Showing results by narrator "Ell" in All Categories

Wren Greenrock has always known that one day she would steal her sister’s place in the palace. Trained from birth to avenge her parents’ murder and usurp the princess, she will do anything to rise to power and protect the community of witches she loves. Princess Rose Valhart knows that with power comes responsibility, including marriage into a brutal kingdom. Life outside the palace walls is a place to be feared, and she is soon to discover that it’s wilder than she ever imagined.

Charm is a witch, and she is alone. The last of a line of conquered necromantic workers, now confined within the yard of regrown bone trees at Orchard House, and the secrets of their marrow. Charm is a prisoner, and a survivor. Charm tends the trees and their clattering fruit for the sake of her children, painstakingly grown and regrown with its fruit: Shame, Justice, Desire, Pride, and Pain. Charm is a whore, and a madam. The wealthy and powerful of Borenguard come to her house to buy time with the girls who aren't real.

Running from strife in her homeland, Maribella Waters becomes the new owner of the fabled Cozy Quill. After finding squatters on her property, she employs Asteria Helsdottir, a giant, barbarian warrior woman more accustomed to swinging an axe than opening a book. Together, the odd couple must make a success out of the bookshop—and survive a dizzying procession of seasonal festivals. But the local evil noblewoman has other plans in mind.

Issy is the perfect combination of gay and depressed. Living in Margate with her mum and pet chinchilla, she has always drawn inside the lines. Crafting is her biggest comfort - the way she quiets her thoughts. So when an artist comes calling with Issy's dream internship, she knows it is time to start living her life at last. Moving to Hackney, Issy has a lot of firsts to catch up on - falling for housemates, navigating sex and dating, and avoiding the neighbour who seems to hate you for no good reason.

Wallflower Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott has a secret. Moving effortlessly unnoticed amongst the ballrooms and palaces of Queen Victoria, her sharp intelligence and keen powers of observation allow her to quietly solve society crimes – coming to the rescue of those whose pride and fortune are at stake. When she meets Colonel Walter Trefusis, an unlikely and spirited alliance is formed. But Mary has more than met her match in her sleuthing partner. As she battles the expectations of society and her family, Mary must follow her heart – whatever the cost…

From 2018 to 2021, writer and researcher Theodore Ell accompanied his wife on her diplomatic posting to Lebanon and unexpectedly found himself a witness to a country on the brink of collapse. In 2019, facing economic meltdown, the people of Lebanon rose up, united in a revolution of hope. With the country on the precipice of war, COVID-19 then swept in and the eerie quiet of lockdowns descended—a silence tragically shattered in August 2020, when Ell narrowly survived the largest ever non-nuclear peacetime explosion, which destroyed half of Beirut.

Serena Mills should be at her wedding. Instead, she’s eating an ice cream sundae and drinking an obscenely large glass of wine in a Harvester off the M25. She’s left the man everyone told her she was ‘so lucky’ to find–because she’s realised that she wants to find love. Real love. So she sets herself a challenge: 52 weeks. 52 dates. 52 chances to find real love. But sometimes even the best laid plans don’t work out. And it’s the people that take you most by surprise who can really sweep you off your feet . . .

Serena and Beth are best friends who couldn’t be more different—Beth is an avowed demisexual, who lacks confidence in her career and in her chances at a happy relationship due to her sexual orientation. Serena is a free spirit who oozes with confidence, both in her job and her sexual proclivities. And yet, since the moment they met, they knew they were platonic soulmates. So, when Beth decides that she officially wants to take charge of her sex life and explore the things that scare her the most, Serena is more than happy to help.

"What I most enjoyed was Potter’s narration. Her British accent adds even more sophistication to this creepy, insular ballet world" -- Marshall Heyman, Vulture Dare Me meets Black Swan and Luckiest Girl Alive in a captivating, voice-driven debut novel about a trio of ballerinas who meet as...

Emily Laurence is a liar. She is not polite, she's not polished, and she has never taught a child in her life. This position was meant to be her sister's - brilliant, kind Amy, who isn't perpetually angry, dangerously reckless, and who does like children. But Amy is unwell and needs a doctor, their father is gone and their mother is useless, so here Emily is, pretending to be something she's not. If she can get away with her deception for long enough to earn a few month's wages and slip some expensive trinkets into her pockets along the way, perhaps they'll be all right.

Elias is mere days away from getting everything his father ever dreamed for him – a ship of his own, a crew and a license that names him as one of the first Narrows-born traders. But when a young dredger from the Unnamed Sea with more than one secret crosses his path, Elias’s faith will be tested like never before. The greater the pull he feels toward her, the farther he drifts from the things he’s spent the last three years working for.

In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars and the rise of the floriography craze in Europe, two sisters separated at birth are bound together by a secret language of flowers passed down to them by the mother they never knew. When Cornelia leaves her cruel uncle's home to join Napoleon's army as a traveling naturalist, her ability to heal any wound and bring soldiers back from the brink of death earns her praise—and exposes her to those who would exploit her powers for themselves.

We were always The Four. From our very first day at High Realms. The four scholarship pupils. Outsiders in a world of power and privilege. It would have made our lives a lot easier if Marta had simply pushed Genevieve out of our bedroom window that day. Certainly, it would have been tragic. She would have died instantly. But Marta didn’t push her then, or – if you choose to believe me – at any other time. If she had, all of what we went through would not have happened.

Feng-Li can't wait to discover America with her family! But after an action-packed vacation, her parents deliver shocking news: They are returning to Taiwan and leaving Feng-Li and her older siblings in California on their own. Suddenly, the three kids must fend for themselves in a strange new world--and get along. Starting a new school, learning a new language, and trying to make new friends while managing a household is hard enough, but Bro and Sis's constant bickering makes everything worse.

A lesbian in a lavender marriage, Jo Smith cuts a dashing figure in pin-striped trousers, working in her bookshop and keeping impolite company. But her hard-earned stability is about to be upended thanks to her husband’s pregnant paramour, who needs medical attention that no reputable doctor will provide.

Daughter of New York financier Leonard Jerome, Jennie was born into wealth—and scandal. Upon her parents’ separation, her mother took Jennie and her sisters to Paris, where Mrs. Jerome was determined to marry her daughters into the most elite families. The glamorous city became their tumultuous finishing school until it fell to revolt.

Can one spoiled cousin upend three kids' hard-won happiness and even their safety? Find out in this hilarious, hair-raising, high stakes companion to the bestselling Parachute Kids!

'A gorgeous, wildly seductive novel, shimmering with intelligence, humour and joy' - Sarah Waters Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize In 1838 Frédéric Chopin, George Sand and her children travel to a monastery in Mallorca. They are there to create and to convalesce, to live a simple life...

It’s the 1970s, and from hippie London to Warhol’s Factory in New York, reluctant aristocrat Loulou de la Falaise is desperately seeking adventure. Having escaped an early, unhappy marriage, she arrives on a whim in Paris—the champagne-soaked heart of the fashion world, where the rigid old world of haute couture and the fast-paced new world of ready-to-wear are vying for supremacy. Glamour, sex, and cocaine nights fuel the Paris fashion scene. Its crown prince is the soulful and intensely gifted Yves Saint Laurent.

Edyth grew up in a quiet village with a loving family, before losing everything she holds dear in the blink of an eye. Suddenly sent to live in a priory and work with ancient texts, Edyth must come to terms with her new life and the gifts she discovers in herself. But outside the priory, something much worse is coming. With the reappearance of a boy from her past and the ominous Great Plague creeping closer and closer to the priory, it will be up to Edyth to rise above it all and save herself.