Showing results by narrator "Carlotta Brentan" in All Categories

Big Swiss. That's Greta's nickname for her - she is tall, and she is from Switzerland. Greta can see her now: dressed top to toe in white, that adorable gap between her two front teeth, her penetrating blue eyes. She's a head-turner: including the heads of infants and dogs. Well that's how Greta imagines seeing her; they haven't actually ever met in person. Nor has Greta actually ever been to Switzerland. Greta and Big Swiss are not in the same room, or even the same building.

1956. A celebrated Russian author is writing a book, Doctor Zhivago, which could spark dissent in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, afraid of its subversive power, ban it. But in the rest of the world it’s fast becoming a sensation. The CIA plans to use the book to tip the Cold War in its favour. Their agents are not the usual spies, however. Two typists - the charming, experienced Sally and the talented novice Irina - are charged with the mission of a lifetime: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago back into Russia by any means necessary.

When Silvia and her mother finally land in a place called Island City, after being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-too-distant future, they end up living and working at The Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower where Silvia's aunt, Ena, serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place she was born and spent her early years; nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening.

Proud grandmother Matelda Cabrelli always has something to say. But, as she faces the end of her life, she worries she's failed to tell the stories that matter. Most of all, she finds herself needing to tell the tale of her mother Domenica's two great loves. First, Domenica's childhood sweetheart: a boy from her own small coastal town of Viareggio. Second, a mysterious captain: an infatuation forged in the midst of WW2, and the father Matelda never knew.

In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of Hobby Lobby, announced a purchase of a Biblical artefact—a fragment of papyrus carrying lines from Paul's letter to the Romans, and dated to the second century CE. Noted scholar Roberta Mazza was stunned. When was this piece discovered, and how could Green acquire such a rare item? The answers, which Mazza spent the next ten years uncovering, came as a shock: the fragment had come from a famous collection held at Oxford University, and its rightful owners had no idea it had been sold.

New ER doctor Alexi Sur always intended to join an aid agency. She'd just expected to work among humans. When the Pax Galactica Corps becomes her only option (don't ask—the debts aren't hers, but the family is, much to her regret), Alexi finds herself traveling the galaxy and learning alien physiology and culture, all while becoming a reality TV star. Being pursued by camera drones and starring in her very own Welcome-to-the-Universe documentary was never on Alexi's to-do list.

It is the summer of 1969 and Rome is awash with glamour and intrigue. Teddy Huntley Carlyle is fresh off a plane from Texas with a new husband in tow and a new life on the horizon. After some wayward years of bad men and bad decisions, she’s promised herself a fresh start. In Rome, Teddy will be good. She will wear the right clothes and the perfect lipstick and she will charm her husband’s colleagues at the Embassy.

Princess Sarai of Ismah is cursed: on her 25th birthday she will fall into an endless, deadly sleep, plunging the kingdom into chaos and ruin. In a last-ditch attempt to save Sarai and their people, her father arranges her marriage to Prince Balior, a handsome young noble from a neighbouring kingdom. But another man is vying for her attention: Notus, the South Wind, god of the desert breeze, and Sarai’s ex-lover.

Emma is house-sitting on the rainy Washington coast with only her golden retriever for company. She likes the isolation, the peace and quiet, and the opportunity to read. But her latest pick, a poorly written and gruesome horror novel, is disappointing and Emma leaves a one-star review. A message dings back - the author, H.G. Kane, has replied and he's furious. Emma brushes it off, until disturbing incidents start to occur. Scratches in the night. A figure crawling around in the shadows.

When Sara Marsala’s beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, she leaves Sara a valuable piece of land in Sicily, but there’s a catch: the locals refuse to acknowledge the rightful owner of the deed, and if Sara wants the land she must first uncover the truth about what happened to her great-great grandmother, Serafina Marsala. Because Rosie didn’t think Serafina died of illness as family lore states... Rosie believed Serafina was murdered, and she wants Sara to prove it.

The world was shocked by playwright Sarah Lingate’s death thirty years ago at an opulent, white-washed villa on the island of Capri. Absolved of the crime, the Lingate family maintains that what happened that night was a tragic accident. And every July they return to Capri to prove it’s true. This time, Helen Lingate - sole heir to the family fortune - has a plan. Tightly controlled by her father, she enlists the help of the family assistant, Lorna Silva, to free herself from her family’s stranglehold on her life.

Brielle of Thornbrook has dedicated her life to the abbey. She spends her days forging iron and studying the Text, all in preparation of becoming an acolyte—a shepherd of the Father. Twenty-one years on this earth and she has never touched a man. And she never will. Yet dark things uncoil beyond Thornbrook's high stone walls. A chance encounter with an alluring stranger leads Brielle to Under, where the air breathes rot and the roots grow black. Zephyrus, Bringer of Spring, with eyes of green.

Long before civilization, there were the gods. And before the gods, there was the earth, the celestial bodies, and air given flesh. They are the Anemoi—the Four Winds—and they have been banished to the four corners of the world. Wren of Edgewood is no stranger to suffering. Her parents are gone. Survival is all she knows. For three hundred years, the land known as the Gray has been encased in ice, surrounded by a great barrier called the Shade, which protects the townsfolk from the Deadlands beyond. But day by day, the Shade weakens.

Occupied Italy, 1944. In the mountain regions south of Bologna, Liliana Nicoletti’s family finds escaped POW James Foley behind German lines. Committed to the anti-Fascist cause, they deliver him to a powerful band of local partisans. But when the SS launches a brutal attack against the Resistance, Liliana’s community is destroyed. Forging an unbreakable bond, James and Liliana's only hope of survival is to make it to the Allied lines. Twelve years later, fate reunites Liliana, newly widowed, and James, now a journalist for a New York magazine.

One misstep at a dinner party and the older man she's been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city. With few resources, but a gift for navigating the desires of others, Alex stays on the island. She drifts like a ghost through the gated driveways and sun-blasted dunes of a rarefied world, trailing destruction in her wake. Taut, sensual and impossible to forget, The Guest captures the latent heat and potential danger of a summer that could go either way for a young woman teetering on the edge.

Louis XIV transformed from the Sun King into the King of Shadows when he embraced immortality and became the world’s first vampire. For the last three centuries, he has been ruling the kingdom from the decadent Court of Shadows in Versailles, demanding the blood of his subjects to sate his nobles’ thirst and maintain their loyalty.

Hoping to bring his family closer together, Adam Gray arranges a vacation in a remote cabin on a snowy mountain. Things take a dark turn, however, when someone starts leaving gifts in the Christmas stocking mounted on the barn door. Each morning brings something new, and with every passing day, the contents become more terrifying. Soon, the family makes a spine-chilling realization: they’ve been dragged into a deranged game of Secret Santa, and if they want to survive, they will have to fight.

From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies comes an exquisitely crafted work of fiction. Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city, illuminating the frailties of the human condition and dissecting lives lived on the margins.

When thirty-four-year-old Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. With days of quiet, unassuming routine in Buffalo, New York, Cath consciously avoids the impulsive, thrill-seeking lifestyle that her mother once led. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak District: a whole town has come together to stage a fake murder mystery to attract tourism to their quaint hamlet.

As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees - despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.