Showing results by narrator "Simon Prebble" in All Categories

This acclaimed best seller from popular historian Alison Weir is a fascinating look at the Tudor family dynasty and its most infamous ruler. The Six Wives of Henry VIII brings to life England’s oft-married monarch and the six wildly different but equally fascinating women who married him. Gripping from the first sentence to the last and loaded with fascinating details, Weir’s rich history is a perfect blend of scholarship and entertainment.

In the year 1689, a cabal of Barbary galley slaves, including one “Half-Cocked Jack” Shaftoe, devises a daring plan to win freedom and fortune. A great adventure ensues that will place the intrepid band at odds with the mighty and the mad, with alchemists, Jesuits, great navies, pirate queens, and vengeful despots across vast oceans and around the globe.

Penelope Ashford, Portia Cynster's younger sister, has devoted her life to the care of orphans. But lately, her charges seem to be disappearing without a trace. Penelope enlists investigator Barnaby Adair to solve the mystery. Adair agrees, intrigued by both the case and by Penelope.

Shortlisted for the 2012 Orwell Prize. 'As soon as we abandon our own reason', wrote Bertrand Russell, 'and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.' For over 40 years, Christopher Hitchens has proclaimed truth where others have spun falsehood and written, with passionate commitment, on matters that others fear to broach. This volume of essays encompasses Hitchens's writing over the past decade on politics, literature and religion.

To all of English society, Simon Frederick Cynster has a perfect life - one of enormous wealth and impeccable social status. Yet he knows there is something - or rather someone - missing in his life. He discreetly begins his search for a wife at a house party at Glossup Hall and is astonished that the lady who immediately captures his interest is Portia Ashford. He's known the raven-haired beauty since childhood; she's willfully independent and has always claimed to be uninterested in marriage. But an unexpectedly heated kiss abruptly alters the rules of their decade-long interaction.

All six Bastable children - Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel and Horace Octavius - are ambitious adventurers, digging detectives and intrepid treasure seekers by nature. Unfortunately, the Bastable family is currently facing an uncertain financial future. When father takes ill, and his business partners abandon him, the six children team up in an effort to restore their family’s wealth. Although they devise some ingenious escapades, their efforts usually end up unprofitable but fun - and sometimes their digging gets downright dangerous.

Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl is the last completed novel of Henry James. In it, the widowed American Adam Verver is in Europe with his daughter Maggie. They are rich, finely appreciative of European art and culture, and deeply attached to each other. Maggie has all the innocent charm of so many of Jamess young American heroines. She is engaged to Amerigo, an impoverished Italian prince; he must marry money, and as his name suggests, an American heiress is the perfect solution.

Against a vivid backdrop of history, Danielle Steel tells a compelling story of love and war, acts of faith and acts of betrayal…and of three generations of women as they journey though years of loss and survival, linked by an indomitable devotion that echoes across time.

"If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do their duty, we shall watch as the victims and survivors of this man pursue justice and vindication in their own dignified and painstaking way, and at their own expense, and we shall be put to shame." Forget Pinochet, Milosevic, Hussein, Kim Jong-il, or Gaddafi: America need look no further than its own lauded leaders for a war criminal whose offenses rival those of the most heinous dictators in recent history-Henry Kissinger.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), credited as the inspiration for radio, robots, and even radar, has been called the patron saint of modern electricity. Based on original material and previously unavailable documents, this acclaimed book is the definitive biography of the man considered by many to be the founding father of modern electrical technology.

Michael Gallatin is a British spy with a peculiar talent: the ability to transform himself into a wolf. Although his work in North Africa helped the Allies win the continent in the early days of World War II, he quit the service when a German spy shot his lover in her bed. Now, three years later, the army asks him to end his retirement and parachute into occupied Paris. A mysterious German plan called the Iron Fist threatens the D-Day invasion, and the Nazi in charge is the spy who betrayed Michael’s lover. The werewolf goes to France for king and country, hoping for a chance at bloody vengeance.

Unlike his brothers, Vane Cynster vows to never marry. The eligible women of London have different plans for him, however. Seeking safety at Bellamy Hall, the residence of his eccentric godmother, Vane doesn't expect to meet any new unmarried women. But upon his arrival, he encounters the voluptuous Patience Debbington in the garden. When their gazes meet for the first time, she is filled with a sensation that leaves her quivering.

When Devil, the most infamous member of the Cynster family, is caught in a compromising position with plucky governess Honoria, he astonishes the entire ton by offering his hand in marriage. But Honoria isn't about to bend to society's demands. She craves adventure and is set on seeing the world. Could her passion for Devil cause her to embrace the enchanting peril of a lifelong adventure of the heart?

Four amazing talents have come together to create one of the most unforgettable events of the year. The results are spectacular - each story is as unique as a lover's first kiss.

In a quiet moonlit courtyard, Helena encounters a handsome and mysterious Englishman. Before parting, he rewards her with a special kiss - a delicious, enticing, unforgettable kiss that makes her whole body shiver with desire. Helena doesn't yet know that she has met her destiny - and he is Sebastian Cynster, Duke of St. Ives.

Gareth Hamilton is stunned when he recognises Emily Ensworth on his ship. The veil she wears is not enough to disguise her from him - or from the man hired to kill her. Whisking Emily to safety, Gareth realises that the Black Cobra is on to them. In order to protect her, Gareth must reveal to Emily the dangerous plot in which she is now intimately involved. Emily Ensworth is no wilting flower. She knew the packet the dying soldier thrust upon her held vital information, and she has every intention of seeing it into safe hands.

Mortality is the most meditative collection of writing Hitchens has ever produced - at once an unsparingly honest account of the ravages of his disease, an examination of cancer etiquette and the coda to a lifetime of fierce debate and peerless prose. In this eloquent confrontation with mortality, Hitchens returns a human face to a disease that has become a contemporary cipher of suffering.

Captain Rafe Carstairs is the final hope for thwarting the evil traitor known only as the Black Cobra. Bold and determined, Rafe is a roguish charmer possessing inner steel. He races to complete his assignment against impossible odds - the mission made suddenly more perilous by the proud English rose, Loretta Michelmarch, he must now protect from villainous hordes.

A mysterious and sensual woman, shrouded in a heavy black veil, begs Gabriel Cynster to help protect her family's home from the unscrupulous man trying to steal it. Unable to resist a challenge, he agrees - but protection comes with a price. From one searing kiss to the next, the truth of her identity could be revealed, which could cost both of them everything -including their passion.

Stephanie Laurens authors USA Today best-selling historical romances such as A Rake's Vow and Devil's Bride. Lauren's Scandal's Bride is the hot and exciting third novel in her riveting Bar Cynster series.