Showing results by narrator "Joyce" in All Categories

An enthusiastic, committed but naïve priest, Peter Graham, leaves his fiancée, Hilda, to serve as chaplain in France during World War 1. He is rapidly made aware of the British tommies' total indifference to what he has to offer and is appalled at the decline in morality of the officers revealed by their disrespect and attitude towards the local French women, most of who consequently lead lives of easy virtue.

Grace Melbury, the timber merchant's daughter, comes back to Little Hintock after some years at finishing school. She was the childhood sweetheart of Giles Winterborne, a compassionate, caring man who works in the village. Melbury senior has promised himself that Grace and Giles will be married to recompense for him taking Giles' father's betrothed many years before. However, Grace is a different woman now, a sophisticated creature, and the suave, knowledgeable local doctor Fitzpiers takes an interest in her.

Walter Herries establishes himself in Keswick and constructs an imposing property overlooking Uldale, further encroaching upon the peaceful lives of Jennifer and the children. Adam resolves to pursue a career in London, much to his mother's displeasure. He meets the Chartist campaigner Caesar Kraft and lives with him and his daughter Margaret. On a visit to the capital, Elizabeth Herries chooses the opportunity to escape from her unhappy life but is finally pursued by John.

Victorian humour generally doesn't translate well across time. The Wrong Box is one of the exceptions. The plot revolves around the supposed death of Joseph Finsbury who, as a youth, with his brother Masterman joined a tontine - a scheme whereby each entrant pays a fixed amount and the sum total, with interest, is given to the one who lives the longest. At the beginning of the story there are three survivors and then two - the Finsbury brothers.

The author dedicates his story to 'The Happy Few'. This presumably means those who lead lives free of hypocrisy and deceit. They are few indeed in the second part of this authoritative novel of early 19th-century France. Julien Sorel leaves the country town of Verrieres and flees to Paris with the sound of guns in pursuit. He is to take up a post as secretary to M. de la Mole, an influential businessman in the capital.

Newly born Judith is found in by eccentric Squire Gauntry in the chilled sombre ruin of a house on a bitter winter's night, her parents having died at her birth. With such a tenuous start, the child grows up to have an intense lust for life and curiosity for every new experience. She is the natural heir to both her parents' temperaments. With the wilfulness of her mother and the stubbornness of her father, she is redeemed by a compulsion to tell the truth and a willingness to help anyone she loves in time of trouble or distress.

Robert Michael Ballantyne was one of the most popular adventure story writers during Victoria's reign. He believed that boys should grow up taking risks, and his hero, Martin Rattler, certainly has a thrilling time in this tale. Aunt Dorothy Grumbit thinks him a very bad boy, but Martin possesses all the manly virtues that one expects from a Ballantyne hero, and the story has all the traditional elements of a rollicking yarn: jolly jack tars, pirates, shipwreck, travel up the Amazon, diamond mines and capture by savage tribes.

Edward Malone, an enthusiastic and ambitious columnist for the Daily Gazette, is urged by the woman he loves to undertake a heroic deed so that he may earn her love in return. In a few weeks, he is bound for the shores of South America in the company of the irascible academic Summerlee and debonair adventurer Lord John Roxton on an expedition to prove the claims of a bombastic genius. They venture to an isolated prehistoric land on top of a huge mountain in the tropical rain forests of the Amazonian jungle.

A chilling tale of suspense with a puzzling mystery at the heart of the story. Architect Edward Westray is sent by his firm to restore Cullerne Minster. The young man believes that more work is needed to secure the bell tower, but his warnings go unheeded. A fellow lodger, the church organist Sharnall, is investigating the belief of the late Martin Joliffe, the landlady's brother, that he, Joliffe, was the rightful heir to the Blandamer title and estates.

Includes 'Titbottoms Spectacles' by George William Curtis, 'The First Piano in Camp' by Samuel Davis, 'Mr Tolman' by Frank R. Stockton, 'Mrs Bullfrog' by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Against His Judgement' by Robert Grant, 'A Desperate Adventure' by Max Adeler, 'Occurence at Owl Creek' by Ambrose Bierce, 'The Stout Gentleman' by Washington Irving, 'Clothes 'by Gustav Kobbé and 'Negative Gravity' by Frank R. Stockton.

Julian Sorel is a handsome, naïve but not wholly innocent young man, born of peasant stock. He is, however, very ambitious and determined to succeed in life and make a career for himself. If this involves lying, guile and hypocrisy - so be it. Not so long ago, two professions would have been open to him - the army or the church - but in the wake of Waterloo and the defeat of Napoleon, it would be preferable to take Holy Orders.

'The manuscript was submitted to me by a young officer of the R.F.A., home from the front on leave. He explained that he had brought with him from France a bundle of papers which he had found in one of the dug-outs of an abandoned gun position. He discovered the papers secreted in a dark corner wedged in between a post and the wall of one of the bunks.' (Extract from the preface by John Lane, publisher)

The third and final collection in this series of reflections written by one of the wittiest and most whimsical men to press pen against paper. As well as his usual take on the foibles of his fellow Englishmen and women, Jerome ruminates, in his typically liberal fashion, about far-flung countries such as Russia, Africa and China. Jerome was never a 'jelly-bellied flag-flapping imperialist', and his vision, experience and worldliness are revealed to us over multiple essays.

Mary and George love each other in early childhood, but George's father tears them apart, not believing that Mary, a bailiff's daughter, will be a fit match for his son. The family travel to America to pursue the father's dream of wealth. During George's absence, Mary moves to Scotland and, in order to survive, is forced into a marriage of convenience. George returns after 10 years to search for his promised bride and becomes obsessed and infatuated with a Mrs Van Brandt. Is the pursuit beginning to affect his sanity?

When a high-society call girl is murdered in her Georgetown home, investigators find two cameras hidden in the walls of her bedroom. One has its memory erased, presumably by the murderer. The second is connected to the Internet through an encrypted connection...and no one knows who's on the other end. Special Agent Allison McNeil is asked by beleaguered FBI Director Clarence Mason to run an off-the-record investigation of the murder because of the murder's similarity to a case she worked a year earlier.

This is the book every sales manager wishes they had - before they accepted the job. The advice within acts as a 24/7 coach for beleaguered sales leaders dealing with perplexing dilemmas.

We all need to think more like entrepreneurs. Seeking and seizing opportunities, boldly taking risks, quickly changing course - achieving success today requires the kind of action-first, fake-it-'til-you-make-it ethos celebrated in the tech industry. This formula is not typically a female one. Women tend to be cautious. We overthink our next moves, become paralyzed by fear, and simply don't act. We might be safer...but we're also stuck.

What was the pastor of New Day Temple of Faith thinking, approving the creation of the New Day Singles Ministry? Better yet, what were its members thinking when they joined? Doreen, lovingly known as the Church Mother of New Day, thought that when she presented the idea of the ministry to the pastor, it could serve as a foundation to empower, encourage, and enlighten the church's single members.

Twelve years ago, Alyssa Rossi fled Louisiana under a cloud of scandal and criminal accusations. But her self-imposed exile in Italy comes to an abrupt end when she has to return to New Orleans for the sale of her jewelry company to an international conglomerate. There, she comes face-to-face with Clay Duvall, the duplicitous lover who betrayed her. TriTech CEO Jake Williams has no inkling that the employee behind his company's acquisition of Rossi Designs is a man obsessed with its owner.

Petrona McGibbon knew that completely uprooting her life and moving to the Caribbean island of Jamaica to open a bed and breakfast/bakery was going to be challenging. What she didn't expect was that her delectable creations would become the center of a murder investigation.