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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Abandoned by her allies, the Republic of Venice holds out as the last beacon of resistance against the hobgoblin armies. Armed with new weapons the Southern Horde drives upon the floating city by land and sea. The Northern Horde drives deep into the heart of Europa and all fall before it. The Horde is vast beyond measure. Assassin daggers lurk in every shadow. Necrotic evil seeps and infects.

Can Adelynn and Baze overcome the obstacles and lies that separate them . . . or is redemption just out of reach? After escaping Ireland’s most sinister criminal, Baze and Adelynn Ford realize they must change tactics if they want to survive, but it’s not an easy task given the rift that’s forming between the couple. Baze’s past traumas are tainting the hard decisions he faces in both his family and career, while Adelynn does the unthinkable: using her gift to plunge into Shay O’Sullivan’s mind. It works—she discovers his hiding place.

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 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.

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.

Adelynn Spencer, a spirited member of the Edwardian London upper class, struggles under the conditions of her engagement to Detective Inspector Baze Ford. But during the gala announcing their betrothal, events take a fatal turn when Adelynn experiences a vivid dream of a man dying with a knife buried in his chest. To her alarm, Baze and his men later discover the man exactly as she witnessed. As Baze wrestles with the decision to harden his heart or take action to protect the woman who means everything to him, Adelynn ventures further into the clutches of magic and murder.

Young Rachel Verinder inherits a sacred Indian moonstone from her uncle. This extremely valuable gem disappears from Rachel's bedroom soon after a party is thrown in her honor to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. Believed to be stolen, a series of narratives unfold to solve the mystery of the missing moonstone. In true Collins fashion, one cannot get enough of the twists and turns in this intriguing detective story.

In the tumultuous year before war breaks out, a plane crashes on a country lane, and four people are brought together in the aftermath. Miriam is recovering from another miscarriage and learns to fly as an escape from the disappointments in her life. Audrey is a middle-aged upper-class activist who has shunned her society, travels the UK lecturing on reproductive rights, and lives in a gypsy caravan—and whose daily ritual includes a swim in a nearby river. As Little as Nothing beautifully explores resilience, the strength of new bonds, and the ways we reinvent ourselves.