Showing results by narrator "Joel Froomkin" in All Categories

London, 1588. Someone's turning Catholics into widows - and masking the crimes under cover of Armada fever. Francis Bacon is charged with identifying the murderer by the Andromache Society, a widows' guild led by his formidable aunt. His assistants, Thomas Clarady and Lady Alice Trumpington, are also struggling for control over their own lives. Bacon must free his friends from the Tower, track an exotic poison, and untangle multiple crimes to determine if the motive is patriotism, greed, lunacy - or all three.

Henry never believed his older sister Alice's fantastic tales about the world down the rabbit hole. When he's whisked away to the bizarre land, his best chance for escape is to ally himself with the person called the Mad Hatter. Hatter - an odd but strangely attractive fellow - just wants to avoid execution. If that means delivering "Boy Alice" to the Queen of Hearts at her Red Castle, Hatter will do what he has to do to stay alive. It doesn't matter if Henry and Hatter find each other intolerable. They're stuck with each other.

Sabine Crowley is adjusting well to her new life at Willow Creek Manor with Remy by her side. That is, until she finds out some devastating news from Bastian. Has Remy been lying all along about his feelings for her? Had she been a fool to believe he really could love her? Remy has been accused of trying to leave Sabine and his responsibilities to Bastian behind.

Welcome to Willow Creek. People are happy, crime is practically nonexistent, and life is good...unless you're Sabine Crowley. Sabine has been chosen to be the next blood bag for the vampire lord who has protected the town from otherworldly creatures for 200 years. Remy has been summoned by his maker, Bastian, to take his place beside his maker in the hierarchy of vampires inhabiting Willow Creek. He's repulsed by the whole situation. Sabine is terrified of him and her strange attraction to him.

Windsor, 1943. Britain is in the grip of war and treachery is afoot. The body of controversial former courtier Lord Blackwater is found in the abandoned Fort Belvedere, once the country bolthole of the King’s wayward brother. And all signs point to murder. Royal confidant Guy Harford is called in to solve the mystery quickly and quietly, before any hint of scandal reaches the public. Investigating with the help of Rodie, his roguish burglar girlfriend, his enquiries lead him into the world of the Royal Ballet, where on-stage glamour hides an undercurrent of off-stage deceit.

Astrid Bailey is content living alone, balancing her career as a contract machinist with her true passion: making “felicitation devices” for her discerning female clients. At the upcoming World’s Fair, with its substantial cash prize, there's an opportunity for her to open the shop she’s always imagined and solve her financial woes. With questionable credentials, though, she’s unable to enter without a reputable businessman to vouch for her.

Smut sells. Michael Rourke learned this the hard way. Struggling to make ends meet as a mystery writer, he sold his soul - and his pride - as he pedaled sex and lust writing under the pen name Christoph Strong. No one knew he was the one behind the steamy stories on the best sellers lists. And he planned to keep it that way. Until he met her.

After ten years of meditative solitude, the prophet Zarathustra descends from his mountain cave to preach the power of the Superman - a human divinity emancipated from the construct of God. The Superman is free to create his or her own moralities, values, notions of good and evil, and purpose in life. Although people of the town are confounded, Zarathustra resolves to persuade the herd by illuminating the heights to which they can ascend by ignoring promises of otherworldly fulfillment.

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.

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.

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.

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...