Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

Fair O'Nelli is a normal girl, except for one small fact: she has spent the last nine years of her life living in a cellar with her loyal dog, studying the Scrolls of Truth by mysterious finger light, educated by her mother in the dark of night to avoid being discovered. She knows that her father and brother are missing, quite possibly or dead. Fair is set free on the day she comes of age, when it's safe for her to be seen.

Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his detective stories, he also wrote other short stories that are masterpieces of mystery and suspense. In some stories, a supressed uneasiness gradually builds up and evolves into sheer horror; in others, the story line unexpectedly changes and comes to an unlikely conclusion.

In "The New Catacomb", deceit and revenge are buried in the deep recesses of a Roman archeological site.

Leslie Charteris had no way of knowing that the Hindenburg was hurtling toward catastrophe. But like his crime-fighting character, the Saint, Charteris has an eye for trouble. First the famous mystery writer suspects the German airship has received a bomb threat. Then he discovers a passenger has mysteriously disappeared. Convinced the man was pushed overboard, Charteris conducts a covert investigation. But the vanished man turns out to be an undercover Nazi agent....

Consumerism is everywhere. It shapes the way we eat, shop, rest, think, love and believe. We can’t escape it, but how can we live well in the midst of it? We are daily seduced by a 250 billion dollar marketing machine. But how often do we consider how this might influence us? The current...

Determined to seek his fortune, Percival Taylor leaves behind his sleepy hometown and sets out to become a legendary pirate - only no one at the roguish seaport of Blackshore will allow him anywhere near a ship! Percival must find other means to win the heart of the beautiful Tuppence Magrathia-Paddock, who has mistaken him for a pirate rogue out of one of her romantic tales. She is entirely willing to swoon into his arms if he can prove his buccaneer soul - and she is willing to arrange her own kidnapping to prove it.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (May 22, 1859 - July 7, 1930) was a British author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science-fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.

Reggie and Nigel Heath are relatively close in age but worlds apart in personality. The older of the two brothers, Reggie is a successful attorney with charisma to spare. Nigel has always struggled to step out of his shadow. When Reggie leases space in an office building on London's Baker Street, he finds that the paperwork comes with an odd stipulation: his firm must receive and respond with a standard reply to letters sent to Sherlock Holmes, who had occupied the same famous address.

An eclectic collection of many of the spookiest classic tales of horror, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The New Catacomb"; Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death", "Hop-Frog", and "The Cask of Amontillado"; W. W. Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw"; Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and Algernon Backwood's "The Willows".

Against the larger-than-life backdrop of England's conflict with Napoleon, young Anne Garland is courted by three suitors: the trumpet-major John Loveday, his sailor-brother Bob, and Festus Derriman of the yeomanry cavalry. For Hardy, the loves and sorrows of ordinary characters are as much the material of history as any record of emperors and generals.

Alternating between nineteenth-century Europe and present-day New England, this tale follows the great British painter J. M. W. Turner - and his scene of artists, intellectuals, and lovers - and Henry, a middle-aged family man whose otherwise mundane existence is disrupted by the discovery of The Center of the World, Turner’s controversial painting of Helen of Troy that had been thought lost forever.

Paris, 1793. Lieutenant Maurice Lindey is an ardent young republican who hates tyranny and injustice whether they come from the left or right. But such even-handedness is a liability at a time when addressing someone as "monsieur" instead of "citizen" can bring one to the guillotine. Maurice makes daily visits to his love, Genevieve Dixmer, who lives in a quarter known as the hiding place of the Chevalier of Maison Rouge, a daring counterrevolutionary with notorious plans to free Marie Antoinette, who languishes in prison awaiting trial and inevitable execution.

The first of Agon’s chains has broken. It is only a matter of time before he is free and the world is engulfed in chaos and death. There are few left to stop him. Most of the gods can only sit and watch in horror from their prison in the heavens, but the resurrection of the father-god, Corrias, gives the people of Iraldas a sliver of hope. A fighting chance. Yet, Corrias' failure to defeat Agon in ages past is not forgotten. Many believe that it is only the might of the Warrior-god Telm that can defeat the Beast, and Telm is dead.

After the catastrophe of the Call of Agon, Ifferon and his companions find themselves in the unenviable situation of witnessing, and partaking in, the death of another god - this time, Corrias, ruler of the Overworld. With Corrias locked inside the corpse of a boy named Théos, he suffers a fate worse than the bonds of the Beast Agon. Yet, hope is rekindled when the company find a way to restore the boy, and possibly the god, back to life. The road to rebirth has many pitfalls, and there are some who consider such meddling with the afterlife a grave risk.

The timely, powerful memoir of a man unjustly charged with a crime for helping his relatives, I Just Wanted to Save My Family offers a heartrending window into the lives of those displaced by the Syrian civil war and a scathing critique of the often absurd, unfeeling bureaucracies that determine their fates.

This multi-voice production of The Tragedy of Macbeth features an all-star cast under the direction of acclaimed producer Paul Alan Ruben, a Grammy Award-winning veteran of the audiobook industry. With five AudioFile magazine Golden Voice recipients, multiple Grammy and SOVAS nominations, and countless Earphones and Audie Awards, this phenomenal cast brings Shakespeare's work to life.

J.R.R. Tolkien's creations, imagination, and characters captured the attention of millions of readers. But who was the man who dreamt up the intricate languages and perfectly crafted world of Middle-earth? Tolkien had a difficult life, for many years: orphaned and poor, his guardian forbade him to communicate with the woman he had fallen in love with, and he went through the horrors of the First World War. An intensely private and brilliant scholar, he spent over 50 years working on the languages, history, peoples, and geography of Middle-earth,

Romania, World War II. Nelu escapes from his home and finds shelter with other homeless children in the caves beneath Bucharest's spectacular concert hall. They call it "The Fortress". Daniel is the son of a well-to-do Jewish family living in the heart of Bucharest. On the eve of WWII, Daniel and his family are forced to flee and take refuge in those caves with the help of the children. Daniel, Nelu, and the other homeless children find themselves united when facing the Nazi threat.

Listeners will discover lost and forgotten women who wrote horror every bit as effectively as their male contemporaries. They will learn about their lives and careers, the challenges they faced as women working in a male-dominated field, the way they overcame those challenges, and the way they approached the genre - which was often subtler, more psychological, and more disturbing.

Guy de Maupassant was a master of the short-story genre, producing more than 300 during his lifetime. These concise stories contain twists and shocking turns, and range from the fantastic and supernatural, with characters descending into madness....

Russian KGB officer Nikolai Semenov agrees to spy for the British, as he is enraged at what Russia has done to his family. He begins passing war secrets to the Brits. The Russians find out and kidnap him back to Moscow. The British have a plan to bring him safely out, but there's one great hitch: He can only bring his wife or his daughter with him when he runs. He must decide; does he stay and die, leaving a wife and child desperate for help? Or does he run, and leave one of them behind; a terrible death in either case? The choice is made in a way no one expects.