Showing results by narrator "Lillian Rachel" in All Categories

As the generating force of its plot, Twelfth Night uses a device which has since become a staple in comedy: gender confusion. Viola and her twin brother Sebastian, are shipwrecked on the coast of Illyria, a country ruled by the melancholy Duke Orsino. The twins are separated and Viola is led to believe that her brother has perished. She disguises herself as a male under the name of Cesario and makes her way to the ducal court, where Orsino employs her as a messenger, to communicate his love to the reclusive lady, Olivia—who is not willing to return his affection.

Michael Blake, a straitlaced English nobleman, desperately needs to marry an heiress. When he discovers that his intended bride - and her much-need dowry - has been romanced away from him by his own brother, he is forced to turn to the only other great heiress on the market. Emma Marks is an American adventuress who has spent the last few years traveling the world - a bargain she made with her father in return for her promise to marry a titled aristocrat by the time she's 25.

Captain Dylan Blake has spent the last decade fighting for his country. Desperate for a little peace, he sells his commission and returns to England but soon finds himself angry and adrift in London Society. When an old nemesis challenges him to a wager - he must get Lady Natalia Sinclair to dance with him twice in one evening - he is willing to play along. As the lines between the wager and attraction blur, can Dylan and Natalia find the courage to take the biggest gamble of all - love?

Henry VIII is dead, and history will never be the same. The year is 1536. Three claimants vie for his throne: Anne Boleyn, who fights for her young daughter, Elizabeth; Mary Tudor, who sees the hand of Providence at work; and Henry FitzRoy, the king's illegitimate but recognized son. Factions form, and battles are fought over who will win the crown.

Virginia Woolf's 1925 novel takes place over the course of a single June day in the lives of some very different Londoners: wealthy society hostess Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing for a party; her old friend Peter Walsh, recently returned from India, whose proposal of marriage Clarissa rejected years ago; Septimus Warren Smith, a WWI veteran suffering from shell shock; and his Italian-born wife, Rezia, who is trying to care for him as best she can. Woolf's beautiful prose captures the minds and souls of these vivid characters.

Prayer & Praise is a treasure trove of thought-provoking messages inspired by the lines of Austen's three preserved prayers. Atop a solid foundation of scripture, these 50 devotional segments (each finishing with prayer and praise) enlist familiar characters and situations from Austen novels to illustrate spiritual principles - in creative, often surprising, ways!

The King is dead. Chaos reigns… A life of messy politics and war was never what Brianna planned. Now she has to navigate a world where everyone seems set against her while trying to fix the country’s problems. She must show no weakness, for only then can she marry the man she loves and take her place as queen. But while Spirit-Beasts and Borderland nobility argue over alliances, Queen Geraldina works to take everything Brianna loves, and she has been playing this game for a long time.

Pauline Riddell has grand ambitions for her future at the armament factory. So, when her closest workmate reveals a salacious affair with a married man, Pauline refuses to risk her career by listening to the scandal. But, she’s shaken to her core when the police arrive with news of her best friend’s homicide. Desperate for justice, Pauline’s insistent poking into the investigation only makes her the prime suspect. And now, to clear her name, she must unravel a web of deadly clues entangling her in a sinister plot.

The Martians, finding the resources on their own planet dwindling dramatically, decided to invade and colonize Earth. They land in England and quickly establish control through their vastly superior military technology. The narrative focuses on the wanderings and deliberations of the narrator as he wanders around the country seeking refuge from the remorseless invaders. Two of the most significant characters he encounters are a curate and an artilleryman, neither of whom has an effective approach to dealing with the crisis.

Rejected by her betrothed and banished into the wilderness, Brianna finds herself broken-hearted with nowhere to turn. She wants nothing more than to be left alone. But greater threats loom across the Border, and there are whispers of war on the breeze. The Spirit-Beasts are coming and Brianna might be the only thing that can stand in their way and stop the massacre of a nation.

Brianna bears a deadly secret: she’s not the princess she is pretending to be. If the prince finds out, her life will be forfeit and her country plunged into war. But there is more to the icy prince than meets the eye, and Brianna slowly unravels the secrets of his dark past while surviving in a strange culture. However her goodness and wit will only get her so far. Terrifying beasts stalk the border and a murderer is at work in the town. They know the truth of Brianna’s identity and will stop at nothing to destroy all she has fought for.

From the beginning of time, God has called His children to share the Good News. One group of individuals He especially loves to call is artists. Looking at the sweeping majesty of a fiery sunset, or the delicate perfection of a single flower, I know that God is an artist. He uses beauty to share His love, and He calls artists to create beauty through their many mediums to spread His Word.

Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written about 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the somber tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is a creation by Shakespeare and the second appears to have been drawn from an Italian source, either by Bandello or Ariosto. The action takes place in Messina. Eponymous lovers Hero and Claudio seem to be ideally matched and nearly everyone is looking forward to their impending marriage.

Collin Morgan, Earl of Penderdale, has a problem. Someone is committing crimes in his name, leaving him suspended from his work in the War office. Elizabeth Essex has a secret. She's the daughter of a well-respected professor at Cambridge University―and a professor herself. If anyone other than the few women she teaches found out, it could ruin her family's good name. Morgan's travels to track his impersonator lead him to Cambridge, and to an old friend―Elizabeth's father. Forced into close proximity with each other, Morgan and Elizabeth's first impressions are less than friendly.

The conflict with Cornelius Marx is over. Determined to move forward, Adelynn Spencer eagerly charges into her new marriage to Detective Inspector Baze Ford and steals away with him to the countryside city of Bath. While Adelynn wrestles to escape her recurring nightmares of the Irish magician—both waking and sleeping—Baze seeks the city’s legendary waters, hoping they’ll cure his damaged leg and break his growing opium addiction.

When it was first published in 1847, Wuthering Heights was considered highly controversial for its blunt portrayal of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and the dismissal of Christian values by some of its characters. Today, this gothic novel is considered one of the greatest in English literature.

Between 1895 and 1901 H. G. Wells wrote six science fiction novels, which have become among the most celebrated examples of the genre. In this collection, Wells explores a number of topics that have since become very common subjects in science fiction, including time travel, celestial beings, eugenics, alien invasion, and space exploration.

The curious and vivacious Lady Melanie Ludwig is the beating heart of her castle, but when her husband of 22 years and his cherished horse die suddenly in a hunting accident, her life begins to fall apart. At the height of her grief, her beloved unwed handmaiden, Janine, leaves her service due to an unplanned pregnancy, leaving Melanie full of rage, lonely, and without purpose.

The Invisible Man was the fourth sci-fi novel written by Wells in the 1890s. The main character, Griffin, is one of the intimidating villains in all popular literature. The archetypal "mad scientist," Griffin devotes himself to an obsessive study of optics and realizes his ambition to render livings things permanently invisible. After making a cat invisible, he successfully applies the procedure to himself. After causing chaos in London, he travels to the village of Iping in Sussex and takes up residence in a local hotel.

Dora is a barmaid. Usually her life is fairly simple: She gets up, cleans the inn, feeds the chickens, argues with the increasingly obstreperous cockerel, listens to the woes of her fellow barmaid, avoids doing the laundry, and serves drinks to the motley crew of islanders who lurk about the taproom every night. The same old routine, day in, day out. Tonight, though, is different.