Showing results by narrator "Grace Conlin" in All Categories

Margaret Leech’s Pulitzer Prize-winning history paints a wonderfully vivid and lively picture of Washington, DC, during the Civil War. In addition to the major events and figures such as Lincoln, Leech uses telling anecdotes and draws upon cameo players such as Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, Andrew Carnegie, and a Confederate lady spy to create a living portrait of a sleepy, unfinished city as it struggles to become the strong capital of a united nation.

Elizabeth Jones, vacationing from her New York publishing job, is off to do touristy things in Denmark: gawk at the Little Mermaid, stroll in the Tivoli...look for a missing person? The plane ride itself had turned out to be Kismet, introducing Elizabeth to her idol, Nobel Prize-winning historian and famed eccentric Margaret Rosenberg and her long-suffering son, Christian.

She may be a best-selling author, but ex-librarian Jacqueline Kirby's views on the publishing biz aren't fit to print. In fact, she's thinking of trading celebrity for serenity and a house far away from fiendish editors and demented fans, when her agent whispers the only words that could ever make her stay: Naked in the Ice.

An assistant curator of Munich's National Museum, Vicky Bliss is no expert on Egypt, but she does have a Ph.D. in solving crimes. So when an intelligence agency offers her a luxury Nile cruise if she'll help solve a murder and stop a heist of Egyptian antiquities, all 5'11" of her takes the plunge.

One of Edith Wharton's most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a blistering indictment of materialism, power, and misplaced values. Its heroine, Undine Spragg, is one of the most ruthless characters in all of literature, as selfishly unscrupulous as she is fiercely beautiful. As she climbs the class ladder through a series of marriages and affairs, she shows little concern for who she has to step on.

Genius, artist, monstre sacré, Orson Welles had one of the most brilliant careers in show business. Here he confides his most intimate feelings and recollections of his life. With remarkable detail and intimacy, Barbara Leaming reveals the private Welles: from child prodigy and young lion in Dublin and New York, to the succès de scandale of his The War of the Worlds broadcast; from his auspicious directing debut with the legendary Citizen Kane in his 20s to the sabotage of his further directing career.

The winsome Anne Shirley is grown, has married her beloved Gilbert, and is the mother of six frolicsome children. Anne and her family experience some unimaginable events when a strange family moves into a nearby mansion. The Meredith family is comprised of two boys and two girls, a minister father but no mother, and a runaway girl named Mary Vance.

For vibrant, lovely Jean Suttman, the fellowship to study in Rome was the culmination of her dreams, until she undertook an innocent expedition to the ancient Temple of Mithra. From the moment she stepped into the pagan darkness and discovered the corpse of Albert, one of her fellow students, she was afraid. Not even the comforting presence of the perceptive and practical Jacqueline Kirby could erase the fear that was nourished by one small accident after another, "accidents" that came dreadfully close to killing her.

In the midst of a vast gas nebula lies a remote watch-station, hanging silently against a tapestry of dying stars. It sits alone, patiently awaiting lost travellers adrift in the freezing vastness of the void. To such souls it appears as a blessing, a safe haven from the warp storms that wrack the immaterium and destroy the ships of those foolish enough to test the tides. To Captain Arq and her crew, it is one thing - refuge. But things are never so simple.

The Five Little Peppers are an adorable family of children growing up in a small town and cared for by their widowed mother. She is so poor that the pittance she earns as the town seamstress fails to support or even sustain the family.

When attractive American Jacqueline Kirby is invited to an English country mansion for a weekend costume affair, she expects only one mystery. Since the hosts and guests are all fanatic devotees of King Richard III, they hope to clear his name of the 500-year-old accusation that he killed the little princes in the Tower of London. Jacqueline is amused by the group's eccentricities until history begins to repeat itself.

She was the tempestuous, strong-willed woman who ignited the movie screen with her legendary performances in Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, and All About Eve. Off-camera, Bette Davis survived four disastrous marriages and earned a larger-than-life professional reputation as an actress to be reckoned with.

Wharton's most erotic and lyrical novel, Summer explores a daring theme for 1917, a woman's awakening to her sexuality. Eighteen-year-old Charity Royall lives in the small town of North Dormer, ignorant of desire until the arrival of architect Lucius Harney. Like the succulent summer landscape in the Berkshires around them, Charity's romance is lush and picturesque, but its consequences are harsh and real.

When Harriet Mahoney first saw it, Isabel Krug's bed was covered in sheared sheep and littered with celebrity biographies. The unpublished, fortyish, and recently jilted Harriet had fled wintry Manhattan in response to a mysterious ad in The New York Review of Books: "Book in progress? Why not share my Cape Cod retreat? Roomy and peaceful, your life will be your own."

Welcome, once again, to the charming byways of Avonlea and its people, as created by one of Canada's most beloved authors. In this volume of heartwarming tales, a Persian cat plays an amazing role in a marriage proposal, a young girl risks losing her mother in her quest to find her father, and a foolish lie threatens to make an unattached woman the town's laughingstock. These 15 short stories together present a piquant and fascinating picture of life in the villages and country surrounding Avonlea.

Surrounded by towering pyramids on Mexico City's Walk of the Dead, a frightened yet resolute young woman searches for a perilous truth and for the beloved parent she thought was gone forever. But there are dark secrets lurking in the shadows of antiquity, a conspiracy she never imagined, and enemies who are determined that Carol Farley will not leave Mexico alive.

One of the classic works on interior decoration, Edith Wharton’s The Decoration of Houses offers a comprehensive look at the history and character of turn-of-the-century interior design. Co-written with architect Ogden Codman, Jr., this invaluable reference provides us with numerous keen and practical axioms for house design, such as (1) The better the house, the less need for curtains, and (2) the height of a well-proportioned doorway should be twice its width.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, heir to the throne won by Alexander the Great: she was the most powerful woman of the ancient Mediterranean, and the only person standing between Rome and its dominion over the world. She was wife to Julius Caesar, and bore his only son. After his death she took Mark Antony, Caesar's greatest general, as lover and consort, and as her partner in a vast political enterprise. Together they strove to unite Egypt and Rome under one throne.

This spare, mesmerizing novel is Edith Wharton's money-can't-buy-happiness tale. Young Stephen Glennard, a lawyer, is poor, but he has an unanticipated gambling chip: a collection of love letters from a scorned, but now famous, lover, the distinguished novelist Margaret Aubyn. To raise money for his forthcoming wedding to another woman, Stephen stoops to selling the letters.

Jesse, a Hebrew slave, and Jennat, a half-Egyptian, half-Syrian servant girl, both serve the Egyptians, but they live in vastly different worlds. Though Jennat serves a wealthy mistress, Memnet, she is content to share in the glitter of Egyptian life and idol worship. But Jesse’s life is filled with cruelty inflicted upon him by Egyptian task-masters. Jesse’s father believes only in survival and will stop at nothing to gain favors from the rich and powerful. His mother, however, believes that God will someday rescue His people and guide them to their own land.