Showing results by narrator "Justine Eyre" in All Categories

Without family or means, the strong-willed Lucy Snowe escapes the English countryside for the town of Villette. Though overwhelmed by a new culture and a foreign language, Lucy finds employment at an all-girls boarding school. Her self-reliance is soon compromised by her affections for two men: the kindhearted Dr. Bretton and the imperious professor M. Paul Emanuel. As Lucy longs for both independence and passion in a patriarchal society, fate plays its hand.

Lilica Swan isn't quite human or otherworlder; she is the best - and worst - of both. She is willing to do whatever proves necessary to save her sister from the seductive and deadly Alien Investigation and Removal agent Dallas Gutierrez, even bonding her lifeforce to his by effectively marrying him. But the bond will fade without consummation. Can Dallas resist his insatiable desire for the powerful beauty? Or will she lead to his ultimate downfall?

In mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, a small girl arrives on the same dock her mother departed from six years earlier. Laoise Hogan is alone, traumatized, and bearing letters from her mother addressed to the man who abandoned them. Sir Lucius O’Brien, 5th Baronet, 13th Baron Inchiquin, is summoned to Dublin by an orphan society. He finds himself face to face with a small girl whose haunted face looks eerily similar to his brother's.

To reconcile with her long-estranged father, Laine Simmons travels to Hawaii. But she soon finds her motives being questioned by his arrogant, judgmental, and extremely attractive business partner, Dillon O’Brian. It doesn’t help that every infuriating confrontation with the man only makes her want him more. As Laine struggles to heal her past, she has to fight her treacherous heart - or admit to herself that this is one battle she’d rather lose...

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, Miss Sarah Meacham has always behaved circumspectly, until an emotional outburst directed at a well-deserved gentleman earns her the nickname of Miss Shrew. As a result, she vows to never trust - or love - again. But when her father decrees that her younger sister cannot marry the man of her dreams, until Sarah has secured a suitor of her own, she is faced with a dilemma: deny her sister marital bliss or feign an interest in the next gentleman to come along, at least until their father relents.

A year-old murder in the rainforest of Costa Rica haunts Raven MacMillan. Details of the tragedy she witnessed remain suppressed deep inside her subconscious. When circumstances force her to return to the scene of the crime, someone makes it abundantly clear: Raven isn't welcome. Finally healing from his girlfriend's murder, human clone Kyle Jones is on a mission: find the stolen trackers scientists are using to control the actions of innocent children.

Solomon Weiss has little interest in power, but to repay the half-brother who raised him, he pursues money, influence, and now—a respectable wife. That is, until outcast Hannah Moses saves his life, and Sol finds himself helplessly drawn to the beautiful pawnshop owner. Forever tainted by her parents' crimes, Hannah sees only a villain when she looks in the mirror—no one a prince would choose. To survive, she must care for herself, even if that means illegally hunting down whatever her clients wish.

Born to a respected family, seventeen-year-old English beauty Vieve Donnelle always gets what she wants. But when word arrives that her father’s estate isn’t as wealthy as it appears, the noble heiress must rethink her betrothal to an impoverished aristocrat. Enter Captain Tyson Gervais, an infuriating colonial sea captain traveling to England for business in foreign trade. Despite high tensions between England and the colonies, Vieve can’t resist thinking about the dashing American merchant.

In this imagined war, coalition forces led by Russia and France invade Britain and make several early advances, but the Germans land in Britain as allies and help to repulse the invasion. The brave English patriots, together with German soldiers, try to turn the tide. Written 20 years before the start of World War I in 1914, Le Queux’s novel is considered to have influenced many subsequent works, including H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

Rosalind Newbury is counting down the days until her wedding to the Duke of Marlow, a man she has only met twice. The marriage is more an agreement between two families and less a romantic connection between two hearts, but Rosalind becoming a duchess will elevate her family’s status to dizzying heights. And the duke is a kind man who will care for Rosalind, even if he doesn’t love her.

Lady Victoria Lennox longs for romance and marriage. But such dreams may come to nothing when her sharp-spoken older sister, Amelia, sends away every potential suitor. Desperate to hear wedding bells, Victoria hatches a scheme, a scandal that will ensure a husband for Amelia and clear Victoria's path to the altar. However, Victoria makes her first mistake when she ropes the devilishly charming Lord Julius Cavendish into her plot.

Sean O’Brien is a new Garda Officer assigned alongside his brother to work the streets of Dublin. With strong ties to their family and native homeland, they begin to carve their place in the world. Sorcha Mullen is a midwifery student facing the challenges of a young Catholic woman living in West Belfast. Fiercely independent, she is consumed with her career, refusing to let the political turmoil and conflicts in her city interfere with her dreams of being a midwife. They come from two vastly different Irelands, sharing a border but living worlds apart.

Fenella Woods is excited to be taking the ferry across the Irish Sea to England so that she can begin her research. When she finds a dead body in her cabin, she has to change her plans. The police seem convinced that the killer is one of the other passengers who had a cabin reserved for the journey. Fenella meets a group of suspects that includes a wealthy couple, an older man and his much younger wife, and a retired and incredibly nosy woman.

Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah Quilliam, with her talent for business, runs the Inn at Hemlock Falls, while her sister Meg keeps the guests happy with her culinary abilities. But when it comes to murder, the Quilliam sisters have to rely on other skills - spotting clues, solving crimes, and catching culprits.

Samantha McDonough cannot believe her eyes - or her luck. Tucked in an uncut page of a 200-year-old poetry book is a letter she believes was written by Jane Austen, mentioning with regret a manuscript that "went missing at Greenbriar in Devonshire." Could there really be an undiscovered Jane Austen novel waiting to be found? Could anyone resist the temptation to go looking for it?

Greece, 1944: After Nefeli loses her husband during the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940, she ekes out a meager living from her Blue Dolphin taverna with the help of her eight-year-old-daughter, Georgia; their small garden; and Agamemnon the mule. Four of Nefeli's close friends, who belong to the Greek Resistance, ask her to hide a cache of weapons, placing her in mortal danger from the enemy. When the Resistance blows up a German naval vessel filled with troops, three of them are killed, and the Germans start to make regular visits to the island.

By the author of the acclaimed Passion Blue, a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2012 and "a rare, rewarding, sumptuous exploration of artistic passion," comes a fascinating companion novel.

Artistically brilliant, Giulia is blessed—or cursed—with a spirit’s gift: she can hear the mysterious singing of the colors as she creates them in the convent workshop of Maestra Humilitá. It’s here that Giulia, forced into the convent against her will, has found unexpected happiness and rekindled her passion to become a painter—an impossible dream for any woman in 15th century Italy.

But when a dying Humilitá bequeaths Giulia her most prized possession—the secret formula for the luminously beautiful paint called Passion blue—Giulia realizes she’s in danger from those who have long coveted the famous color. Faced with the prospect of a life in the convent barred from painting as punishment for keeping Humilitá’s secret, Giulia is struck by a desperate idea: What if she disguises herself as a boy? Could she make her way to Venice and find work as an artist’s apprentice?

Along with the truth of who she is, Giulia carries more dangerous secrets: the exquisite voices of her paint colors and the formula for Humilitá’s Passion blue. And Venice, she discovers, with its gilded palazzos and masked balls, has secrets of its own. Trapped in her false identity in this dream-like place where reality and reflection are easily confused, and where art and ambition, love and deception hover like dense fog, can Giulia find her way?

This stunning, compelling novel explores timeless themes of love and illusion, gender and identity as it asks the question: what does it mean to risk everything to pursue your passion?

For Lady Sabrina, it's a case of too many suitors…Lady Sabrina Grayson is embarking on her first season, but she's no blushing ingénue. She knows exactly what she wants: a calm, sensible husband very much like Lord Francis Fairford - and very unlike her childhood nemesis, the dark and devilish Henry, Viscount Montgomery. Yet no matter how much she insists that she will not be beholden to desire, the irrepressible Henry insists on kissing her. Worse, Sabrina can't help kissing him back…Her ardent response to Henry's touch leaves him no doubt. She wants him, not Fairford, or any of the other suitors trying to win her hand.

Helena Houndswood is the epitome of class - at least when the camera's rolling. Behind the scenes, the celebrated expert on stylish living is just a garden-variety snob with a heart of stone. She's furious to learn that a group of decidedly déclassé Hemlock Falls women has won the design contest sponsored by her television show, It's a Beautiful Life. Now one winner is missing and another is dead - but just how far would Helena go to avoid mixing with the unwashed? After all, murder is so tacky.

In the spring of 1338, young William of Leaves knows only of remedies, herbs, and his mother’s kindness. When he is forced to watch as she is dragged to a witch’s pyre by a mob led by the bishop of London, the mysterious immortal apothecary Albion Ravistelle promises the boy a chance at vengeance. In the summer of 1972, Helen Storm is a stoned groupie on the Sunset Strip with a very special condition: She is immortal. When her life intersects with a famous guitar player, she is introduced to her future as a deadly and remorseless assassin.