Showing results by narrator "Liz Pearce" in All Categories

Matthew Bramble, a gout-ridden misanthrope, travels Britain with his nephew, niece, spinster sister, and man-servant, the trusty Humphry Clinker. In poor health, Bramble sees the world as one of degeneracy and raucous overcrowding, and will not hesitate to let his companions know his feelings on the matter. Peopled with pimps, drunkards, decadents, and con-men, Humphrey Clinker displays Smollett's ferociously pessimistic view of mankind, and his belief that the luxury of 18th-century English existence was the enemy of sense and sobriety.

The highly-anticipated final volume of the critically-acclaimed science fiction anthology series....

Prince Jean-Marc Charming Arundel, known to friends and enemies alike as "Prince Charming," is handsome, well-mannered, brave, a peerless swordsman, a cunning tactician—and a liar, a con man and a fraud. For years he has been travelling from one kingdom to the next, rescuing endangered princesses and maidens, securing their troths and his place in their fathers' palaces, then looting their treasuries and having it away before dawn.

Emilie de Marais is more at home holding scalpels than embroidery needles and is desperate to escape her noble roots to serve her country as a physician. But society dictates a noble lady cannot perform such gruesome work. Annette Boucher, overlooked and overworked by her family, wants more from life than her humble beginnings and is desperate to be trained in magic. So when a strange noble girl offers Annette the chance of a lifetime, she accepts. Emilie and Annette swap lives. But when their nation instigates a terrible war, Emilie and Annette come together....

One week before All Hallows' Eve, in the tiny mountain town of Nevermore, an unexpected party invitation is issued to an eccentric group of townspeople. Among them is an heiress, a spy, and an alchemist. There is also a thief, an impostor, and a hypnotist. There is a child, too—perhaps like you—who keeps his eyes and ears wide open at all times. Each of them has a story. Each of them knows a secret. But which of them is responsible for the curious vanishing of Beatrice Willoughby?

When captured rebel Scotsman Alex MacKinnon is granted the king’s mercy—transport across the Atlantic Ocean and exile to the colony of North Carolina—he’s indentured as a blacksmith to Edmund Carey, prosperous owner of Severn Plantation. The arrangement devastates the Scot, who mourns the life he lost and finds life on a slave plantation intolerable. Unwittingly, Alex is drawn into the plight of Carey’s slaves, particularly those connected to Carey’s stepdaughter, Joanna.

The war in the Bear Highen is over. Aster, at thirteen, has defeated her uncle and become the High Queen. Peace is good, but things are still difficult: political challenges confront her, personal challenges stymie her, and the massive Hemoth Bear, symbol of the House of the Bear, is beginning to resist her control. When, during a royal hunt, Aster stumbles on a young girl living in a nest of wyverns, matters become even more complex. Because this girl is not a girl at all. She is a living star, come down from her constellation, on a mission both terrible and glorious.

Moody Aster and her spoiled sister, Ursula, are the daughters of Jasper Lourdes, Major of Bears and lord of all the realm. Rivals, both girls dream of becoming the Bear queen someday, although neither really deserve to, having no particular talent in...well, anything. But when their uncle Bram murders their father in a bid for the crown, the girls are forced onto the run, along with lowly Dev the Bearkeeper and the Lourdes's half-grown grizzly Alcor, symbol of their house.

Three cell phones ring in an opulent London suite. The calls go unanswered, because their recipients are dead. Earlier that night, four old friends and lovers meet for a reunion dinner. Miko and Robert haven't seen each other in 10 years; Miko hates Robert for the money he's made with shady ethics. Unbeknownst to Miko, his wife, Veera, also slept with Robert the last time everyone was together. Robert's young trophy wife, Elise, has no old grudges to bear, but will be swept up in the murderous fray.

At 21 the passionate and headstrong Ann Veronica Stanley is determined to rule her own life. When her autocratic father forbids her, via formal letter, from attending a fashionable art-school ball, and even further refuses to allow her advanced study of science, she decides she has no choice but to leave her family home and make a fresh start alone.

Impressed by the work of the puppet master and his apprentice, Tavia's ruler, The Margrave, has ordered dozens of life-size marionette soldiers to be sent to Wolfspire Hall. When the orders for more soldiers come in with increasingly urgent deadlines, the puppet master's health suffers and Pirouette, his daughter and protégé, is left to build in his stead. But there is something far more twisted brewing at Wolfspire - the Margrave's son wants Pirouette to create an assassin. And he wants her to give it life.

Lucy Bluecrowne and Maxwell Ault are on a mission: find the three pieces of a strange and arcane engine. They're not exactly sure what this machine does, but they have it on good authority that it will stop the war that's raging between their home country of England and Napoleon Bonaparte's France. Despite being followed by mysterious men dressed all in black, they're well on their way to finding everything they need when their ship, the famous Left-Handed Fate, is taken by the Americans. And not just any Americans.

Robin McKinley returns to the mythical setting of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword in this “thrilling, satisfying, and thought-provoking collection” featuring two stories set in the world of Damar, plus three other fantasy tales featuring adventurous, pragmatic, and heroic young women (Publishers Weekly).

Stranded in London with only the rain-soaked wedding dress on her back, American dollar princess ARABELLE FROST is on the run from a dangerous man. Drenched and desperate, she’s sure her dismal night can’t get worse … until a rogue from her past charges to the rescue. As handsome as he is arrogant, Jon Mason nearly stole her heart. She’d hoped to never again lay eyes on the tempting yet vexing rake, but she needs a place to hide. And fast. But falling for him is out of the question. Especially when an angry would-be groom with a dark secret is hot on her trail.

Heiress MARY CATHERINE MASON has no need of a husband. Shipped off to London to hunt a title—and the pasty lord who would unfortunately come with it—the talented photographer has dodged every suitor her tycoon father has thrown at her.

Amelia Stewart is no man’s damsel in distress. When a dashing Scottish rogue storms into her orderly library claiming he is there to defend her from a mysterious threat—summoned by a letter her brother wrote before his death—she rebuffs him as a cruel fraud. Amelia has had her fill of charlatans seeking to profit off her raw grief. But when she’s targeted by ruthless criminals hunting a treasure tied to her brother’s suspicious death, Amelia joins forces with the brash rake to bring the cutthroats to justice.

Former con artist Jean-Marc Charming Arundel—Prince Charming, to his friends—has an appointment to keep with a demon. Travelling through an ancient woodland haunted by wolves and bears, he flees a sudden storm into a beautiful mansion. There, he finds himself an unwilling guest of a fearsome beast: a noblewoman transformed by a fairy curse, as much a prisoner in the house as he.