Showing results by narrator "Helen Stern" in All Categories

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution. Mothers and Others finds the key in the primatologically unique length of human childhood.

Posing as one of Robin Hood's thieves to avoid the evil Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only Big John and Robin Hood know the truth - that the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. It's getting harder to hide as Gisbourne's camp seeks to find Scarlet and drive Robin Hood out of Nottinghamshire. But Scarlet's instinct for self-preservation is at war with a strong sense of responsibility to the people who took her in when she was on the run, and she finds it's not so easy to turn her back on her band and townspeople.

Sir Merrick Hadrian hunts monsters, both human and supernatural. A Knight of the Order of the Round Table, his use of magick and the technologies of steam power have made him both respected and feared. But his considerable skills are useless in the face of his greatest challenge, guardianship of five unusual children. At a loss, Merrick enlists the aid of a governess....

After a police operation ends in catastrophe, Eve West is suspended. She faces expulsion from the force until John Duran - a criminal Eve incarcerated herself - offers his help. But he wants something in return. Convinced there has been a miscarriage of justice, Duran wants Eve to free a fellow inmate convicted of the murder. But why is a brute like Duran assisting this other inmate? And why has he specifically chosen Eve to investigate?

Scarlet’s true identity has been revealed, but her future is uncertain. Her forced marriage to Lord Gisbourne threatens Robin and Scarlet’s love, and as the royal court descends upon Nottingham for the appointment of a new Sheriff, the people of Nottingham hope that Prince John will appoint their beloved Robin Hood. But Prince John has different plans for Nottingham that revolve around a fateful secret from Scarlet’s past even she isn’t yet aware of.

When her husband returns from war, the Marchioness of Hawkstone battles for her independence. Less than two weeks after their wedding, Gavin Colporter, Marquess of Hawkstone, left his lovely wife Mollie at home and went off to war with Lord Wellington. Four years later, Mollie has become accustomed to running the estate and doing as she pleases. It's quite a shock when Hawkstone returns and immediately begins to assume his rights and responsibilities as lord of the manor. Can she learn to submit to his authority? What will he say when he hears certain scandalous rumors about her activities in his absence?

Pirate captain Thayer Drake lures ships onto reefs for plunder, and business is lucrative. Yet, saving a lass from drowning after her ship wrecks becomes more than he bargained for when the crazy wench dives back into the raging sea for her blasted purse. Tavern songstress Gilly McCoy, penniless and fleeing from the man who murdered her lover, stowed away on the doomed ship. Now at Drake's mercy, Gilly must earn her passage by performing for the captain. And that is not all: she must also kiss the captain at every ring of the ship's bell....

Politicians from all sides compete to convince us they can fix our immigration “problem”, but all the solutions on offer look remarkably similar. Apparently, if we want less inequality at home, we need less immigration from abroad. But what if this assumption is wrong? What if the drive to restrict migration isn’t reducing poverty here, but creating a migration system that is actually exacerbating local inequality? In The Huddled Masses, migration researcher Katy Long shows why we need to rethink the relationship.

When airship engineer Melody McKay's dirigible explodes and plunges her into the yard of a gothic manor, she suspects foul play. With her ankle injured - an indignity far too feminine for her taste - she resolves to crack the mystery while in the care of Victor Arrington, the stuffy-yet-disarming Earl of Blackwell. Ex-Royal Navy captain Victor runs a tight house and is on a mission to protect his niece and foil a ring of smugglers using fire-breathing metal dragons.

Only the greatest loves can survive great danger.... Imprisoned by Prince John for months, Scarlet finds herself a long way from Nottinghamshire. After a daring escape, she learns that King Richard's life is in jeopardy, and Eleanor of Aquitaine needs Scarlet's help to free him. For a lifelong thief, this newfound allegiance to the crown - her family - is a strange feeling. Scarlet knows that helping Eleanor will put her and those she loves back in Prince John's sights.

Magnus, Baron Findlay, longs to bring the wonders of the steam age to his remote island home, but his hands are full fighting the vicious kraken ravaging the coast. When he's swept to sea during battle and washes up on the shore of an isle in the Hebrides, he is near death. Struggling to establish herself as one of the first female physicians in Edinburgh, Dr. Geneva MacKay is annoyed when The Order of the Round Table sends her north to care for an injured highlander.

After a nasty breakup, Tally Gladstone has no interest in anything serious. But she's dipped her wary toe back into dating with a few blind dates - all bad…or worse. The only good thing to come out of it is a sizable following on social media. Her latest date is doomed from the get-go - he isn't even straight. But at least he knows someone who meets her every very exacting wish....

Police inspector Sebastian Brown served Queen and country in India before returning to England to investigate supernatural crimes alongside the Order of the Round Table. If his wifeless, childless life feels a little empty sometimes, that's not too great a price to pay in the name of duty. Minerva Shaw is desperately seeking a doctor when she mistakenly lands on Sebastian's doorstep. Her daughter Ivy has fallen gravely ill with a mysterious illness-the same illness, it seems, that's responsible for taking the lives of many of Ivy's classmates.

The Duke of Malmesbury’s daughters discover that passion can derail even the best-laid matrimonial plans. Lady Cecily is known as the “Ice Princess” because of her cool blond beauty and her refusal to wed any of her several eligible suitors. She has no choice but to obey her father, the Duke, who wants Cecily to marry the one man who can assure the family’s social and financial positions: The arrogant and infuriating Viscount Ravenwood, who has been her enemy since childhood.

After 19 years of a loveless marriage, Angela Cruickshank's patience is exhausted at long last as she returns from France. Inevitably she goes to stay with her old friends Clem and Kattie - Kattie who catches people as other people catch colds, collector of strays and lame ducks, and who somehow fits into her big rambling house on the Downs.

"There I was, retired from time pirating, enjoying a full if somewhat conventional life as a wife and mother. Then a chance encounter with a stranger drew me back into a world I'd thought I'd left, quite literally, in the past. From his odd behavior and even odder answers to my questions, I knew Phineas Grubb was up to something. I should have trusted my instincts—before he pulled out a time-travel mechanism and dragged my brother, Bacon, back with him...."

Wild, hot, addictive sex…. After seeing one too many patients die regretting the things they haven’t done, nurse Lucy Seymour realizes she’s been making the same mistake. So when Robbie, the sexy golf instructor, makes his move, she responds with uninhibited passion, telling him there’s nothing she won’t try. Long sessions of foreplay lead to thrills and fantasy fulfillment…until Lucy sees Daniel, the greenkeeper, watching them.

It is the eve of the Longest Night. Eliza Baker and the rest of Lord Jayden's servants excitedly prepare for the lavish festival as their masters enjoy a head start on the debauchery that awaits. Eliza's madly in love with Kell, a sweet, deliciously sexy guard. Kell returns her feelings, but is striving to make himself a worthy man before he asks Eliza's father for permission to court her. To keep the Demon of Winter at bay, an offering must be made during the festival.

Victoria's work with automatons has gained her renown and changed the face of London. But her concern that the clockworks are taking too many jobs away from humans, creating social unrest, is ignored. Given the ugly mood of the underclass, she fears more outbreaks of violence similar to the murder spree of the notorious Southwark Slasher.