Showing results by narrator "Justine Eyre" in All Categories

The year 1972: Eleni Stephenson is called to the bedside of her dying aunt in Athens. In a story that rips her world apart, Eleni discovers the chilling truth behind her family’s dark past, plunging her into the shadowy world of political intrigue, secret societies, and espionage, where families and friends are torn apart and where a belief in superstition simmers just below the surface.

Antiquities expert Evan Rhys might be a rogue, but he’s as loyal as can be. When he fell in love with Lady Kate Whelan at first sight, he hid his heart—because Kate was his lifelong friend’s new bride. And when a mysterious steeplechase accident in Ireland left Kate a widow, Evan fled to protect his late friend’s secrets…and tried to forget his unrequited love.

Skyboat Media presents The Best of Katherine Mansfield, an original compilation of stories from one of the defining writers of modernist fiction. Katherine Mansfield’s stories shine a light on the duality and the overpowering nature of psychology through her delicate, nuanced, and often stream-of-consciousness narration style. None of her stories seem to settle on just one theme; like life they encompass the intersectional nature of all moments, from the most minute and mundane to the most terrific and tragic.

When Australian Lily Johansson earns the opportunity to dance for the prestigious Bohème Ballet in Paris, she fulfills a lifelong dream and continues a family legacy - but it comes at a cost. While Lily falls in love with the City of Light and her professional life catapults her into fame, her personal life suffers as the relationship with her fiancé deteriorates. On a stormy night, an argument sends Lily racing across the road and a speeding car tragically changes her life forever. Lily’s heart, once full of love and hope, is smashed to pieces and her career crumbles.

1917. When dancer Viktoriya Budian flees war-torn Russia, she arrives in Paris, destitute and without hope. Her only chance of survival is to join the Ballets Russes, a controversial dance company that works with Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, and Henri Matisse. Present day. Lily Johansson returns to Paris, the city that broke her heart and destroyed her ballet career, hoping to ease the guilt over her fiancé’s death and to make amends with her estranged sister, Natalie, also a dancer.

1952. Louisa Gilchrist flees her turbulent life in England and arrives in Argentina. When the country’s most influential tango composer chooses Louisa as his muse, she’s hypnotized by high society soirees, powerful friends, and a luxurious existence. But Louisa’s world is shattered when betrayal leads to murder. Present day. Journalist Dani McKenna’s damaged career has a chance of being resurrected if she can secure an interview with reclusive tango dancer Carlos Escudero.

A powerful and inspiring story of self-realization and legal victory that upends our basic assumptions about sexual identity. In 1966, a male baby, Chris, was adopted by an upper-middle-class Toronto couple. From early childhood, Chris felt ill-at-ease as a boy and like an outsider in his...

When the Countess of Walther dies at her German estate, her loyal dwarfess Maria-Barbara is forced to work as a prophet for a traveling magician, who betrays her by selling her to the queen of Spain. At the royal court in Madrid, Mari finds herself in a bizarre, enchanted world, a society culturally splendid but intellectually isolated. There she becomes Maribarbola, prophet to the queen, and, her survival at stake, endeavors to outsmart the Spaniards.

When American writer Stephanie Saldana finds herself in an empty house at the beginning of Nablus Road, the dividing line between East and West Jerusalem, she is a new wife trying to navigate a fragile terrain, both within her marriage and throughout the country in which she has chosen to live. Pregnant with her first child, Stephanie struggles to protect her family, their faith, and herself from the cracks of Middle Eastern conflict that threaten to shatter the world around her.

Sixteen of America's favorite author-anglers spin tales of mystery and fishing in this collection. From the tragic to the comic with many stops in between, these stories reflect the authors' passions for both making stories and catching fish. Michael Connelly, Ridley Pearson, John Lescroart, Don Winslow, Melodie Johnson Howe, Victoria Houston, and others all share a mysterious affection for things piscatorial when not busy writing best-selling books.

When eight-year-old Saroya loses her mother, her usually absent father takes her on a cruise for her birthday, which he forgets to celebrate. Devastated and very seasick, Saroya falls off the ship trying to catch a locket that once belonged to her mother. She is rescued by a dolphin, who takes her to the magical Animia Island, where she meets Josephine, a stuffed puppet; her son, Little Joe; Calista the conch; Jonbl the baseball glove; and Spoon. They, among others, were all unwanted and have come to life.

By the author of the acclaimed Passion Blue, a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2012 and "a rare, rewarding, sumptuous exploration of artistic passion," comes a fascinating companion novel.

Artistically brilliant, Giulia is blessed—or cursed—with a spirit’s gift: she can hear the mysterious singing of the colors as she creates them in the convent workshop of Maestra Humilitá. It’s here that Giulia, forced into the convent against her will, has found unexpected happiness and rekindled her passion to become a painter—an impossible dream for any woman in 15th century Italy.

But when a dying Humilitá bequeaths Giulia her most prized possession—the secret formula for the luminously beautiful paint called Passion blue—Giulia realizes she’s in danger from those who have long coveted the famous color. Faced with the prospect of a life in the convent barred from painting as punishment for keeping Humilitá’s secret, Giulia is struck by a desperate idea: What if she disguises herself as a boy? Could she make her way to Venice and find work as an artist’s apprentice?

Along with the truth of who she is, Giulia carries more dangerous secrets: the exquisite voices of her paint colors and the formula for Humilitá’s Passion blue. And Venice, she discovers, with its gilded palazzos and masked balls, has secrets of its own. Trapped in her false identity in this dream-like place where reality and reflection are easily confused, and where art and ambition, love and deception hover like dense fog, can Giulia find her way?

This stunning, compelling novel explores timeless themes of love and illusion, gender and identity as it asks the question: what does it mean to risk everything to pursue your passion?

When a group of Jeri McKane’s friends help Abby present a birthday dinner for her home-ec project, the party ends up in the trashcan … literally. Is it just an unfortunate event, or have the friends been intentionally poisoned? Jeri’s instinct says something isn’t right, and the girls...

It's hate at first sight for two television antiques show personalities - an aristocratic Brit and a loud, foul-mouthed American - staying at the Hemlock Falls Inn. Their bitter rivalry heats up when they decide to have it out in a cooking contest. It's a good thing that inn owners Meg and Sarah Quilliam are experts at appraising motives for murder when one of them keels over on camera - because the suspects are piling up.

The good ladies of Hemlock Falls are protesting a nudie bar, and the MacAvoy barn has just burned to a crisp - with someone inside. The Quilliam sisters have a feeling the two incidents are connected, but they have problems of their own.

Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah "Quill" Quilliam, with her talent for business, runs the Inn at Hemlock Falls while her sister, Meg, keeps the patrons happy with her culinary abilities. But when it comes to murder, the Quilliam sisters have to rely on other skills - spotting clues, solving crimes, and catching culprits.

Little Men brilliantly extends the March family saga begun in Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women. Jo---now married to the good-natured Professor Bhaer and with sons of her own---has become the unflappable matron of an extended family at Plumfield, a school that the Bhaers have founded with Aunt March's legacy. Jo's rambunctious youngsters grow up in an atmosphere full of high spirits and misadventure---a world enlivened by Alcott's unique powers of observation and sympathy.

At first, the case appears to be one of simple misadventure. Sonet van Rensburg, a base jumper, falls to her death while attempting to parachute off a newly built 65-story Sandton skyscraper. But Sonet’s jumping partner, Chris Theron, insists that this was no accident, and he hires private investigator Jade de Jong to uncover the truth. Glad of the distraction from her conflicted and seemingly doomed relationship with police superintendent David Patel, Jade immerses herself in the case. She discovers that Sonet worked for a charity that helped impoverished communities become self-supporting farming units.

The death of flamboyant writer and womanizer Peter Grosvenor sets in motion a series of spiraling events surrounding his legacy and his estate. His bitter third wife, his two children, his sister, his friends, and his would-be biographers are drawn into a maelstrom of intense memories and painful encounters as each of the major players in Peter's life seeks to appropriate Peter's estate for his or her own purposes.

Sisters Meg and Sarah Quilliam make sure guests feel right at home when they visit the Inn at Hemlock Falls. Located in upstate New York, Hemlock Falls is a small town renowned for its scenic beauty - and scenes of crime. Disaster strikes a mere week before the Hemlock Falls Ladies’ Auxiliary hosts the annual Spring Fete when the festival’s chairwoman - the redoubtable Adela Henry - gives up her job in a huff. Who’s going to judge the justly renowned Jell-O architecture contest? Who will stop the members of the Craft Guild from sabotaging their rivals, the Crafty Ladies? More to the point, who’s got the tact, diplomacy, and iron will necessary to organize the booths and settle quarrels over the programming? Hemlock’s mayor hopes to assure the fete’s success when he recruits professional organizer Linda Connally and her staff to take over Adela’s duties. But when Connally’s body turns up in the trunk of a used car at Peterson’s Automotive, Meg and Sarah are back in the detecting business.