Showing results by narrator "Sam Devereaux" in All Categories

He’d found her in another man’s arms, the very picture of sophisticated debauchery. But Sophia Raughley knew very well that the truth was much different from appearances. What should she make, however, of this commandingly handsome man who’d burst into her Parisian salon demanding that she return with him to England by authority of the king himself?

Wearing nothing but a man’s nightshirt, Fleur Monley wakes to find herself in the bed of England’s most charming and reckless libertine. But it was a stray gunshot, not passion, that put her at the mercy of a man as infamously handsome as he is famously talented in the arts of love. Believing herself immune to any seduction, Fleur thinks herself perfectly safe to proffer an arrangement no ordinary woman would dare make: half her fortune for the freedom she would gain by being his wife—in name only.

Welcome to the Fiction on the Web audiobook series, featuring a collection of short stories with a different theme for each volume. Lovingly curated by the owner of Fiction on the Web, Charlie Fish. Come and share in the joy and power of short stories.

Welcome to the Fiction on the Web audiobook series, featuring a collection of short stories with a different theme for each volume. Lovingly curated by the owner of Fiction On The Web, Charlie Fish. Come and share in the joy and power of short stories. The theme of this volume is Ironic Wish Fulfilment. What happens when your dreams actually do come true? Does eternal happiness await? Or will you be visited by nightmares?

German tanks rolled unimpeded across the Russian steppes at the start of Hitler’s campaign against the Soviet Union. But in 1943, the so-called Slavic "untermensch" (subhumans) gain the initiative and transform the country into a hell for Hitler’s invasion forces. Nearly 100,000 Germans are captured after the Battle of Stalingrad at the beginning of the year. Ahead lies cold, hunger and ill-treatment, and only five percent of prisoners will return to Germany after the war.

By 2025, China and India will be two of the world's four largest economies. By then, economic ties between them should also rank among the 10 most important bilateral ties worldwide. Their leaders are well aware of these emerging realities. In May 2013, just two months after taking charge, Premier Li Keqiang left for India on his first official trip outside China, a clear signal of China's foreign policy priorities.

The world runs on ARCs. Altered Reality Chips. Small implants behind the left ear that allow people to experience anything they could ever imagine. The network controls everything, from traffic, to food production, to law enforcement. Few realize that behind it all, living within every brain and able to control all aspects of society, there exists a being with an agenda all his own: the singularity called Adam, who believes he is God. Jimmy Mahoney's brain can't accept an ARC. Not since his football injury from the days when the league was still offline.

When Mr. Hardy assists Constable Foster's mate "Ned" Kelly to pull a ship's boat off a sandbar, he is shocked to find a strangled body inside. But he is even more shocked when he learns that the last person seen with the dead man was Constable Foster. Meanwhile, Aroha, the ferocious young Māori woman who has moved in with Foster has decided that the Patrick Foster who has returned from Napier is not the man she agreed to marry.

The Afterlives of Doctor Gachet tells the story of Paul Ferdinand Gachet, the subject of one of Vincent van Gogh’s most famous portraits: one that shows what the artist called ‘the heartbroken expression of our times’. But what caused such heartbreak? This thrilling historical novel follows Doctor Gachet from asylums to art galleries, from the bloody siege of Paris to life with van Gogh in Auvers and from the bunkers of Nazi Germany to a reclusive billionaire in Tokyo, hoping to uncover the secrets behind that grief-stricken smile.

At home, with a baby, no one can hear you scream. Most people think that once you’ve had your happy ever after, nothing can go wrong. But for Millie and Tom, their love did not have a fairy tale beginning. It was not love at first sight, at least not for Millie. When the strength of their love for each other finally brings them together, their marriage is a chance to heal the wounds of their past and build a brighter future. For Tom, the arrival of their daughter is everything he ever dreamed about. But for Millie, the reality of motherhood becomes a lot darker.

Whatever became of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti? She was the wife of Akhenaten and disappeared completely from all historical records. Her grave has never been found, although her eternal fame was assured by the discovery of a portrait bust in 1912 depicting who has been called “the most beautiful woman of the ancient world”. More puzzles involve the relationship between Moses and Aaron. In the Bible, they are said to be brothers, but is it possible different ties bound them?

The resurgence of the Irish brotherhood. An unidentified woman's body spilling out of a steamer trunk with freezer burn on her arms. The beginning of a new export industry for New Zealand that brought the country out of recession. An untimely earthquake. And a case with too many threads for Mr. Hardy.

A body plunging off a cliff, a new craze for pedestrianism or race-walking with gambling, a constable willing to make a gruelling 90 miles through the tree-covered ranges without a break, and a testing undercover assignment for Mr. Hardy.

They call it Paradise - an inner-city danger zone, starved of resources, starved of hope; run-down housing, run-down lives. Then a miracle happens. A dying boy is healed by the touch of a charismatic young man. And that's only the beginning. Richard brings light into the darkest places.

Joey Ferra booked a one-way ticket to Europe to shake his grief. But a deadly scuba-diving experience transforms his casual trip into an unexpected fight, especially to crack the tough exterior of his gorgeous, green-eyed rescuer. Modern-day pirates and thieves threaten to end him, but he's found someone worth turning his life upside down for, if she'll let him.

On 27th January 1944, Stalin declares that Leningrad has been liberated. After a siege lasting two and a half years, German forces retreat with the Red Army in hot pursuit. Encouraged by the victory, Soviet general Govorov decides to liberate Estonia, but in the battle of Narva, the Germans upset his plans, and the front comes to a temporary halt. Hitler's forces are feeling the pressure on all sides, however.

The Germans and their Japanese allies have gone from victory to victory since the start of the war, but in the autumn of 1942, that begins to change. On the small Pacific island of Guadalcanal, US forces drive back the Japanese to capture a key airfield. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, Hitler’s blitzkrieg slams to a halt at Stalingrad, stopped by the Russian winter and a Red Army determined to defend every street. As the war enters its fourth year, the conflict becomes ever more brutal.

The battle is won, the enemy driven out, and everyone can breathe again. Many field generals thought this - but generals often make mistakes. Throughout World War II, specially trained soldiers made sure that the enemy never rested in peace. Command units struck anywhere and at any time: a German general was kidnapped in the middle of Crete, while commandos liberated Benito Mussolini from his prison on a mountain top. And British units blew up factories in a Norwegian town to deprive Germany of important raw materials.

Luftwaffe pilots fear one weapon more than any other: British Spitfires. Powerful Rolls Royce engines and an ingenious design make the plane fast and manoeuvrable. In 1940, Spitfires and their fearless pilots resist Hitler’s attempts to bomb Britain to submission. The fighter’s success forces Germany’s leaders to develop even more powerful weapons. London is targeted by V-1 and V-2 bombs, forerunners of the Saturn V moon rocket. Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front the supergun Schwerer Gustav fires shells at targets 47 kilometres away.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler seizes power after seducing the German people with lavish promises of restoring order, prosperity and the Greater German Reich to its former glories. He then goes to on exploit other Western European powers’ fear of confrontation to rearm the country in direct defiance of the restrictive terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Before his neighbours can react, Hitler has transformed Germany’s armed forces into the most modern war machine of the day. And Hitler is not alone.