Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley Crossley" in All Categories

The magnificent civilization created by the ancient Greeks and Romans is the greatest legacy of the classical world. However, narratives about the "civilized" Greek and Roman empires resisting the barbarians at the gate are far from accurate. Tony Spawforth, an esteemed scholar, author, and media contributor, follows the thread of civilization through more than six millennia of history. His story reveals that Greek and Roman civilization, to varying degrees, was supremely and surprisingly receptive to external influences, particularly from the East.

Orthodoxy is the dominant form of Christianity in Greece, Russia, parts of Eastern Europe, and the Balkans. Its practices are largely unfamiliar in the West and have remained essentially unchanged since the earliest days of the faith. This lucid introduction outlines the tenets, nature, and holy days of Orthodox belief with the Western listener in mind. It describes the physical church, especially icons, services, and common practices, and it offers advice to visitors on how to conduct themselves so that they are accepted and feel comfortable.

A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women.

A skeleton buried on a lonely Northumberland hill? Nothing wrong with that. Garrigill was once an ancient burial ground. Archaeologist Rena Williams is here to excavate the site. She is an old friend of Arnold’s. And with his help, her team have uncovered more than a few old bones already. But never like this. The bludgeoned skull, the modern dental work…nothing about this death feels accidental. Or even all that old. Who was the dead man, and what did he know that was worth killing for?

From the moment Karen Stannard comes striding in the door, Arnold Landon knows his workplace will never be the same. Now, he is saddled with a project he never wanted: the Ridgeway Viking Trust. Its shady leaders tell him there’s treasure buried in the rolling Northumberland Hills—they just need one more payout to reach it. But is there more to the Trust than meets the eye? Muck-raking journalist Alan Crickley seems to think so. He’s got the scent of corruption and he’s on the trail... Until the day he drives his car into a ditch, a stone’s throw from the dig.

Colin Bannock is hiding quite the secret. By day, he’s a smooth-talking lawyer. After hours, he is someone else entirely. He corners Arnold Landon, wanting him to join his society of history fanatics. Appalled, Arnold declines outright. He’s never been a joiner and, besides, he has enough on his plate already. He is hunting for a lost and ancient treasure. And he knows the hiding place is close. Then Bannock’s body washes up on the banks of the River Tyne, battered and bloated beyond recognition. Was he also chasing the mythic treasure?

Arnold Landon steps out with his lady friend, hunting for relics on the deserted dig site where he works. Before long, they stumble on something under a bridge. The mangled remains of Arnold’s fellow historian. His chest gapes open, his insides arranged in a pair of bloody wings. Arnold’s no expert, but he knows a blood eagle when he sees one—the handiwork of a berserker warrior. Mad with blood lust and out for vengeance.

From William Shakespeare’s series of history dramas, to Sir Walter Scott, and George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire—not to mention the smash-hit TV show Game of Thrones—the British civil war of 1455 to 1485 has inspired writers for centuries. Ed West’s My Kingdom for a Horse illuminates the bloody war fought for thirty long years between the descendants of King Edward III in a battle for the throne.

Has something indeed happened to evangelical theology and to evangelical churches? According to David Wells, the evidence indicates that evangelical pastors have abandoned their traditional role as ministers of the Word to become therapists and "managers of the small enterprises we call churches". Along with their parishioners, they have abandoned genuine Christianity and biblical truth in favor of the sort of inner-directed experiential religion that now pervades Western society.

What is your subconscious telling you - and why? In his groundbreaking 1899 work, the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, explores the mysteries of dreams. According to Freud, dreams are puzzles to be solved, with their manifestations of everything from long-forgotten memories to unspoken, hidden desires. Including dozens of case histories and detailed dream analyses, The Interpretation of Dreams remains a fascinating and revealing exploration of the vast and enigmatic human mind.

A haughty professor comes calling on Arnold Landon for research assistance. But he’s overlooked an important fact. Landon already has a job at the council—along with a raft of superiors who’d rather he focused on the dispute at hand. Namely, who is the rightful owner of the Kilgour Estates? And the opulent manor house in the grounds? Dashing rake Patrick Yates insists it’s all his. But a black sheep in the family returns to claim otherwise. Who is telling the truth?

St Michael’s Church may be derelict but it’s not deserted. Someone still comes here to worship on nights when the moon is full. Arnold Landon should know. He’s seen the grisly evidence for himself. Blood among the roses. The butchered remains of a man, tangled in the undergrowth. The victim was a traveler. How did he come to be in the churchyard? Arnold has a theory that leads back centuries, all the way to the cult of the Raging Wolf. Everyone tells him it’s impossible, that the cultists are dead and buried. But the devil wears many faces.

After his father dies, David Balfour is told to go to his uncle for his inheritance. But the uncle has no intention of letting the riches go - so he plots to kill Balfour, ultimately arranging for him to be kidnapped as a slave bound for the American colonies. Balfour's future looks bleak - until he witnesses a shipwreck and befriends the lone survivor, a rugged Highlander named Alan Breck Stewart. Together, they plan their rebellion - and the fight back home to claim Balfour's inheritance.

In 871, three of England’s four kingdoms were overrun by Vikings, the ruthless, all-conquering Scandinavian raiders who terrorized early medieval Europe. With the Norsemen murdering one king with arrows and torturing another to death by ripping out his lungs, the prospects that faced the kingdom of Wessex were bleak. Worse still, the Saxons were now led by a young man barely out of his teens who was more interested in God than fighting.

Eisenhower's Armies is the story of two very different armies learning to live, work, and fight together even in the face of serious strategic disagreements. The Anglo-American relationship from 1941-1945 proved to be the most effective military alliance in history. Yet there were also constant tensions and disagreements that threatened to pull the alliance apart.

The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by a reduction in Penal Laws against Catholics harking back to the 16th century. Fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'. Yet, had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', or were they the prime movers?

Augustus Caesar rules Imperial Rome at the height of its power, as the Roman Empire stretches across the known world. Cassius, son of one of her most powerful families, is the personification of Rome's imperial strength: wealthy, popular, a war hero with a decorated military career, he hides a secret. After his nerve is broken in Germany, the thought of genuine armed combat is enough to send him into a cold sweat of fear and shame.

Oscar Wilde’s classic story of a young man who sells his soul in exchange for eternal beauty and youth continues to thrill generations of readers. Written by a man who was every bit as flamboyant and unconventional as its hero, The Picture of Dorian Gray is as haunting today as when it first shocked the British public in 1891. Dorian Gray, young, intelligent, sophisticated, gazes on his freshly painted portrait.

Stuart Jamieson's story is the story of four decades of advances in heart surgery. Taut, elegantly crafted, and ever-attentive to the patients for whom he was the last best chance, Close to the Sun is an adventurous, riveting account based on the experience of over 40,000 heart surgeries, where everything was on the line every moment in the O.R.