Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.

As part of the d'Artagnan Romances following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, and devoted in large part to romantic events at the court of France's King Louis XIV, Louise de La Valliere is the second part of Alexandre Dumas's 268 chapter novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, which first appeared in serial form between 1847 and 1850.

James Bond is on a mission that will become an obsession. It starts the night Flight 229 is torn apart at Washington airport, killing 435 passengers. But the victim who matters to Bond is the Principessa Sukie Tempesta: once his lover, still his friend. The search for Sukie's killers will turn out to be the most complex and demanding assignment of Bond's career. Across continents and through ever-changing labyrinths of evil, he follows the traces of clues into the center of a fanatical society more deadly than any terrorist army.

Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

Such a long life of killing has left plenty of dangerous enemies in its wake. An ancient witch coven, a jealous assassin, and even a demon lord all have old scores to settle. With one last contract to fulfill, Yrlissa hopes to be free from her past and her guild forever so she can disappear with her husband and young daughter. But the past doesn't forget so easily, and neither will a betrayed guild of magical assassins. Yrlissa's only concern is to keep her new family safe, but with enemies closing in on all sides, will they become a distraction she cannot afford?

Someone is poisoning British soldiers in Cyprus; the same killer has murdered a British intelligence agent in Athens. James Bond himself barely escapes with his life.... But the secrets behind these and other deaths first start to come to light in Texas, where Bond goes in search of the assassin of M's friend and lover. Fearful of an international scandal that could engulf both his service and his country, he learns instead of the existence of the Decada.

While on a sailing trip in the Baltic Sea, two young adventurers-turned-spies uncover a secret German plot to invade England. Widely recognized as the first modern spy thriller, this 1902 lone masterpiece by World War I Royal Navy officer Erskine Childers was written as a wake-up call to the British government to attend to its North Sea defenses. It accomplished that task and has been considered a classic of espionage literature ever since.

In September of 1940, during the Blitz in London, Audrey Stocking is blending in with other civilians who are trying to survive the nightly bombings, but she has a secret. She’s not British; she’s German. Her fake passport and nearly perfect English allow her to blend in as she works hard to help evacuate British children into the countryside. Audrey longs to reunite with her family in Hamburg, but her double life, the bombings, and the watchful British Military Intelligence have forced her to stay put. And then there are the paralyzing nightmares.

Chloe's quest to escape the Oracle's prophecy leads her to a magus with a secret: the eldren are not the only race to use magic in warfare. An ancient power is rediscovered, and a forgotten people will return. Meanwhile, cursed by his birth, Dion tries to forge a new life at sea, away from both the eldren and his former life in Xanthos, but the one thing he can't leave behind is his heritage.

On holiday in Victoria, British Columbia, Bond becomes by intrigued Lee Fu-Chu, a half-Blackfoot, half-Chinese philanthropist who is known as "Brokenclaw" because of a deformed hand. On his return to the UK Bond is tasked to investigate the kidnapping of several scientists who have been working on a new submarine detection system. It becomes clear that Brokenclaw is behind the kidnapping.

Ruso and Tilla's excitement at arriving in Rome with their new baby daughter is soon dulled by their discovery that the grand facades of polished marble mask an underworld of corrupt landlords and vermin-infested tenements. There are also far too many doctors - some skilled - but others positively dangerous.

When information vital to Britain's national security is stolen, both M and Bond suspect that the Union is behind it. The trail leads Bond from one of England's most exclusive golf clubs to the cosmopolitan city of Brussels and finally to an expedition up the icy heights of the legendary mountain Kangchenjunga, the third tallest peak in the world.

Uniquely among the world’s religions, the central claims of Christianity concern not just timeless spiritual truths, but tangible historical events. At the heart of the of the Christian faith are things that are meant to have happened in Palestine between 5 BC and AD 30. It’s as if...

The story features the adventures of two intrepid crusaders against the forces of dread Cthulhu, Titus Crow and Henri de Marigny, as they continue their epic battle against the powers of an evil so ancient that its sinister roots stretch back to a time long before human history began.

At the age of 17, Spurgeon became pastor to a handful of believers at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, meeting in what had been a dovecote. Within five years, he had become the best-known minister in London. Two years later, following the Sepoy Mutiny, he conducted a service of national humiliation in the Crystal Palace that was attended by 24,000 people. But this volume is far from being a record of human fame and success....

It's Maya and Jamie's anniversary, and she waits with excitement for him to return home for a celebratory dinner. There's a knock at the door. It's the police. Jamie has been found hanging in a local wood. His death is ruled a suicide, but Maya doesn't believe Jamie would take his own life. Something isn't right. Someone has broken into her house. Someone is watching her. And someone has gone to great lengths to cover up what Jamie was doing before he died.

Almustafa has been exiled in the island city of Orphalese for twelve years when he sees his ship coming with the mist. Before he sets sail, the beloved prophet is asked by his followers to impart his truth. In these twenty-eight poetic essays, he offers profound inspiration on such matters of love and friendship, freedom and self-knowledge, joy and sorrow, pleasure, prayer, and death. In doing so, Almustafa offers a universal serenity. A Lebanese émigré to the United States, Gibran wrote The Prophet to transcend the barriers between East and West.

“If there’s ever been a more complex and compelling hero in crime fiction than Inspector Rutledge, I can’t think of one.”—Jeffery Deaver In one of his most puzzling cases, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge must delve deep into a dead man’s life and his past to find a killer...

Having fled Spinesend following a calamitous encounter atop one of the city’s towers, Rew and his companions face a long journey across a dangerous land to the city of Carff, the seat of Prince Valchon. In the third book of the King’s Ranger series, the shroud of secrecy around the king, his sons, and the terrible necromancy that has kept the family in power is yanked away. The Investiture is just the beginning of a terrible truth that endangers all who know it. The stakes are revealed, and failure means an eternity of damnation.

A sinister masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend was Dickens' last completed novel. It is perhaps his ultimate vision of a dark, macabre London and the corrupting power of money.