Showing results by narrator "Christine Rendel" in All Categories

In the spring of 1916, we meet orphaned sister and brother Jay and Kew Martin in London. Jay (real name Jane Elizabeth) has run away from her strange, claustrophobic, interfering, well-heeled family to the simplicities of the Brown Borough (otherwise Hackney), to live amongst its working-class people, to a job as a bus conductor, and to discover her own wild self. Kew is on recuperative leave from the War, and manages to find Jay in her humble new abode. She begs him to preserve her newfound freedom and not reveal her whereabouts to their family.

At odds with love, Matthew Northcott has firmly decided that he will never marry, much to the dismay of his relatives . . . and nearly every young lady he meets. Rather than seek a marriage for himself, he attempts to find matches for others, grateful to see that love is not entirely cruel—just cruel to him. When a letter arrives from Matthew's friend Jack, asking an immense favor from him, Matthew undertakes a new challenge: Find a husband for Jack's spinster sister, Miss Cassandra Warwick, before the end of the season.

A young silk heiress is caught in the dangerous tide of French history during the reign of the evil Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici. Uncovering a diabolical plot, Rachelle joins forces with the handsome rebel Marquis Fabien de Vendome - but will they be in time?

London, 1890. In Victorian London, reporter Jennie Quinn employs deception as a weapon. Going undercover to seek justice for a murdered informant, she's drawn into a powerful criminal's seductive game of cat and mouse. Enigmatic former lawman Matthew Colton is as dangerous as he is clever, but the passion in his kiss is too tempting to resist. She aches to trust him, but she will not abandon her quest for the truth. Colton is a man with secrets of his own. Thirsting for vengeance, the disgraced Scotland Yard detective has infiltrated the criminal world he's vowed to destroy.

Emily stood in front of a full length mirror in her well-appointed Camberwell apartment. She turned sideways on and looked over her shoulder before doing the same the other side. “Anna, do you think I could pass for a man?" “Why ever would you want to do that miss?” Anna was never surprised by anything her mistress said, she was always unpredictable and had some very funny notions. “I’m going to dress as a man and pass myself off as a detective in the London police force. I’m never going to get anywhere as a woman”.

The year is 1939. As war breaks out across Europe, nine-year-old Susie and her older sister Gyll are dispatched to Africa by their mother. Alone on the dusty continent, the sisters find little sympathy in their new guardians, and little to like about their new way of life: patched-up clothes, a 6 o'clock bedtime (a particular indignity) and regular obsessive cleanliness rituals. Their continued presence a nuisance, and overwhelmed by fear of doing the wrong thing, Susie and Gyll seek an ally in Mavis.

Although I have only been part of Society for two years, I am already desperate to escape its confines and eager for adventure. I will do anything to escape the boredom, even become a collector of bounties. My name is Cherry St. Croix, and I may be young, but I am old enough to know when I am in over my head. My first collection seemed easy: Mr. Strangeway's debts have come due. Yet the wastrel remains one step ahead of me, and my efforts are hampered by another collector. What's more, this simple hunt becomes the forefront of a conspiracy....

One of today's foremost historical novelists, Cecelia Holland explores the strange and enduring mystery of Stonehenge, one of the true wonders of the ancient and modern world. A breathtaking speculation, Pillar of the Sky is an unforgettable tale brimming with action, colorful characters, vivid detail, intelligence, and wonder, while presenting a possible history of the man-made miracle on Salisbury Plain that confounds scientists, scholars, and archaeologists to this day.

It was the turning point before he became a bestselling author: Hans Fallada handed himself in to the police in September 1925, following repeated cases of embezzlement to finance his alcohol and morphine addiction. At the time, a court-appointed doctor was assigned to assess the extent to which Fallada could be made accountable. This expert opinion, thought to have been lost, was only recently rediscovered. It is an extraordinary find, because it includes unpublished and rewritten stories by Fallada that focus on hitherto taboo topics such as abortion.

In 2016, the United States was stunned by evidence of Russian meddling in the US presidential elections. But it shouldn't have been. Subversion—domestic interference to undermine or manipulate a rival—is as old as statecraft itself. The basic idea would have been familiar to Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Elizabeth I, or Bismarck. It came as a surprise in 2016 because the sole superpower had fallen asleep at the wheel. But what's really new? Have we entered a new age of vulnerability?

Rose Fleming has been presumed dead for the last decade. It required leaving everything-and everyone-she loved behind, including MacAllister Campbell. But faking her death allowed her to stay safe until the threat posed by a mysterious villain had passed. Believing it's finally safe again, she returns . . . and runs smack into the only man she ever loved. But Rose was wrong and the stalker she escaped years ago still has her in his sights.

Brilliant Egyptologist Alexandra Quinn is stunned when the man who'd shattered her young heart rescues her from an intruder at the last minute. Forced to work with the rakish Lord, they must identify a cunning murderer who's left a blood-drenched trail from Cairo to London. Alex knows better than to trust Benedict, but the wicked promise in his kiss tempts her.

One of the world's most multicultural cities, 20th-century Cairo was a magnet for the ambitious and talented. During the 1920s and '30s, a vibrant music, theater, film, and cabaret scene flourished, defining what it meant to be a "modern" Egyptian. Women came to dominate the Egyptian entertainment industry - as stars of the stage and screen but also as impresarias, entrepreneurs, owners, and promoters of a new and strikingly modern entertainment industry.

All is not peaceful in the wake of the Midnight Menagerie's ruin. Although the Karakash Veil has been forced to flee its stronghold, the mysterious head of the criminal organization is not content to fade away. Above the foggy drift, a priceless diamond vanishes. In the dangerous underground, a murderous rampage demands retribution. The hunt for the mastermind behind these misdeeds sends me back to society - and into the unforgiving embrace of the world I'd left behind.

I will not wither without laudanum. Sober and determined, I have chosen another way - alchemy and the pursuit of wellness it embodies. My name is Cherry St. Croix, and though freedom is finally at my fingertips, I return to the blackened streets intent on righting the wrongs I left behind. All is not well in London low. Caught in a war between gangs, men are torn limb from limb, and I am called on to ascertain how.

The 12 Pound Look by James M Barrie read by Christine Rendel, a biting comic satire depicting man's overblown pride. It is that day in your career when everything went wrong just when everything seemed to be superlatively right. Harry Sims' preparations to receive a knighthood are disrupted by an unexpected arrival. But who is she? From the author of Peter Pan comes a grown-up comedy with a feminist slant which reveals Barrie's sharp wit and keen sense of social satire.

Hungry for vengeance, Cherry St. Croix is forced to the fog-ridden streets of Victorian London. My rival, a collector of bounties like myself, has murdered one of my own. In consequence, I have been removed from my house, my staff, and all who would support me. I have nowhere else to turn, so I beg asylum within the Midnight Menagerie, London's decadent pleasure garden. Micajah Hawke's dominance there will not tolerate my presence for long. I am fixated on revenge, but I walk a razor's edge under his scrutiny.

In the summer of 1897, Fiona MacGillivray and her 11-year-old son, Angus, arrive in Vancouver in time to hear the news gold discovered in the Klondike! Fiona immediately sets off for Skagway, Alaska, intent on opening a theatre. After one encounter with infamous gangster Soapy Smith and his henchman Paul Sheridan, she decides to pursue her ambitions on the other side of the border in Dawson City. As a dying man breathes his last, he passes on to Sheridan a map pointing due north to the fabled Gold Mountain, where hills of gold keep the heat from hot springs contained in a valley as warm as California.

My rival, a collector of bounties like myself, has murdered one of my own. In consequence, I have been removed from my house, my staff, and all who would support me. I have nowhere else to turn, so I beg asylum within the Midnight Menagerie, London's decadent pleasure garden. Micajah Hawke's dominance there will not tolerate my presence for long. I am fixated on revenge, but I walk on the razor's edge under his scrutiny.

Gervase Howard is in her mid-teens when her working-class mother dies and she must go to live with relatives in service to a wealthy, noble family, outside of London. While learning various jobs, she is drawn to the eldest son, Davis. Her fascination with him grows deeper, but more hopeless, since the two are separated not just by class, but also by Davis's love for Roberta. When Davis announces his engagement, he asks Gervase to join them as Roberta's maid. But instead Gervase becomes a companion to Florence Nightingale and accompanies her when the Crimean War breaks out....