Showing results by narrator "Christine Rendel" in All Categories

One of today's foremost historical novelists, Cecelia Holland explores the strange and enduring mystery of Stonehenge, one of the true wonders of the ancient and modern world. A breathtaking speculation, Pillar of the Sky is an unforgettable tale brimming with action, colorful characters, vivid detail, intelligence, and wonder, while presenting a possible history of the man-made miracle on Salisbury Plain that confounds scientists, scholars, and archaeologists to this day.

Sophie Atherton knows a liar when she sees one. Perhaps because she's so skilled at deception herself. Searching for clues to a string of mysterious deaths, the secret operative for the Crown has connived her way into a phony medium's confidence. When a dashing archaeologist seeks out the charlatan's services, Sophie suspects he's after more than a long-lost heirloom. Their electric attraction storms her defenses, but loving the rakish scholar would threaten her investigation and the life she's crafted.

The Return of the Soldier is the powerful debut novel of the prolific English novelist Rebecca West. First published in 1918, the novel opens with the return of the shell-shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of the First World War, and grapples with the devastation of mental trauma from that war and its effects on families. Recounted from the perspective of his cousin Jenny, the story examines the relationship between Chris and the three women in his life.

Emily stood in front of a full length mirror in her well-appointed Camberwell apartment. She turned sideways on and looked over her shoulder before doing the same the other side. “Anna, do you think I could pass for a man?" “Why ever would you want to do that miss?” Anna was never surprised by anything her mistress said, she was always unpredictable and had some very funny notions. “I’m going to dress as a man and pass myself off as a detective in the London police force. I’m never going to get anywhere as a woman”.

All is not peaceful in the wake of the Midnight Menagerie's ruin. Although the Karakash Veil has been forced to flee its stronghold, the mysterious head of the criminal organization is not content to fade away. Above the foggy drift, a priceless diamond vanishes. In the dangerous underground, a murderous rampage demands retribution. The hunt for the mastermind behind these misdeeds sends me back to society - and into the unforgiving embrace of the world I'd left behind.

I will not wither without laudanum. Sober and determined, I have chosen another way - alchemy and the pursuit of wellness it embodies. My name is Cherry St. Croix, and though freedom is finally at my fingertips, I return to the blackened streets intent on righting the wrongs I left behind. All is not well in London low. Caught in a war between gangs, men are torn limb from limb, and I am called on to ascertain how.

The 12 Pound Look by James M Barrie read by Christine Rendel, a biting comic satire depicting man's overblown pride. It is that day in your career when everything went wrong just when everything seemed to be superlatively right. Harry Sims' preparations to receive a knighthood are disrupted by an unexpected arrival. But who is she? From the author of Peter Pan comes a grown-up comedy with a feminist slant which reveals Barrie's sharp wit and keen sense of social satire.

Hungry for vengeance, Cherry St. Croix is forced to the fog-ridden streets of Victorian London. My rival, a collector of bounties like myself, has murdered one of my own. In consequence, I have been removed from my house, my staff, and all who would support me. I have nowhere else to turn, so I beg asylum within the Midnight Menagerie, London's decadent pleasure garden. Micajah Hawke's dominance there will not tolerate my presence for long. I am fixated on revenge, but I walk a razor's edge under his scrutiny.

Uprooted from her beloved Great Western Beach, Emma Smith moves with her family from Newquay to the Devonshire village of Crapstone. But the dust has hardly settled when tragedy strikes, and Emma’s father, a DSO-decorated hero of the Great War, is so frustrated by the hardship of life as a lowly bank clerk and by his thwarted artistic ambitions that he suffers a catastrophic breakdown - from which disaster Emma's resourceful mother rallies courageously. Then, in 1939, the war again becomes a reality.

Gervase Howard is in her mid-teens when her working-class mother dies and she must go to live with relatives in service to a wealthy, noble family, outside of London. While learning various jobs, she is drawn to the eldest son, Davis. Her fascination with him grows deeper, but more hopeless, since the two are separated not just by class, but also by Davis's love for Roberta. When Davis announces his engagement, he asks Gervase to join them as Roberta's maid. But instead Gervase becomes a companion to Florence Nightingale and accompanies her when the Crimean War breaks out....

My rival, a collector of bounties like myself, has murdered one of my own. In consequence, I have been removed from my house, my staff, and all who would support me. I have nowhere else to turn, so I beg asylum within the Midnight Menagerie, London's decadent pleasure garden. Micajah Hawke's dominance there will not tolerate my presence for long. I am fixated on revenge, but I walk on the razor's edge under his scrutiny.

Although I have only been part of Society for two years, I am already desperate to escape its confines and eager for adventure. I will do anything to escape the boredom, even become a collector of bounties. My name is Cherry St. Croix, and I may be young, but I am old enough to know when I am in over my head. My first collection seemed easy: Mr. Strangeway's debts have come due. Yet the wastrel remains one step ahead of me, and my efforts are hampered by another collector. What's more, this simple hunt becomes the forefront of a conspiracy....

In the spring of 1916, we meet orphaned sister and brother Jay and Kew Martin in London. Jay (real name Jane Elizabeth) has run away from her strange, claustrophobic, interfering, well-heeled family to the simplicities of the Brown Borough (otherwise Hackney), to live amongst its working-class people, to a job as a bus conductor, and to discover her own wild self. Kew is on recuperative leave from the War, and manages to find Jay in her humble new abode. She begs him to preserve her newfound freedom and not reveal her whereabouts to their family.

A Romance of Wastdale, published in 1895, is a novel by the British writer A.E.W Mason. In 1921, it was turned into a film of the same name directed by Maurice Elvey and made by Stoll Pictures, Britain’s biggest studio of the silent era. The novel is set in the scenic area of Wastdale, Cumbria, situated in the Lake District National Park and surrounded by some of England’s highest mountains. Wastdale Head has been a starting point for walks and climbing trips into the mountains, in this context, this story of mountains, mountaineers, romance, and treachery unfolds.

Here are short stories by the incomparable Virginia Woolf, including the story that was the original basis for the novel Mrs. Dalloway.

Many people feel completely burnt out but do not understand how this affects their body or what they can do about it. Unfortunately, mainstream medicine has almost nothing to offer the person who wakes up feeling exhausted and unable to cope with the smallest stress. Having helped people for more than twenty years to recover from these illnesses, Jo Dunbar passes on her knowledge and experience in this accessible book.

This is a memoir of a boy born in 1926 in a small seaside town on the northwest coast of England who grew up in pre-and wartime Britain and who recalls, in this account, his many adventures before, during, and after the conclusion of World War II. In the latter half of the war, our teenage author enlists in His Majesty King George VI’s Royal Navy and is assigned to serve as a naval Coder on several British warships, culminating on HMS Cavendish, a state-of-the-art Destroyer based primarily in the Southeast Asia theatre of war.

Rose Fleming has been presumed dead for the last decade. It required leaving everything-and everyone-she loved behind, including MacAllister Campbell. But faking her death allowed her to stay safe until the threat posed by a mysterious villain had passed. Believing it's finally safe again, she returns . . . and runs smack into the only man she ever loved. But Rose was wrong and the stalker she escaped years ago still has her in his sights.

Brilliant Egyptologist Alexandra Quinn is stunned when the man who'd shattered her young heart rescues her from an intruder at the last minute. Forced to work with the rakish Lord, they must identify a cunning murderer who's left a blood-drenched trail from Cairo to London. Alex knows better than to trust Benedict, but the wicked promise in his kiss tempts her.

It was the turning point before he became a bestselling author: Hans Fallada handed himself in to the police in September 1925, following repeated cases of embezzlement to finance his alcohol and morphine addiction. At the time, a court-appointed doctor was assigned to assess the extent to which Fallada could be made accountable. This expert opinion, thought to have been lost, was only recently rediscovered. It is an extraordinary find, because it includes unpublished and rewritten stories by Fallada that focus on hitherto taboo topics such as abortion.