter of an earl, but an impoverished widow with three children, whom nobody has ever heard of. Society is both appalled and intrigued. Nobody is more curious than Mr Ashpoint, a wealthy local brewer, who had hoped Mr Hurst might choose his daughter, Amelia, as his bride. Only, Amelia has no interest in marrying Mr Hurst - or indeed in marrying at all.

1800: Three years after escaping to London with her bisexual lovers, Bella Rushdale wakes one morning to find their delicate ménage a trois about to shatter. Vaughan, Marquis of Pennerley, has left abruptly and without any explanation. Determined to reclaim him and preserve their relationship, Bella pursues him to his family seat on the Welsh Borders, where she finds herself embroiled in his preparations for a diabolical gothic celebration on All Hallows Eve - a phantasmagoria.

Portugal, December 1807. Jack Reid, the British agent known as the Moonflower (formerly the French agent known as the Moonflower), has been stationed in Portugal and is awaiting his new contact. He does not expect to be paired with a woman - especially not the legendary Pink Carnation. All of Portugal believes that the royal family departed for Brazil just before the French troops marched into Lisbon. Only the English government knows that mad 73-year-old Queen Maria was spirited away by a group of loyalists determined to rally a resistance.

Secret agent Augustus Whittlesby has spent a decade undercover in France, posing as an insufferably bad poet. The French surveillance officers can't bear to read his work closely enough to recognize the information drowned in a sea of verbiage. In the ninth installment of Lauren Willig's best-selling Pink Carnation series, the atrocious poet teams up with an American widow to prevent Napoleon's invasion of England.

Welcome to Kent, 1797. Following many years apart, Jane Austen is set to spend the summer with her estranged brother, Neddy. As heir to wealthy widow Mrs Knight’s fortune, it is imperative that Neddy stays in his benefactor’s good graces. The financial security of Jane’s entire family depend on him. But upon arrival at Godmersham Park, Jane quickly realises Neddy is in dire need of her help. For a mysterious young woman currently resides with Mrs Knight – a stranger who threatens to swindle the inheritance for herself.

1820, and the marriage between wealthy widower Sir Edward Knatchbull and Jane Austen’s handsome, dutiful niece Fanny Knight is widely praised as being the most excellent match in the county. As Sir Edward’s wife, Fanny is expected to apply herself to the raising of his five children with the same dedication she has shown towards her siblings at Godmersham Park. In particular, she pays care to young Mary Knatchbull - the only girl of the family, and the apple of her strict father's eye.

The year is 1803 and England and France remain at odds. Hoping to break the English once and for all, Napoleon backs a ring of Irish rebels in uprisings against England and sends the Black Tulip, France's most deadly spy, to the Emerald Isle to help. Meanwhile, not to be outdone by her husband, Letty Alsworthy steals away on a ship bound for Ireland, armed and ready to fight for her spouse and to learn a thing or two about spying for England.

New York Times best-selling author Madeline Hunter continues her delicious new quartet of regency romances with this novel about the passion that ignites when fate brings two unlikely souls together.

Audrianna Kelmsleigh is unattached, independent-and armed. Her adversary is Lord Sebastian Sommerhays. What they have in common is Audrianna's father, who died in a scandalous conspiracy-a deserved death in Sebastian's eyes. Audrianna vows to clear her father's name, never expecting to fall in love with the man devoted to destroying it.

Celia's quiet life ends when her mother, a famed London courtesan, dies, leaving her a small house in town - and a darkly handsome, reputedly dangerous tenant.

Arabella Dempsey's dear friend Jane Austen warned her against teaching. But Miss Climpson's Select Seminary for Young Ladies seems the perfect place for Arabella to claim her independence while keeping an eye on her younger sisters nearby. Just before Christmas, she accepts a position at the quiet girls' school in Bath, expecting to face nothing more exciting than conducting the annual Christmas recital. She hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee, read by Rachel Bavidge. Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her still, one wants only to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all.

In October of 1806, the Little Season is in full swing, and Sally Fitzhugh has had enough of the endless parties and balls. With a rampant vampire craze sparked by the novel The Convent of Orsino, it seems no one can speak of anything else. But when Sally hears a rumor that the reclusive Duke of Belliston is an actual vampire, she cannot resist the challenge of proving such nonsense false. At a ball in Belliston Square, she ventures across the gardens and encounters the mysterious Duke.

Three intrepid princesses find themselves targets in a deadly plot against the crown - until their uncle devises a brilliant plan to keep them safe.... Of all her sisters, Princess Stefanie is by far the least amenable to law and order, which is why she’s appalled to find herself masquerading as an unbearably drab clerk for the most honorable barrister in England. But her dull disguise turns out to have its privileges: namely, the opportunity to consort unchaperoned with her employer’s exceedingly handsome nephew, James Lambert, the Marquess of Hatherfield.