Showing results by narrator "Simon Prebble" in All Categories

Penelope Ashford, Portia Cynster's younger sister, has devoted her life to the care of orphans. But lately, her charges seem to be disappearing without a trace. Penelope enlists investigator Barnaby Adair to solve the mystery. Adair agrees, intrigued by both the case and by Penelope.

In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight.

In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves, including one “Half-Cocked Jack” Shaftoe, devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe.

Shortlisted for the 2012 Orwell Prize. 'As soon as we abandon our own reason', wrote Bertrand Russell, 'and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.' For over 40 years, Christopher Hitchens has proclaimed truth where others have spun falsehood and written, with passionate commitment, on matters that others fear to broach. This volume of essays encompasses Hitchens's writing over the past decade on politics, literature and religion.

A nineteenth century French priest discovers something in his mountain village at the foot of The Pyrenees which enables him to amass and spend a fortune of millions of pounds. The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago.

This acclaimed best seller from popular historian Alison Weir is a fascinating look at the Tudor family dynasty and its most infamous ruler. The Six Wives of Henry VIII brings to life England’s oft-married monarch and the six wildly different but equally fascinating women who married him. Gripping from the first sentence to the last and loaded with fascinating details, Weir’s rich history is a perfect blend of scholarship and entertainment.

The trials of Dr. Daniel Waterhouse and the Natural Philosophers increase one-hundred fold in an England plagued by the impending war and royal insecurities - as the beautiful and ambitious Eliza plays a most dangerous game as double agent and confidante of enemy kings.

In August of 1914, the British ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. In October 1915, still half a continent away from its intended base, the ship was trapped, then crushed in the ice. For five months, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world. Lansing describes how the men survived a 1,000-mile voyage in an open boat across the stormiest ocean on the globe and an overland trek through forbidding glaciers and mountains.

In a quiet moonlit courtyard, Helena encounters a handsome and mysterious Englishman. Before parting, he rewards her with a special kiss - a delicious, enticing, unforgettable kiss that makes her whole body shiver with desire. Helena doesn't yet know that she has met her destiny - and he is Sebastian Cynster, Duke of St. Ives.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), credited as the inspiration for radio, robots, and even radar, has been called the patron saint of modern electricity. Based on original material and previously unavailable documents, this acclaimed book is the definitive biography of the man considered by many to be the founding father of modern electrical technology.

In a future wracked by environmental catastrophe and social instability, physicist John Renfrew devises a longshot plan to use tachyons - strange, time-traveling particles - to send a warning to the past. In 1962, Gordon Bernstein, a California researcher, gets Renfrew's message as a strange pattern of interference in an experiment he's conducting.

Determined to escape the matchmaking skills of London society, Alasdair Cynster-better known as Lucifer-heads for the English countryside. But his flight from London leads him straight to Phyllida Tallent, a beautiful, strong-willed young woman who is as equally determined as he is to remain unmarried.

A powerful ruler, an alluring young woman, a scandal that would rock the nation: Anne Boleyn’s life story sounds more like a juicy TV docu-drama than a chapter of English history. Although she is not of noble birth or even especially beautiful, Anne Boleyn manages to rise to the very pinnacle of the English aristocracy. Renowned for her extraordinarily vivid recreations of historical events, Carolly Erickson brings out the full fascinating story of the enigmatic Anne Boleyn.

RITA Award-winning, New York Times best-selling author Mary Jo Putney is justly celebrated as a master of the Regency romance. Here Alexander Randall is the last heir to the Earl of Daventry and he must find himself a bride. His prayers are answered in the form of distressed midwife Julia Bancroft. But though their union would benefit both parties, Julia is reluctant to surrender her heart.

Hailed as one of the world’s masterpieces of psychological realism, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high-court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face-to-face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

Seeking to uncover the holy grail of science, the elusive Theory of Everything that lies at the heart of the cosmos, Professor Stephen Hawking takes us to the cutting edge of theoretical physics. In a realm where truth is often stranger than fiction, he explains in layman's terms the principles that control our universe.

The year is 1714. Daniel Waterhouse has returned to England, where he joins forces with his friend Isaac Newton to hunt down a criminal gang attempting to blow up Natural Philosophers with "Infernal Devices," or time bombs. Unbeknownst to Daniel, however, Newton has an ulterior motive: to wrest the Solomonic Gold from the control of his arch-enemy, the master counterfeiter Jack the Coiner, a.k.a Jack Shaftoe, King of the Vagabonds.

A chronicle of the breathtaking exploits of "Half-Cocked Jack" Shaftoe - London street urchin-turned-legendary swashbuckling adventurer - risking life and limb for fortune and love while slowly maddening from the pox...and Eliza, rescued by Jack from a Turkish harem to become spy, confidante, and pawn of royals in order to reinvent a contentious continent through the newborn power of finance.

Lucy James and Sherlock Holmes must solve a mysterious locked-room murder at London's exclusive Diogenes Club. But Lucy is still coping with the traumatic after-effects of their last case, and her romantic relationship with a handsome young police detective is growing more complex. Emotions intensify and the dangers become life-threatening as they find themselves drawn into lethal conflict with the most ruthless gang leader in London.

When Devil, the most infamous member of the Cynster family, is caught in a compromising position with plucky governess Honoria, he astonishes the entire ton by offering his hand in marriage. But Honoria isn't about to bend to society's demands. She craves adventure and is set on seeing the world. Could her passion for Devil cause her to embrace the enchanting peril of a lifelong adventure of the heart?