Showing results by narrator "Justine Eyre" in All Categories

The third and final volume of the very best of Ben Bova, creator of the New York Times best-selling Grand Tour science fiction series, six-time Hugo award winner, and past president of the National Space Society - a grand master of science fiction storytelling. These stories span the five decades of Bova's incandescent career.

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.

In her classic ghost story "Kerfol", Edith Wharton tells the tale of Anne de Barrigan, a young Frenchwoman convicted of murdering her husband, the jealous Yves de Cornault. The elderly lord was found dead on the stairs, apparently savaged by a pack of dogs, though there were no dogs no live dogs at Kerfol that day. In this remarkable collection of intertwining short stories, Deborah Noyes takes us back to the haunted manor and tells us Anne de Barrigan's story through the sympathetic eyes of her servant girl.

Daniil Zverev is the world's most ruthless and sinfully seductive tycoon. No one would ever know the cruelty and rejection that fueled his ascent. But beautiful ballet teacher Libby Tennent is getting under Daniil's skin and dangerously close to the truth.

From a distance Felix Fitzwilliam, the son of an old English family, is a good husband and father. But, obsessed with order and routine, he's a prisoner to perfection. Disengaged from the emotional life of his North Carolina family, Felix has let his wife, Ella, deal with their special-needs son by herself.

Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah Quilliam, with her talent for business, runs the Inn at Hemlock Falls, while her sister Meg keeps the guests 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.

Helena Houndswood is the epitome of class - at least when the camera's rolling. Behind the scenes, the celebrated expert on stylish living is just a garden-variety snob with a heart of stone. She's furious to learn that a group of decidedly déclassé Hemlock Falls women has won the design contest sponsored by her television show, It's a Beautiful Life. Now one winner is missing and another is dead - but just how far would Helena go to avoid mixing with the unwashed? After all, murder is so tacky.

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?

Writing under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, Louisa May Alcott wrote a series of what she called "blood and thunder" thrillers for a weekly pulp magazine. In the first, Pauline's Passion and Punishment, she explores the unfair roles of men and women, as well as the societal expectations and forbidden desires that play an important role in this story of love and vengeance.

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 follow a trail that leads to some not-so-sweet evidence.Tween girls can wonder why God doesn’t step in when meanness and injustice happens. This story helps them see how he often uses ordinary people to help uncover the truth!

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.

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure is one of the most notorious texts in English literature. As recently as 1963, an unexpurgated edition was the subject of a trial, yet in the 18th century John Cleland's open celebration of sexual enjoyment was a best-selling novel. Fanny's story, as she falls into prostitution and then rises to respectability, takes the form of a confession that is vividly colored by copious and explicit physiological details of her carnal adventures.