Showing results by narrator "Elizabeth Knowelden" in All Categories

Persephone is the youngest Penryn, and she’s always felt like an afterthought. As her siblings ventured out one by one, she was left behind, learning to rely on herself. Now that they’ve all returned and are on a mission to save their home, she’s reluctantly falling in with their plans and keeping her distance, especially when an Oxford-educated intern arrives wanting to learn how to save one’s ancestral home.

Confined in a cell four meters long, imprisoned on absurd, Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, written from his prison cell, Altan reflects upon his sentence, on a life whittled down to a courtyard covered by bars, and on the hope and solace a writer's mind can provide, even in the darkest places.

The year is 1590, and Queen Elizabeth's Spanish Armada victory has done nothing to quell her brutal persecution of the English Catholics. Katharine de L'Isle is living at Lufanwal Hall, the manor of her uncle, Sir Edward. Taught by her cherished uncle to read when a child, Katharine is now a 31-year-old widow. She has resigned herself to a life of reading and keeping company with her cousins and their children.

When 15-year-old Nathaniel Braddick discovers a cold storage wallet with over two billion dollars of Bitcoin, he embarks on a path of revenge against the Black Ghost, who killed his parents when he was a child. His deadly plot sets off a turbulent spiral of mayhem, threatening to destroy all caught in its path.

Haworth Parsonage, February 1846: It's been six months since the case of the vanished bride, and the Brontë sisters - Anne, Emily, and Charlotte - have received a steady dribble of inquiries made to Bell Brothers and Company solicitors, but nothing to really thrill them. Having found a publisher for their poems, they turn their attention toward writing a full-length novel, deciding to put their covert careers as detectors behind them.

A happy marriage. A beautiful family. A lovely home. So what makes Emily Coleman get up one morning and walk right out of her life to start again as someone new? Now Emily has become Cat, working at a hip advertising agency in London and living on the edge with her inseparable new friend, Angel. Cat's buried any trace of her old self so well, no one knows how to find her. But she can't bury the past or her own memories.

When Caroline and Francis receive an offer to house swap - from their city apartment to a house in a leafy, upscale London suburb - they jump at the chance for a week away from home, their son, and the tensions that have pushed their marriage to the brink. As the couple settles in, the old problems that permeate their marriage - his unhealthy behaviors, her indiscretions - start bubbling to the surface. But while they attempt to mend their relationship, their neighbor, an intense young woman, is showing a little too much interest in their activities.

Cecilia Bassingwaite belongs to a very prestigious circle of women: The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels. Yet this is no ordinary Victorian lady's society—as it's full of pirates, thieves and ne'er-do-wells. These women spend their days pickpocketing and blackmailing their way around the country all before it's time to sit down for tea. But when Cecilia meets Ned Lightbourne her world is set to change forever. Because he's a paid assassin and she's his next hit.

She wakes up, goes to work. Watches the clock and checks her phone. But underneath this monotony there's something else going on: Something under her skin. Charting the feedback loop of memory, the senses, and modern distractions with wit and precision, our narrator becomes increasingly anxious as the day moves on: Is she overusing the heart emoji? Can drinking eight glasses of water a day really fix everything? Why is the etiquette of the women's bathroom be so fraught? How does she define rape? And why can't she stop scratching?

Nazi England, 2014. Jessika Keller is a good girl - a champion ice skater, model student of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, and dutiful daughter of the Greater German Reich. Her best friend, Clementine, is not so submissive. Passionately different, Clem is outspoken, dangerous, and radical. And the regime has noticed. Jess cannot keep both her perfect life and her dearest friend, her first love. But which can she live without?

As a Victorian clergyman's daughter, Edith Worms has seen everything—until a mythical salamander tumbles out of the fireplace into her lap. When a letter arrives from estranged relatives, Edith is swept away to a crumbling gothic Abbey in the wilds of Yorkshire. Wormwood Abbey isn't just full of curious beasts and ancient family secrets: there's also a tall, dark, and entirely too handsome neighbor who is strangely reluctant for her to leave.

Arianwyn is a fully qualified witch, but somehow magic doesn't feel any easier than it did in her apprentice days. The Hex has driven all manner of supernatural creatures out of the Great Wood and into her little town - some benign, others dark, and others downright mischievous. The Spellorium has never been so busy. What's more, the High Elder has set her a dangerous secret mission. With Gimma acting weirder than usual and her friendships crumbling under pressure, Arianwyn faces the toughest spell of her witching career - can she really see it through alone?

As a widowed mother of three, new love seems impossible for Freya - until she meets Duncan, and suddenly she feels alive again. While Freya’s older children are less than welcoming, six-year-old Sophie helps Duncan find his place in the family - but even Sophie harbours fears that threaten to overshadow any chance of a new start. The past is hard to leave behind when pictures of Freya’s idolised late husband hang in every room, and the more Duncan tries to find the source of Sophie’s anxiety, the more he is convinced that Reuben was not the perfect husband and father Freya remembers.

Stephanie Patrick is devastated after her whole family dies in a plane crash. But when she discovers that the downing of flight NE027 wasn’t an accident but an act of terrorism, Stephanie enters the fight of her life to achieve her one goal: revenge. When she’s recruited by a covert intelligence organization, Stephanie sees a means to an end. Now, with nothing and no one left to lose, Stephanie undergoes rigorous training to become “Petra,” a mercenary terrorist based out of Germany, and “Marina,” an international businesswoman based in London.

Rachel Waring is deliriously happy. Out of nowhere, a great-aunt leaves her a Georgian mansion in another city—and she sheds her old life without delay. Gone is her dull administrative job, her mousy wardrobe, her downer of a roommate. She will live as a woman of leisure, devoted to beauty, creativity, expression, and love. Once installed in her new quarters, Rachel plants a garden, takes up writing, and impresses everyone she meets with her extraordinary optimism. But her new neighbors begin to wonder if she might be taking her transformation just a bit too far.

As a teenager, Hayley DaSilva walked into a nightmare, discovering the bodies of her mother, twin brother, and friend all brutally slaughtered in her home…and her nine-year-old brother missing. Her father, Leonard DaSilva, confessed to the murders, but Ethan was never seen again. He lied. But why? Now, Hayley has fled her dreadful past in Thamespark—until the call from Detective Sebastian Locke. Little bones uncovered in a shallow grave belong to Ethan…and the investigation reveals holes in the case that prove Leonard’s confession was false. He didn’t kill his family. So why did he say he did?

Aruna is an epidemiologist dedicated to food and avian politics. One is heaven, the other earth. The two passions blend in unexpected ways when Aruna is asked to research a handful of isolated bird flu cases reported across Indonesia. While it's put a crimp in her aunt's West Java farm, and made her own confit de canard highly questionable, the investigation does provide an irresistible opportunity. It's the perfect excuse to get away from corrupt and corrosive Jakarta and explore the spices of the far-flung regions of the islands with her three friends.

Eighteen years ago, a dimensional break ripped open the sky, drawing humans into an ancient conflict. Otherworldly souls rained down and fused with those of people, dividing the population into the green-eyed, magical Gifted and the dark-eyed, nonmagical Ashkind. A devastating war followed, and the Gifted have managed a fragile peace ever since, largely through a brutal law enforcement organization known as the Department. Fifteen-year-old Rose's father, David, has a leading role in the Department.

Sixteen-year-old Bluebelle, also known as BB or Big Bones, lives her life unapologetically. She loves life! She loves food! When BB has a worse-than-usual asthma attack, her mom insists she go to the doctor. There, she is told that she is overweight (no surprise) and prediabetic (big surprise) and must lose weight, move more, and keep a food diary. To get out of this immediate health crisis, she agrees to make an effort. Then a tragedy occurs in the family, and things get seriously complicated. Suddenly, losing weight and moving more are the least of her worries.

In 1930s Northern India, childhood friends Stella and Andrew have grown up together in the orbit of the majestic Raj Hotel. Spirited Stella has always had a soft spot for boisterous Andrew, though she dreams of meeting a soulmate from outside the close-knit community. But life is turned on its head when one scandal shatters their friendship and another sees her abandoned by the man she thought she loved.