Showing results by narrator "Davina Porter" in All Categories

Cut off by her own relations, pretty, dainty widow Eliza Budley must visit some other family manor to purloin expensive baubles. Happily, the rich Marquess of Peterhouse is in his dotage and wouldn't know a relative from a bedpost, so Eliza is sent to play the imposter. But things do not go as planned and Eliza is met by the new Marquess - wickedly handsome, and with all his wits about him. And somehow Eliza finds herself confessing her bluff to him and he in turn is much taken with her daring and charm - but can he fall in love with such a scheming widow from the world of trade?

In this revealing compendium, acclaimed writer Diana Gabaldon shares her invaluable lessons for creating an immersive reading experience, from evoking a mood to using the power of emotions to communicate physical intimacy. You'll learn the difference between gratuitous sex and genuine encounters that move the story forward and how to handle less-than-savory acts that nevertheless serve a narrative purpose. Gabaldon also notes that sex can be conveyed instead of described.

Isabel Dalhousie thinks often of friends, sometimes of lovers, and on occasion of chocolate. As an Edinburgh philosopher, she is certain of where she stands. She can review a book called In Praise of Sin with panache and conviction, but real life is...well, perhaps a bit more challenging....

Following the enormous success of 2004 bestseller and critics' favorite Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke delivers a delicious collection of ten stories set in the same fairy-crossed world of 19th-century England. With Clarke's characteristic historical detail and diction, these dark, enchanting tales unfold in a slightly distorted version of our own world, where people are bedeviled by mischievous interventions from the fairies.

With each passing day, Kelsea Glynn is growing into her new responsibilities as Queen of the Tearling. By stopping the shipments of slaves to the neighbouring kingdom of Mortmesne, she crossed the Red Queen, a brutal ruler whose power derives from dark magic, who is sending her fearsome army into the Tearling to take what is hers. And nothing can stop the invasion.

Joan MacKimmie is on her way to Paris to take up her vocation as a nun. Yet her decision is less a matter of faith than fear, for Joan is plagued by mysterious voices that speak of the future, and by visions that mark those about to die. The sanctuary of the nunnery promises respite from these unwanted visitations...or so she prays. Her chaperone is Michael Murray, a young widower who, though he still mourns the death of his wife, finds himself powerfully drawn to his charge.

It is 1857, and Reverend Geoffrey Wilson has departed England to prove the literal truth of the Bible. The expedition heads towards Tasmania, where he is convinced he will find the real Garden of Eden. But the other passengers have their own agendas. Dr Potter is developing a sinister thesis, and the ship is crewed by smugglers of contraband brandy and tobacco. As the English passengers near Peevay's land, their bizarre notions become painfully at odds with reality.

His name, they tell him, is William Monk, and he is a London police detective. But the accident that felled him has left him with only half a life; his memory and his entire past have vanished. As he tries to hide the truth, Monk returns to work and is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a Crimean War hero and man about town. Which makes Monk’s efforts doubly difficult, since he’s forgotten his professional skills along with everything else.

Number one New York Times best-selling author Diana Gabaldon has captivated millions of listeners with her critically acclaimed Outlander novels, the inspiration for the Starz original series. From the moment Claire Randall stepped through a standing stone circle and was thrown back in time to the year 1743 - and into a world that threatens life, limb, loyalty, heart, soul, and everything else Claire has - listeners have been hungry to know everything about this world and its inhabitants, particularly a Scottish soldier named Jamie Fraser.

In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been one of Florence Nightingale’s angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime—which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman.

Tess Durbeyfield has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature. Betrayed by the two men in her life - Alec D’Urberville, her seducer/rapist and father of her fated child; and Angel, her intellectual and pious husband - Tess takes justice, and her own destiny, into her delicate hands. In telling her desperate and passionate story, Hardy brings Tess to life with an extraordinary vividness that makes her live in the heart of the reader long after the novel is concluded.

For philosophically-minded Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, getting through life with a clear conscience requires careful thought. And whilst juggling the arrival of baby Charlie, a passionate relationship with his father Jamie, a truce with her furious niece Cat, and struggles for authority over her son with her formidable housekeeper Grace, Isabel finds herself drawn into the story of a painter's mysterious death off the island of Jura.

Barbara Havers puts her career on the line while DI Thomas Lynley attempts to straighten her out before it's too late. When Hadiyyah Upman disappears from London in the company of her mother, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers is as devastated as the girl's father. They are her close friends as well as neighbours, but since the child is with her mother, nothing can be done. Five months later, Hadiyyah is kidnapped from an open air market in Lucca, Italy, and this triggers an investigation in the full glare of the media spotlight.

In 18th century London, Gwynne Owens dutifully agrees to marry the dangerous laird of a Scottish clan, Duncan Macrae. Unlocking her hidden supernatural powers as a Guardian is the key to averting disaster for both England and Scotland. But, will Gwynne be forced to betray her husband?

Ten people gather together for an elegant London dinner party. By the end of the party, only nine are alive. Sometime after dinner, General Thaddeus Carlyon is brutally murdered in the hallway. Who had the strength - and motive - to murder the distinguished military hero? Nurse Latterly and Inspector Monk find the answers in a nightmarish legacy of evil.

Rupert, the young Earl of Westerholme, returns home from the war - and Anna, a housemaid, falls hopelessly in love with him. But they can never be together - Rupert is engaged to the snobbish and awful Muriel. And anyway, Anna is only a servant. Or so everybody thinks.

Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1746, and it took them 20 years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same. It is 1779, and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible.

Mysteries of love, romance, and truth-telling lie at the heart of Isabel Dalhousie's concerns in Alexander McCall Smith's new Sunday Philosopher's Club novel. Isabel's niece, Cat, is still worshipped by the young musician, Jamie, but Cat has a new and unsuitable love interest. Meanwhile Isabel's Texan cousins have arrived in Edinburgh and are provoking a quite separate set of dilemmas.

Inspector William Monk is ordered to investigate in a manner that will give the least possible pain to the influential family. But Monk, brilliant and ambitious, is handicapped by lingering traces of amnesia and by the craven ineptitude of his supervisor, who would like nothing better than to see Monk fail.

More than a decade ago, number one New York Times best-selling author Diana Gabaldon delighted her legions of fans with The Outlandish Companion, an indispensable guide to all the Outlander books at the time. But that edition was just a taste of things to come. Since that publication, there have been four more Outlander novels, a side series, assorted novellas, and one smash-hit Starz original television series. Now Gabaldon serves up The Outlandish Companion, Volume Two, an all-new guide to the latest books in the series.