Showing results by narrator "NICHOLAS BOULTON" in All Categories

Whimbrel House is changing. Merritt and Hulda are raising a family. Owein has signed a marriage contract with the magically compatible Lady Cora, a heavyweight of British nobility who’s an ocean away. And the lovely shape-shifting druid Fallon makes a distractingly fetching friend for Owein. But another change is in the air, and this time it’s something wicked. The greatest wizard of the millennium, Silas Hogwood, is back—after five years dead. New body, same foul scent, and driven by madness and revenge.

Magdalen and Norah Vanstone have known only comfort and affluence for their entire lives. Orphaned suddenly following the unexpected deaths of their parents, the illegitimate sisters find themselves flung into the other extreme of living: their father had neglected to amend his will following their parents' recent marriage, leaving them with nothing, and their bitter, estranged uncle, the legal inheritor of the family fortune, mercilessly refuses them support.

Valentine Layton, the Duke of Malvern, has twin problems: literally. It was always his father’s hope that Valentine would marry Miss Arabella Tarleton. But, unfortunately, too many novels at an impressionable age have caused her to grow up...romantic. So romantic that a marriage of convenience will not do and after Valentine’s proposal she flees into the night determined never to set eyes on him again. Arabella’s twin brother, Mr. Bonaventure “Bonny” Tarleton, has also grown up...romantic. And fully expects Valentine to ride out after Arabella.

The Last Prophet is a novel based on the extraordinary life of the prophet Muhammad, one-time shepherd and outcast revolutionary. This desert master’s discipline and principles would later become the basis for Islam, which today claims two billion followers.

In Balthazar, the second volume in Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, the story and the characters come more clearly into focus. Darley, the reflective Englishman, receives from Balthazar, the pathologist, a mass of notes that attempt to explain what really happened between the tempestuous Justine, her husband, Nessim, Clea the artist, and Pursewarden the writer; new figures emerge and play key roles.

Underneath the patina of civilized society lies the Sadean demimonde: a bundle of lustful appetites fueled by momentary impulse and a desire for unfettered indulgence. And the target of this savagery: Justine de Bertole, a pious and virginal heroine. Grotesque, inhumane, and compelling, Sade’s novel overturns Rousseau’s views of the social contract, and the common trope that punishment only visits sinners, to deliver a passionate treatise on good and evil, virtue and sin.

Naples '44 is an unflinching autobiographical account of a year in Naples after the armistice and Allied landings in Sorrento in 1943. Working as a British counterintelligence officer under the Allied occupation, Lewis documents the rich pageant of life in the city and its surrounding areas. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.

Justine is the first volume in the Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim, a Mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly charged atmosphere.

Father Ambrosio, the most pious and venerated monk in all of Madrid, is held as a paragon of virtue. But after 30 years of study and prayer, evil thoughts begin to permeate his mind. As two plots cleverly converge, torture, murder, incest, rape, poison, and magic prevail, sustained by an elegance in the writing of the 19-year-old Matthew Lewis.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is known universally for the gentle charm of Le Petit Prince, but it is this book, Land of Men - known originally in English as Wind, Sand and Stars - which is his masterpiece. First published in 1939, it documents Saint-Exupéry's life as a pilot in the pioneering days of long-distance flying and in particular his experiences as a pilot transporting mail across countries, across continents.

Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an enigma: arrogant, cocky, melancholic, brave, cynic, romantic, loner, socialite, soldier, free soul, and yet, victim of the world, he eludes definition and remains a mystery to those who know him. Just who is he? And what does he hope to achieve? Evolving from first person to third person, and then into a diary, A Hero of Our Time takes on a variety of forms to interrogate Pechorin's cryptic character and his unusual philosophy, providing breathtaking descriptions of the Caucasus along the way.

He was once a legendary highwayman. Now he's a recluse in a ruined French castle, with only a half-wild wolf for a companion. When Lady Leigh Strachan comes looking for a man to aid in her revenge, she's disillusioned to find that the famed Prince of Midnight couldn't help even if he cared to - which he doesn't. S. T. Maitland wants nothing to do with his legend, or with this fierce, beautiful, broken woman... until the old thrill of living on the cutting edge of danger begins to rise in his blood again.

A fatally dangerous man...and the woman who stands in the way of all he's ever desired. Beautiful and ruthless, the elegant assassin Allegreto will stop at nothing to regain his rightful place. And the perfect instrument has just fallen into his hands, in the lovely form of Lady Elena - the long-lost princess of the land he intends to wrest back from his enemies. But she is no mere maiden to be possessed.

After the jealous tyrant Don Rodrigo foils their wedding, young Lombardian peasants Lucia and Lorenzo must separate and flee for their safety. Their difficult path to matrimony takes place against the turbulent backdrop of the Thirty Years War, where lawlessness and exploitation are at their height. Lucia takes refuge in a convent, where she is later abducted and taken on a nightmarish journey to a sinister castle, while Lorenzo goes to Milan, where he witnesses famine, riots, and plague - all evoked through meticulous description and with stunning immediacy.

In search of a legendary mare, Lord Winter enters the crucible of the red sands, forging unbreakable bonds of loyalty and trust with his young companion in the desert. But hidden beneath the ragged costume of a Bedouin boy is a remarkable young woman: Zenia Stanhope, daughter of the extraordinary Queen of the Desert. Zenia wants nothing of the danger that Lord Winter lives for. She wants only to reach England, far from the blood and sand of the desert.

Captain Sir Sheridan Drake is no knight in shining armor, even if he happens to be famous for his heroism. An exiled princess with revolutionary ideas is just a convenient opportunity to get himself out of debt. Princess Olympia isn't precisely fairy-tale royalty herself; she's plump and a little shy, and desperate to do something of importance in the world. But though their meeting begins with her hopeless hero worship, a harrowing journey to the bleak edge of the world will transform them both.

Pursued by her enemies, flattered and courted for her lands, a powerful, devious princess is desperate to reach refuge. Haunted by the shadow of the young assassin set upon her, Princess Melanthe knows that an ice-cold countenance is her only protection. To succumb to love is the greatest danger of all. She can trust only one man amid the lies, the mysterious Green Knight - a true knight who never wavers once he gives his heart; a man who cannot comprehend deceit.

Full-cast radio adaptations of two classic mysteries by the writer of The Phantom of the Opera Gaston Leroux was one of the pioneers of the detective story, alongside Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe. Best known for The Phantom of the Opera, he also wrote a series of crime novels featuring...

Ranulf Ombrier is notorious throughout England for his skill at swordplay and murderous reputation. But after years of doing his king's bidding, he follows his conscience away from Edward, all the way to the wilds of Wales. Gwenllian of Ruardean, Welsh daughter of a powerful Marcher lord, has every reason to leave Ranulf for dead when one of her men nearly kills him. As a girl she was married by proxy to a man Ranulf murdered, only to become a widow before she ever met her groom.

In Mountolive, the third volume in Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, the events surrounding the interwoven community of Nessim, Justine, Narouz, Pursewarden and the other major characters are given a very different perspective. The intrigues and complex relationships are seen through the political prism of a world plunging toward war. David Mountolive, once emotionally involved with Nessim’s set, now returns to Egypt as the British ambassador....