Showing results by narrator "Virginia Leishman" in All Categories

ALA Best Book for Teens recipient Chris Wooding delivers "a twisted fairytale fantasy" (Wooding) sprinkled with marvelous characters and seasoned with incredible plot twists. In the rotting stilt-village of Gull just above the foul-smelling Black Swamp, 16-year-old Poison vows to rescue her kidnapped sister from the phaeries. A wise friend reluctantly provides the money, directions, and ancient lore necessary for her journey. Poison soon encounters the treacherous phaerie lord, the terrifying bone witch, and the deceptive spider queen. But when her reality is completely upended, Poison questions whether she can save anyone.

Brenn Owen, the new but impoverished Earl of Merton, is looking for a bride: one rich enough to finance his estate. When he meets Tess Hamlin, he sees a woman who is not only wealthy, but a dazzling beauty as well. To his surprise, Tess quickly accepts his proposal. But behind her eagerness lurks a secret she will do anything to hide from him. As the Earl and his bride begin their life together, their path is a passionate one, but far from smooth: haste must give way to patience and understanding.

Delicious presents Verity Durant, an irresistible woman of a more elegant age. Verity is renowned from London to Paris for her succulent cuisine - and for her rapacious carnal appetite. And she's determined to tempt prim and proper politician Stuart Somerset with forbidden fruits he's never tasted.

Glowing with narrator Virginia Leishman’s finely tuned phrasing, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye is the perfect introduction to A.S. Byatt, an author who continues to receive international awards and acclaim. Her wondrous fairy tales are iridescent stories full of spells, marvelous creatures, and beautiful princesses.

As a pair of young scholars research the lives of two Victorian poets, they uncover their letters, journals, and poems and track their movements from London to Yorkshire - from spiritualist seances to the fairy-haunted far west of Brittany. What emerges is an extraordinary counterpoint of passion and ideas.

Eleven-year-old Nannerl is arguably the best keyboard player in all of Europe. Yet, because her six-year-old brother, Wolfie, can play almost as well as she, he receives virtually all the praise and adulation. Traveling far and wide with her family, she and her brother perform before the crowned heads of Europe. Social convention and public clamor relegate her to living life in the shadow of a prodigy. When will Nannerl ever realize her own dreams and aspirations?

From nationally best-selling author Rebecca Hagan Lee comes a romance set in England during the 1790s. The Earl of Weymouth insists his son marry before going off to fight the French. Lady Tressingham insists her daughter marry as soon as possible as well. The children, however, are very resistant to the institution of marriage. But they do wed as a matter of convenience. When Griffen returns from war, though, he's a different man than before.

When Lady Tremaine petitions her husband for an end to their civil but loveless marriage, Lord Camden agrees on one scandalous condition - she must give him an heir within a year. Their early attempts to fulfill this delicate arrangement are marred by cold detachment, but soon sparks of passion and long-forgotten lust begin to be kindled anew.

In this entrancing novel, set in late 1800s Europe, a beautiful English schoolgirl participates in an ancient celebration, only to discover she no longer knows the difference between truth and myth. As shadows lengthen, 17-year-old Helena Trant and her classmates must finish their picnic in the Black Forest. Tonight young men will be out to honor Loke, the god of mischief, with drinking and pranks - no woman will be safe. As Helena walks through the misty woods, she loses her friends, but her fear turns to joy....

This mesmerizing, poetic novel won the 2003 National Book Award for fiction and has earned universal acclaim. Set against the beautiful but tragic landscape of post-World War II Asia, The Great Fire tells a sweeping tale of the search for new beginnings in a world ravaged by tragedy.

In this sixth volume, Miss Potter must help the denizens of Near Sawrey solve a particularly knotty problem. After a suspicious fire consumes his haystacks, Farmer Harmsworth barricades the common path through his Applebeck Orchard. Tabitha Twitchet and her Cat Council are all in a tizzy when woodland creatures claim the fire was the work of a lantern-bearing specter.

It is 1907, and in her Lake Country village, Beatrix Potter is about to encounter both woodland magic and an intriguing mystery. As she helps some village children look for fairy folk, she stumbles upon evidence that a flame-haired stranger may have dangerous plans.

The Shadow of the Lynx follows beautiful young Nora Tamasin as she leaves her home in Victorian England. Recently orphaned, she sails toward the untamed lands of gold-rush Australia. Her journey will take her to the Lynx: the man her father designated as her guardian before he died. Rich, powerful, and commanding, the Lynx is a man who can safeguard her finances, but cannot control her heart. More than 56 million of Victoria Holt’s books have been sold worldwide. She also writes as Jean Plaidy and Philippa Carr.

When Anne Burnett is forced into a proxy marriage with Aidan Black, a dashing Scottish laird with a reputation for unpredictability, traveling to the wilds of 19th-century Scotland to meet him is only a small concern. Her biggest worry is how to inform her new husband that he is married. Falling in love with his castle and the fierce loyalty Aidan inspires in his people, Anne finds her greatest challenge is yet to come.

USA Today best-selling author Jo Goodman begins a delightful new quartet of Regency romances with Let Me Be the One. The four gentlemen of the compass club-North, South, East and West-are all unwed. Now North has fallen for the charms of Libby Penrose, an intelligent beauty with a strong determination to remain unattached. When North awakens feelings deep within Libby, whirlwind events lead to their marriage. Yet a dark secret threatens to tear their newfound happiness apart.

Susan Wittig Albert delights mystery lovers with this series based on the life and stories of beloved English children's author Beatrix Potter. When Beatrix finds an abandoned infant, Captain Woodcock and Dimity care for the child as Beatrix and her furry and feathered friends search for its mother.

Works by best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert have been nominated for the Agatha and Anthony awards. In The Tale of Oat Cake Crag, Miss Beatrix Potter is frustrated by distractions near her home. As the noisy test flights of a hydroplane disrupt her concentration, Beatrix investigates a string of bizarre letters threatening a friend’s reputation. Then life becomes even more complicated when the body of the hydroplane project funder is found at the foot of Oat Cake Crag.

Agatha and Anthony Award nominee Susan Wittig Albert has garnered popular and critical acclaim for her whimsical mysteries based on the life and times of Beatrix Potter. Set in the summertime splendor of 1913 England, this eighth tale finds Beatrix eager to marry her fiancé, solicitor William Heelis. But a few obstacles are still blocking the happy couple’s path to the altar - like the troubled remodeling of Castle Cottage, Will and Beatrix’s future home.

Jim Crace has been called "one of the brightest lights in contemporary British fiction" by The New York Times Book Review. His novels have won a Whitbread Prize, an E.M. Forster Award, the Guardian Fiction Award, the GAP International Prize for Literature, and have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Far-ranging in its imagery, Being Dead is a provocative examination of mortality.

National best-selling author Rebecca Hagan Lee pushes another stubborn bachelor of the Free Fellows League toward the altar in Hardly a Husband. And obstinate Marquess Jarrod Shepherdston is not about to take the plunge without protest.