Showing results by narrator "Philip Battley" in All Categories

Surely the daughter of a viscount, even an impoverished one, ought to be able to live, just a little? But her father, Viscount Rennard, is a violent man, and one who is hard to thwart as he harshly restricts Keziah's society. When Keziah learns of her father's plans to marry the recently widowed and fabulously wealthy duchess of Chartley, it doesn't take the lovely Miss Todd long to realize that the woman's only son, Felix - the new duke of Chartley - is an inconvenience that her father will remove with haste.

The French Revolutionary Wars catapulted Britain into a conflict against a new enemy: Republican France. Britain relied on the Royal Navy to protect its shores and empire, but as radical ideas about rights and liberty spread across the globe, it could not prevent the spirit of revolution from reaching its ships. In this insightful history, James Davey tells the story of Britain's Royal Navy across the turbulent 1790s. As resistance and rebellion swept through the fleets, the navy itself became a political battleground.

In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking for a sign, a signal, an answer to an enigma that has haunted him since childhood: Was Bach murdered by a famous oculist? And years later, was Handel a victim of the same doctor? Allegro follows his investigation, from the salons of London to the streets of Paris, recreating an enthralling and turbulent time, full of rogues and brilliant composers, charlatans and presumptuous nobles. Running parallel to this search is the rise of Mozart, his knowledge and fame, his trials and losses.

Spring, 1593. A ballad is posted in the heart of London inciting violence. The Lord Mayor offers 100 crowns for the name of the author. Thomas Clarady wants that money and drags Francis Bacon into the game. At first it’s just a riddle to be solved. Tom talks to poets, while Francis analyzes the verse. Things take a dangerous turn when the authorities focus on two popular playmakers. One is cruelly tortured. Another is killed in dubious circumstances. Did he start a brawl that ended in tragedy? Or was he murdered by his dinner companions? The official story seems plausible, at first.

Life has not been kind to Charlotte Harding. Orphaned, impoverished and plain-looking, she depends on the charity of relatives who take her in when she has nowhere else to go. In their London home, she meets the rich and handsome Viscount Stanton who is promised to the beautiful heiress, Miss Powell. Charlotte is smitten with him on first sight, but the Viscount barely notices her except to note her unprepossessing looks and shabby dress.

It is 1903 in the English countryside when Robbie, a shy young art student, meets the twenty-nine-year-old Anton who is running from memories of his brutal childhood and failed marriage. Within months, they begin a love affair that will never let them go. Robbie grows into an accomplished portraitist in the vivid London art world with the help of Anton's enchanting former wife, while Anton turns from his inherited wealth and connections to improve the conditions of the poor.

They’re torn between duty and love, passion and power, reputation and regality. In this four-book boxed set the Royal Agents of M16 destroy the enemy, journey across the globe into perilous situations and steamy encounters, then return to the men and women they love. While each title in this series is a standalone featuring one couple with their own HEA, the books in the series will be more enjoyable in order.

Incredibly smart and unbelievably stealthy, I take my name “Zeppelin” seriously. As a Brit who worked for the US NSA and NRO, I’m experienced and wise, with a penchant for technology. Traffickers can never get by me, and they never even see me coming. Teaming up with the young and assertive Verity is not my idea of a good time. But going undercover as her lovesick husband may be my worst nightmare. The last thing I want to do is pretend to like this chick. Let’s be honest, she’s not real happy with this make-believe coupling either. I may have heard her mumble “neanderthal” once or twice.

As the youngest Barrett, I have a reputation that belies who I really am. Everyone believes I’m a billionaire bad boy who travels the globe seeking fun, wine, and anything fine—the antithesis of my older brother. But something is calling me—something I can’t quite understand. With enough money to want for nothing, is it possible that what I want has been right under my nose all along.

James has watched his brothers find the perfect woman one after the other, but for him, he had yet to stumble across one who didn't make him want to put an ocean between them. So he did, thinking a life in New York would put his discontent out of sight. New York suffragette Primrose had more than enough men trying to control her. There was no chance she'd relent and marry again, despite her brothers' dogged "encouragement" on the matter. She wanted independence and freedom. A husband would only serve to snatch that dream away.

They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned but Fiona MacKintosh was more inclined to believe that after a long, furious journey through hell, no scorned woman was apt to be inclined to love and entrust her heart to a man so easily again. Especially not to the same man! Harry Brudenall, Marquis of Aylesbury, has devoted so much of his life to finding his long-lost sister that he's almost forgotten what it feels like to live. Fiery and passionate, Fiona is life. In her, he finds a reason to embrace the present and live for the future. If only she'll have him.

After five years of mourning her lost love, Moira MacKenzie had finally move on with her life and seek a husband. Finding out Vincent MacKintosh was alive after all those years dealt her the greatest shock of her life. She might have loved Vin, but he had never loved her back. Vin is a man tormented by the past and, with little hope that her dreams of true love will be fulfilled, Moira instead offers him the friendship he so desperately needs as he integrates himself back into a normal life.

When Jack Merrill becomes Earl of Haddington, inheriting not only a title but the devastating debt that came with it, his friends convince him that there is nothing for it but to gain quick wealth the really old fashioned way . . . marry into it! On the hunt for a wealthy bride, Jack stumbles upon Kitty Hayes, the sister of his former target Evelyn. To him, Kitty is everything Eve was not to him—full of a fire and spirit that challenges him. But Kitty is a married woman! Can he wait it out until she finds her freedom?

Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing Vitruvian Man comes from a description by the ancient Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote the only major work on architecture or engineering to survive from classical antiquity.

The last bequest of a convicted murderer on death row in Texas lures men seeking fortunes into the lawless Congo. Rigby Croxford, still in mourning for his wife, is drawn into a web of deception and corruption by a friend in trouble. They have survived the unbridled barbarity of untamed Africa before, but this time is different.

Before her suspicious death, Rigby Croxford's wife, Helen, fingered an African politician as the head of an international wildlife poaching syndicate. Plans to avenge Helen's death are put on hold when an ex-lover from Rigby's past reenters his life. The woman's daughter has disappeared in Africa. She enlists Rigby's help, but her agenda is not what it seems to be.

It was supposed to be a holiday, with nothing more challenging than babysitting, navigating familial politics, and arguing about the proper way to brew tea. But when dragon prince Thuan and his ruthless husband Asmodeus find a corpse in a ruined shrine and a hungry ghost who is the only witness to the crime, their holiday goes from restful to high-pressure. Someone is trying to silence the ghost and everyone involved. Asmodeus wants revenge for the murder; Thuan would like everyone, including Asmodeus, to stay alive.

Lunar New Year should be a time for familial reunions, ancestor worship, and consumption of an unhealthy amount of candied fruit. But when dragon prince Thuan brings home his brooding and ruthless husband Asmodeus for the New Year, they find not interminable family gatherings, but a corpse outside their quarters. Asmodeus is thrilled by the murder investigation; Thuan, who gets dragged into the political plotting he'd sworn off when he left, is less enthusiastic.

Rigby Croxford's introduction to the United States proves to be more perilous than anything he faced in Africa. His efforts to defend his famous brother-in- law, a television newscaster, from a sex scandal puts him at odds with men bent on destroying America.

As a writer lies dying, he has one last story to tell: a tale of faith and devotion, a meditation on what lies beyond this life, and a prayer of gratitude that may lead to rebirth.