Showing results by narrator "Wren" in All Categories

Neisa Moore is the beautiful daughter of a Vicar and she lives a quiet and secluded life in the country with her father. Her cousin, Carol Waverton has led a very different life in America with her immensely rich father, but when Carol comes to London for the Season, she is pursued by fortune-hunters only interested in her money. As Carol is so disenchanted, she persuades Neisa to change places with her when she is invited with a friend for a weekend house party with Sheldon, the Marquis of Denholme, who has planned a steeplechase for his guests.

Some girls can wait a lifetime for one man to fall in love with them, but Selena Norton is so pretty that every man she meets is promptly smitten. Selena longs for someone to see past her beautiful face and appreciate the intelligent, loyal, fun girl inside. Rescued by the chivalrous, but penniless, Earl of Wakefield from the lecherous clutches of yet another unwanted suitor, Lord Tavener, Selena is delighted to finally meet a man who seems to seek only friendship. Selena cannot believe the joy that the Earl has bought into her life.

Elvina Carrisford, has known little love and affection in her life. She is invited to be a companion to her cousin Delphine, who is to be engaged to the nephew of a French Prince. En route to her new home she meets an enigmatic and handsome stranger, who rescues her from a wild blizzard and takes her to a nearby cottage. Here she and Serge, the stranger, sit out the storm. He turns out to be the valet to an aristocratic traveller.

On a hot summer’s day in 1880 the beautiful Lady Rosella is cutting a basket of blooms in her beloved Rose Garden at her aunt’s house in Hampshire. It is her seventeenth birthday and no one remembers it except for Thomas, the gardener’s boy. Later she is driven to Winchester and has an unpleasant encounter with two raucous gentlemen in the local tavern before going on to fit her first ball gown that her aunt has given her the money for just before she died. But who is the lovely masked woman she glimpses in the mirror at the dressmakers, a glorious vision clad in rose-pink silk?

Lady Novella Crownley has been teaching at a girl's school far from her ancestral home, Crownley Hall, and one day her mother asks her to return. She leaves at once only to find that so much has changed since her last visit home. Her beloved father, the Earl of Crownley, had died some years earlier, leaving her mother lonely and unable to cope on her own. Unknown to Novella her mother had remarried and the first time she met her new stepfather, Lord Buckton, she did like him at all.

Whilst living in exile on St Helena, Napoleon exerted an extraordinary influence on young Betsy Balcombe. How did she get from Napoleon's side to the Australian bush? Betsy Balcombe as a young woman lived with her family on St Helena. They befriended, served and were ruined by their relationship with Napoleon. To redeem the family's fortunes, William Balcombe, Betsy's father, betrayed Napoleon and accepted a job as the colonial treasurer of NSW, bringing his family with him.

Robert Lyndon, heir apparent to a dukedom and newly spurned lover is desperate to save face amongst the young dandies and court ladies of Regency London society. Handsome, wealthy and decorated for his bravery Robert is recognised as one of the most eligible bachelors in Society. Yet despite his success with the ladies, it seems that he cannot find the perfect wife. Beautiful Rania Temple is living in impoverished gentility in the country. Away from the fashions and trends of the city, she is devoted to her family home and much loved horses.

Wry, moving, beautifully observed and politically astute, this latest audiobook from one of New Zealand's finest chroniclers pinpoints universal truths through very NZ lives. Life isn't always like it appears in the movies. In 1952 Irene Sandle takes her young daughter to Motueka. Irene was widowed during the war and is seeking a new start and employment in the tobacco fields. There, she finds the reality of her life far removed from the glamour of the screen.

Boomtown Los Angeles, 1929: Into a world of movie lots and speakeasies comes Xas, stunt flier and wingless angel, still nursing his broken heart and determined only to go on living in the air. But there are forces that will keep him on the ground. Forces like Conrad Cole, movie director and aircraft designer, a glory-seeking king of the grand splash who is also a man sinking into his own sovereign darkness. And Flora McLeod, film editor and maimed former actress, who sees something in Xas that no one has ever seen before, not even God, who made him, or Lucifer, the general he once followed.

Inspired by Peter Moffat's popular BBC One show, Silk, this compelling courtroom drama returns to Shoe Lane Chambers, but from a different perspective. Rather than focussing on the lawyers, it centres on the people who can make or break their careers—their clerks.

Achingly sensual, effortlessly lyrical, Janette Turner Hospital's dazzling Orpheus Lost is a powerful and disturbing novel. It is both a love story on a grand scale that spans America, Australia and Baghdad, and an examination of what happens to individuals when terrible mistakes are made in the name of 'national security'.

The Duke of Norlington and his sister Lady Latasha are living quietly in the country very happily with their horses. The Duke receives a letter from an old Oxford friend who is now His Royal Highness Prince Kraus of Oldessa, a small Principality in the Balkans. The Prince asks the Duke if his sister would consent to marry his brother, Prince Stephan, as she is related to the Royal family, thereby giving Oldessa British protection from the Russians who are vying to take over as many States as they can in the Balkans.

The Marquis of Kexley is just falling asleep beside the beautiful Isobel Heywood, when in a soft voice she suggests that they should be married. Only by pretending to be asleep does he escape answering her and then he realises that because she is a widow, she is extremely dangerous in that she is free for him to marry her. In his other affaires-de-coeur, the women were already married, so he was safe, and he avoided debutantes with ambitious mothers like the plague. Because Isobel is so possessive he thinks it best to leave London at once.

The Marquis and Marquise de Castillon, together with their young son Jean-Pierre, were forced to flee France for England when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Jean-Pierre was educated at Eton and only returned to Paris when Napoleon came to power. It was not long before he joined Napoleon's Army, survived the Retreat from Moscow and was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. Whilst in hospital, he became friends with Colonel Hubert Dawlish who was in the next bed.

Sarah Williams is a spirited, independent Aussie who has always dreamed of New York City. So when a job opportunity arises to become an au pair for a successful businessman in the heart of Manhattan, Sarah jumps at the chance to follow her dream. What she didn't bet on was a beautiful newborn and a distant, abrasive man whose eyes hold a million secrets. Determined to care for his daughter and face the challenges of the impossible Ben Worthington, Sarah is prepared to follow her heart.

Stop feeling not good enough, stop believing everything is always your fault, stop telling yourself you don't deserve to be loved. If this sounds like you there is a good chance you were raised by a parent on the "Continuum of Narcissism." Parents who either had to always be right, appear perfect, were self-absorbed, or thrived on power and control.

Josie and Jack Raeburn run riot in their father's isolated house. But as his behavior becomes more unpredictable, they are forced to leave and face a world for which they are unprepared. Jack's love for Josie has always been her safety net. However, as his world grows wilder and more dangerous, she finds herself struggling: should she escape his control, or help him? It is only when they are united again in the company of Jack's rich girlfriend Lily that she understands what she must do.

Italy, 1917. Australian journalist Rebecca Quinn is an unconventional woman. At the height of World War I, she has given up the safety of her Sydney home for the bloody battlefields of Europe, following her journalist husband to the front line as a war correspondent in Italy. Reporting the horrors of the Italian campaign, Rebecca finds herself thrown together with American-born Italian photographer Alessandro Panucci and soon discovers another battleground every bit as dangerous and unpredictable: the human heart.

Daughter of the Earl of Longwood, a gentleman gambler, and the Countess of Longwood, a society beauty, Lady Yolanda Wood has an exciting if unconventional childhood travelling around the casinos and racecourses of Europe. But life changes dramatically after the tragic death of her father, and she and her ravishing mother are left penniless and alone. In mourning for her husband, and dependent on the kindness of selfmade millionaire Oliver Garrack, the Countess's gratitude swiftly turns to romance and Yolanda finds herself with a stepfather she neither likes nor respects.

Michael Belmont is heir to an Earldom, but he is also the family black sheep, a charming gambler leading a dissolute life in France. He has quarrelled with his father, who has threatened to disinherit him. When he reads in a newspaper that his father has died, he does not even have enough money for his fare home. But then he meets the beautiful young Lady Verna, seeking a chauffeur to drive her car home to England. Michael volunteers and while they are on the journey he falls under her spell.