Showing results by narrator "Deborah Balm" in All Categories

Soldark. A city of mystery and mechanisms. Once a year, the elite of Soldark host an elaborate midsummer masquerade ball, and Verity Pennington has always dreamed of attending. But as a clockmaker’s daughter, Verity hardly has time for such things. When a rival mechanist steals valuable plans from her father’s shop, everything changes. Verity finds out the thief will attend the masquerade, and she vows to get in, but it won’t be easy. A maze of mechanical masterpieces. A ticking clock. Can she unmask the thief and save her family’s reputation?

Soldark. A bustling city where dreams come true. That’s what seamstress Mae Wright hopes, anyway. But when she moves into her new shop premises, everything goes wrong. She loses all her money while saving her runaway dog, and none of her sewing equipment arrived in transit. A handsome yet reclusive theater director named Des offers her a job mending costumes, and she can’t help but accept. Mae enters the backstage life: full of chaotic costume changes, quirky actors, and friends who become like family.

Lady Veronica Elal has been freed from her tower—and entered a life of servitude. It doesn’t matter that her wizard master has odd ideas about circumventing Convocation tradition and making their relationship equal. Nic prides herself on her practicality, and that means not pretending her marriage is full of hearts and flowers. Besides, she understands that, despite her new husband’s idealism, they face obstacles so great the pair of them could be crushed to nothing, even without dashing themselves brainless trying to fight the Convocation.

Annie Besant’s magnetic eloquence is brilliantly apparent in this volume of her writings and lectures on the spiritual life. The welfare of humanity and the world around us is our utmost concern, says Besant, and the primary tool of transformation is our own consciousness. Our inner life must change if outer conditions are to be improved. Besant illuminates the way with topics such as calmness of mind, devotion, knowledge, karma, reincarnation, and Divine Law. Quotes from poetry and the world’s scriptures provide additional inspiration.

After escaping to the garden for a reprieve from the stuffy ballroom, Miss Evelyn Trainor bumps into a handsome stranger through a hedge. When he boldly requests an introduction, she lies and tells him a fake name, Lady Eve, positive she’ll never see him again. But when she returns to the country for Christmas and finds her handsome stranger—the Duke of Alverton—has moved in next door for the holidays, she does what she must to guard her secret. For he has declared the importance of titles and cannot find out she is a commoner.

Jadren El-Adrel knows he’s a mess. He’s a cobbled-together monster pretending to be a wizard, still unable to master the magic that makes him pretty much immortal and is useless for anything else. Though he’s tried to learn to work with his familiar, Seliah, he’s still terrified to discover what might happen if he gives himself full access to the depths of her powerful magic. Some questions should never be answered.

Bev's on the hunt to understand her mysterious past, and that means a visit to her dear friend Merv. The six-foot moleman doesn't have the answers, but takes her to the secret, underground town of Lower Pigsend, thriving with all the magical creatures seeking refuge after the war. Upon returning to the Weary Dragon, Bev is confronted by sentries from the underground town. They accuse her of stealing a magical talisman that protects the town and - even worse - have threatened to arrest Merv for building a tunnel to the surface.

Have you ever wondered why we count sheep to get to sleep? Or where the phrase "red herring" comes from? Across British history, animals have been written about in poetry, painted in oils, and even recorded in law. Loved or feared, familiar or endangered, animals are everywhere to be seen. In this enchanting study, Karen R. Jones takes a journey through the history of ten animals to show the extraordinary story of "beastly" Britain.

The annual Pigsend Harvest Festival is coming up quick, and Bev's been assigned to the planning committee against her will. But Ida Witzel, the festival chair, wants no mishaps this year, and she knows if Bev's involved, the hijinks will be at a minimum. That is, until farmer Trent Scrawl isn't seen for a few days, and on a wellness visit, Bev finds him dead.

It's election time in Pigsend, and Pigsend's mayor Jo Hendry is up for re-election, but she's not the only candidate in the race. Pip Norris, the ferrier, Wilda Murtaugh, the cousin of the perfidious mayor from Middleburg, Gore Dewey, the blacksmith, and Hans Silver, a local farmer, have thrown their hats into the ring, too. And if Earl Dollman's polling is to be believed, it's going to be a tight race. But when every candidate except Hendry receives a letter threatening to expose their "secret," Bev's once again called to investigate.

After a local couple's path to the altar is sabotaged, retired spy Irma Abercrombie and sun-deprived nerd Violet Blackheart get roped into lending a hand sorting out the duo's wedding woes—and all the bodies. Meanwhile, Violet preps for her business partner's island arrival—blender drinks at the ready—as Irma secretly tries to track down Violet's former CFO...and their company's former money.

When one of Irma's friends asks for help vetting a potential suitor, she's sure that a little digging into his past will do the trick. But after she discovers that a robotic appliance might be on a rampage in the almost-beau's swanky houseboat community, she sets out to entice Violet into unravelling another technological snafu.

Waking in paradise with no memory of who she is, can Agent Harris piece together the true picture and retrieve her skills before it’s the last thing she ever sees?

It’s 745. The kingdom is split between the two eldest sons of Charles Martel. Carloman, the oldest, has the support of the king and the church, while Pippin refuses to bend the knee. Civil war is imminent.

After a grueling training exercise in the Scottish mountains, Agent Carrie Harris is called to a place hidden from all civilization. Ill-prepared and under-equipped, she discovers a secret world filled with gruesome evidence of events she can’t comprehend.

When Lady Seliah Phel wakes from a drugged sleep to find herself abandoned by her newly bonded wizard, she vows revenge—and to hunt him down. Tracking him through the familiar wilds of the marshlands of her home is the easy part–learning to use her nascent magical skills is something else entirely. So is facing the vast, uncaring society of the Convocation in a time of brewing war.

On what seemed like an ordinary morning, Carrie finds herself in the crossfire of a violent bank robbery. As the horrible scene plays out before her experienced eyes, she must find a way to survive the encounter, and save the day.

Murder and mayhem abound in this thrilling return to the 1930s as a young woman uncovers her own connection to the power and magic of her ancient Egyptian ancestors.

With the help of her niece, Moli, and two strangers, James and Kiza, the group must travel through time to collect nine wonders from history in just nine days. Only then can they hope to save the world from Pandorai, a murderous AI bent on destruction, along with its two maniacal henchmen-resurrected Adolf Hitler and Dr. Shiro Ishii.

Moli has never seen a dragon, but she'd imagined one many times. Following the death of her father, a museum curator and historian, her need to escape from the real world has never felt so acute. Travelling from China to London to attend the funeral, Moli takes the opportunity to visit her father's last exhibition, "The Lost Dynasty of Rouran". The trip reveals Moli's connection to an ancient khanate and, unexpectedly, opens the door to another realm.