Showing results by narrator " Joel Froomkin" in All Categories

When magistrate Patrick Colquhoun orders a habitual thief and ne'er-do-well transported to Botany Bay, he doesn't realize a 14-year-old boy has been left behind to follow in his father's footsteps - not until young John Pickett is hauled into Bow Street for stealing an apple from the produce market at Covent Garden. Feeling to some extent responsible for the boy, Mr. Colquhoun prevails upon Elias Granger, a prosperous coal merchant, to take him on as an apprentice.

From the vast lore surrounding King Arthur, Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table comes an anthology of gender-bent, race-bent, LGBTQIA+ inclusive retellings.

It’s 1589, and England is embroiled in a furious pamphlet war between an impudent Puritan calling himself Martin Marprelate and publishing’s brightest wits. The archbishop wants Martin to hang. The Privy Council wants the tumult to end. But nobody knows who Martin is or where he’s hiding his illegal press. Then two writers are strangled, mistaken for Thomas Nashe, the pamphleteer who is hot on Martin’s trail. Francis Bacon is tasked with stopping the murders - and catching Martin, while he’s about it.

Bow Street Runner John Pickett and Julia, Lady Fieldhurst, seem to have reached an impasse as they wait for the annulment of their accidental marriage to come before the ecclesiastical court. In the meantime, Pickett is summoned to investigate the theft of almost 200 pounds from a linen-draper's shop - but finds no sign that either the shop or the safe where the money was kept had been forced open. Given the lack of evidence, he can only assume the money was taken by someone inside.

No one gave Erik a choice as to whether he would fight or not. Duty to the crown belonged to him, his father's legacy remaining beyond the grave. Taken by the beauty of the countryside surrounding her, Linzi would do anything to protect her father's land. Britain is under attack and Scotland is next. At a time she should be focused on suitors, the men of her country have gone to war, and she's left to stand alone. Love will become available, but will passion at the touch of the enemy unravel her strong hold first?

Thirteen-year-old Suzie Sarnio always believed the Grim Reaper was a fairy tale image of a skeleton with a scythe. Now, forced to enter the College of Deaths, she finds herself training to bring souls from the Living World to the Hereafter. The task is demanding enough, but as the only female in the all-male College, she quickly becomes a target. Attacked by both classmates and strangers, Suzie is alone in a world where even her teachers want her to fail.

Windsor, 1942. War rages through Great Britain. Anna Duckworth, former lover of Prince George, Duke of Kent, is found dead after an enemy bomb blast at her country home. When courtier Guy Harford is called to dispose of incriminating love letters between Anna and the Duke, it becomes clear that there’s more to the story than anyone is prepared to reveal. As the court begins to whisper of a lone gunshot heard in the house that day, another gruesome death befalls the royal circle.

Dante O'Donnell is white, gay, and getting older every day. He has wasted his better years on starstruck dreams and the wrong men, so now he's working as a concierge for a vacation-rental outfit in Palm Springs, where the guests have far more baggage than what's packed in their suitcases. But when he finds a dead body floating in the swimming pool at one of his rentals, his own troubled past comes back to haunt him. So he turns for help to Jazz Friendly, a Black woman who, when she was a Palm Springs cop, nearly arrested him for murdering his husband, which he didn't do.

Richard, Lord Ramsay, has been brought up from the cradle with a consciousness of his duty to his family and his name. His sense of responsibility has led him to install two elderly aunts in the Dower House; educate his cousin Peter Ramsay and employ him as a steward; and provide a home for poor relation Jane Hawthorne, who once served as his mother's companion.

Hank Weinberg is a modern day Atticus Finch, recently retired as a defense attorney in Mobile, Alabama, and a Holocaust survivor, who fled the Nazis as a young child. With his daughter in rehab, he's now taking care of his special needs grandson. Mourning his dead wife, spending mornings fishing on the pier with other octogenarians, he passes the rest of his days watching over his sweet grandson with the help of Lupita, a young Honduran babysitter.

Miss Rose Wilkinson has a secret. One she daren’t allow anyone to uncover. She and her twin sister are trapped living with their malevolent relations, forced into a life of perpetual mourning. Finally, one ray of hope enters her ill-fated existence in the form of a handsome footman.

Pissing off God comes with consequences, which should have been obvious in hindsight. For Loki and Lucifer, it’s a victory—and the least of their problems. Building an infernal army is a lot harder when trying to fit it around eight daily hours of mind-numbing labor, uncooperative fugitive deities, and competing layers of escalating sabotage. Even worse, behind its bland corporate veneer, Providence is anything but that: its deities brim with magic, secrets, and ancient scars. The career path is soul-destroying.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to David Copperfield and experience the classic novel by Charles Dickens.

Sprung from the modest ­­­roots of a crofter’s life, Miss Mary Wright dreamt of being an actress on stage at the Theatre Royale in London. When a mysterious man in black offers her the life she’s always wanted, how could she possibly refuse? But there is one stipulation: she must become a spy.

“Gripping courtroom drama and social commentary . . . the story flows well . . . [the author is] masterful in building suspense.”—Kirkus Reviews Set in 1920s New York, an addictively readable, thoroughly entertaining historical novel involving sex and secrets, race and redemption, and...

Enter Cloudkiss Canyon at your own risk. Sadie meets Wilder Girls in this unnerving tale about the struggle for survival, the twisted satisfaction of revenge, and the darkness hiding in all of us. From Erica Waters, the acclaimed author of Ghost Wood Song and The River Has Teeth, this mystery...

First published in 1843, Charles Dicken's classic morality tale transformed the manner in which the Victorians, and generations to come, would celebrate Christmas. Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge's visitation by three spirits to confront his own past, present, and future in order to learn the true meaning of the holiday season has become one of the most beloved stories in literature.

Denton Moulton, a shy, effeminate male professor, lives inside his head, where he is really a long-dead movie star: the glamorous Gloria Grahame, from the golden age of Hollywood. Professor Moulton is desperate to reveal Gloria’s shocking secret before he dies.

When Monster (who lives under the bed) meets Boy (who sleeps in the bed), Boy starts to scream - and Monster promptly swallows him. It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship!