Showing results by narrator "Ana Clements" in All Categories

Through the generations, Hermès have created innovative and exquisite accessories for the most glamorous customers. From their nineteenth-century saddlery workshop to 1960s Paris and beyond, Hermès has graced the arms and wardrobes of style icons from Grace Kelly and Jane Birkin to Victoria Beckham and Kim Kardashian. The Little Book of Hermès tells the story of the evolution of the House of Hermès by fashion historian Karen Homer.

Exploring four designers who exemplify elegance and high couture, these little books of fashion follow these brands from their creation, moving through their style evolutions, the key looks that define them and their impact on the fashion landscape today.

Little Book of Valentino tells the story of this most elegant of brands, beginning with Garavani’s initiation into the world of haute couture in 1950s Paris, progressing through the glittering social scene of 1970s New York and Valentino’s domination of Hollywood from the 1980s to the present day.

James and Laura escape to the sun-drenched hills of Andalusia for what is meant to be a much-needed break. She’s a trauma therapist, burnt out after the suicide of a vulnerable client. He’s reeling from layoffs at work. A week in a remote finca might be just what they need to reconnect. But within hours of arriving, Laura vanishes.

Belle can’t wait to finally have her twins all to herself after their first term at university. But when Kit unexpectedly brings back her boyfriend Ivo, Belle has to welcome him into their home. Charming and confident, Ivo soon wins over the family, but Belle can’t shake a strange feeling. And when Ivo reveals he knows a lot more about Belle than he first let on, she realises his intrusion into their lives could destroy everything she has built. How far is Belle willing to go to protect her family and herself?

Manuel Lindo came from nothing, but stubbornly worked his way up at the Dredging and Construction Company. Obliged to move from city to city for his job, the family couldn't put down roots, and Elvira and her siblings' childhood was marked by unpredictability. As they pass through temporary homes, they're caught between Manuel's outsized temper and their young mother's worsening illness, which would tragically take her life. Beginning with nine-year-old Manuel's experience in Madrid in 1939, Open Heart takes us on a journey through Spain full of insights about love in its many forms.

Times are hard. Anne Chatham is a clever, modest young woman with little money, no prospects for marriage, and a never-shared secret—she can see spirits. Anne finds employment as a typist at Northfield House, the grand country manor of the Wellington family. Her employer, the wheelchair-bound Mr. Wellington, is kindly. His haughty wife is not. He has two handsome sons, the wry and dashing Thomas and the dark and somber Owen. Anne feels sure her prayers have been heard. Until the terrifying night she stumbles upon a tortured spirit roaming the dark halls of Northfield.

The Therapist by Kathlyn C. White, marriage and family therapist, is a nonfiction account of the life of a therapist and the many interesting people she has seen over the years.

1939, London: From McPhail's Passage to Kensington's Grand Palace Hotel, Rose Dunbar is evacuated from her humble home on the Rock of Gibraltar and dropped into a chaotic city of falling bombs, perplexing class rules and bad weather. Despite being 'flagrantly foreign' to the locals, she becomes an efficient go-between for the upper-class ladies helping out with the war effort and her own tribe of noisy displaced families.

Every family has a story. Every story, eventually, must be told. For most of their lives, Julian Perel and his sister, Paula, lived in a house cast in silence, witnesses to a father struggling with a devastating secret too painful to share. Though their father took his demons to the grave, his past refuses to rest. As adults, brother and sister struggle to find their voices.

Sexy, single, and 60, and recently divorced from a cheating husband, Audrey wanted to find a new partner but was scared of braving the dating world again. But nothing could have prepared her for the truth. The first man was wonderful, funny, warm, romantic, and serious about commitment, what could possibly go wrong? A lot, it seemed. This is a true story and cautionary tale that every mature woman - and man - should listen to.

Explore the origins of the iconic candy cane; the basis of cherished traditions like ornaments, Christmas cards, and hanging stockings; and the stories behind influential classics such as "Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus". Featuring tongue-in-cheek hints and historical facts, this book delves into the ceremony, kitsch, and klatsch of Christmas, with extraordinary stories and poems prompting the need for tissues...and it even comes with a Yule Log recipe!

Many people struggle with remote meetings: a cocktail of factors, such as technical barriers and invisible group norms, increase the uncertainty and risk of the already vulnerable task of collaborating and sharing ideas. When remote meetings go badly, they go really badly. Few things feel as lonely and intimidating as speaking to a screen with unreadable faces staring back in silence. This book will help you improve the quality of your remote meetings.

Elizabeth Moberly, wellborn daughter of a decorated captain of His Majesty’s royal navy, is determined to marry a titled nobleman. For, only the wealth and privileges of a peer of the realm will provide sufficiently for her future children. When Philip Lindsey, an untitled stranger, puts a stop to her beloved cousin’s wedding, Elizabeth resents him for intruding, even as she finds herself attracted to the handsome gentleman’s fine manners and strong faith.

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier's Weekly magazine (January 27 - April 16, 1898). Classified as both gothic fiction and a ghost story, the novella focuses on a young governess sent to a remote country house to take charge of two orphans. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. But is the threat to her young charges really a ghostly presence or something else entirely?

On the other side of the Aether is a dirty and dangerous London filled with marvelous steam-powered machines and magic. Detective “Dolly” Williamson’s job is to keep the cesspool from growing bigger. He loves when he just gets a simple murder. Follow the clues, catch the culprit. One man’s way to shrink the stink of the streets. That won’t happen this Sunday morning.

Growing up during the centuries-long conflict between the empires of Egypt and Hatti, the young princess Istara is taken hostage by the King of Hatti to secure the loyalty of her father, the King of Kadesh to the empire. Soon her new life in Hatti's glittering capital becomes all she knows. Bound in blood before the gods to Hatti's unwilling crown prince, Istara, now Hatti's queen-in-waiting, learns she will never be loved.

Everything you know about the Sorcerer’s Stone is wrong! Yes, the fabled artifact known as the Emerald Tablet exists. Yes, it is the ancient source of knowledge for the powerful Alchemist Guild. What the Guild doesn’t know is the stone holds a terrible secret that goes beyond time and space, and there is more than one group willing do anything to get the Emerald Tablet. Rose, Violet, and little Rosie have settled into fancy new digs in upscale Paddington. Things get weird when the recluse Preston Gilchrist shows up on the doorstep, after three years living as a shut-in.

If it's the last thing she ever does, Iris will find Sophie's killer and make her pay. On a cold December night in Cornwall, nanny Karen Peterson disappeared with three-year-old Sophie Flynn. The next day, the child's body was found on a riverbank in Penhale Wood. A year later, Sophie's mother, Iris Flynn, appears on the doorstep of investigating officer Rob McIntyre, determined to make him reopen her daughter's case.

This book is a metaphorical look at lamplighting, and instances where we can take steps to keep our mental lamps alight and the streets of our life well lit. It takes a closer look at some of our cultural myths, preconceptions and superstitions. It examines some of the "young wives' tales" that sneak, via parlance, into the fabric of our understanding of our world - that world that our perceptions have, often while we were looking the other way, fashioned into being 'the real world'.