Showing results by narrator "Madeleine Brolly" in All Categories

This series features a real historical figure—the formidable Ela Longespée. The young Countess of Salisbury was chosen to marry King Henry II’s illegitimate son William. After her husband’s untimely death, Ela served as high sheriff of Wiltshire, castellan of Salisbury Castle, and ultimately founder and abbess of Lacock Abbey.

London, summer 1912. Busy with the pressures of work and new motherhood, Margaret Demeray wonders if she will ever be free to help Fox again. When she hears of an unlikely spy plot, she expects Fox to be incredulous, but something reminds him of a case from 1902, and he decides to investigate.

1911: After the violent murder of three policemen in the line of duty, tensions between London constabulary and Whitechapel anarchists simmer. Meanwhile accusations and counter accusations of espionage further weaken relations between Germany and Britain. Can Margaret Demeray and Fox find out which potential enemy is behind a threat to the capital before it’s too late?

A violent encounter at a tournament thrusts Ela into a tug of war over an ancient manor. A young knight wants to wrest the family estates from his mother and Ela finds her own roles as countess and castellan challenged as accusations of murder ring in the air.

From Life tells the story of the greatest portrait photographer of the Victorian age, Julia Margaret Cameron. Born in Calcutta in 1815, she married and settled down to the life of a typical Victorian colonial matron; but, beneath this conventional exterior, she was increasingly interested in photography. After moving to England, Cameron acquired her first camera in 1863, ultimately emerging as the leading portrait photographer of the Victorian art world.

She is a girl three inches tall with eyes like drops of dew. Her clothes are cut from handkerchiefs and stitched with spider silk. For half of her life, she has been trapped in a birdcage while her giant kidnapper sits beside her, writing a leather-bound book the size of a house. Her name is Lily, and tonight she is escaping. She is going home. To Lilliput. Inspired by Gulliver’s Travels, Lilliput is an exhilarating adventure filled with cunning escape plans, evil clockmakers and very talkative parrots.

What do you do when your adult kids fly the nest and you are having a midlife crisis during a global pandemic? You buy a 22 room derelict villa in Italy while grocery shopping of course. Well, that is what Rosie did.

For four centuries, the Order of the King’s Cross has worked in the shadows to protect Promethean society. Known only to the King and his closest advisors, the agents of the Order carry out their monarch’s will throughout the Federated Planets and their neighboring star nations, cleaning up messes, investigating heinous crimes, and most often, eliminating threats. Heather Kilgore is one of the deadliest agents the Order has ever trained. Young, focused, and coldly efficient, the King sends her in when all else has failed.

London May 1913. Angry about the treatment of suffragettes, and a supporter’s murder, Dr Margaret Demeray’s friend Maude urges their suffrage group towards violent militancy. But Margaret is conflicted when a parcel bomb brings casualties to her hospital. And what is the risk to a fragile peace treaty which is about to be signed, and to Fox who’s tracking down stolen diplomatic documents?

Six months ago, Charlotte almost lost everything. Now, she’s determined to keep her daughter, Elle, safe. So when local girls close to Elle in age and appearance begin to go missing, it’s her worst nightmare. Charlotte’s fears are confirmed when a frantic search becomes a shocking murder investigation. The girls’ bodies have been found - half-buried, and with traces of mud and wildflowers under their fingernails. As Charlotte’s obsession with keeping her daughter close pushes her marriage to the brink, local DI Madeleine Wood embarks on a gruelling search for the killer.

Charity Baxter is trapped in a cage of her own making. After being the tyrant of society for years, she fell from grace—and fell hard. Now, she is overlooked at the best of times and openly despised at the worst of it. Though troubles have a way of changing a person for the better, no matter how she tries to repair her reputation, no one is willing to believe her change of heart. And matters are only made worse when an irritating naval officer appears in town, determined to pester her. Odious man! Why can he not leave her be?

Anarcho-capitalism is the most exciting social philosophy of modern times. But how does it work? This book illuminates the ethical system at the heart of anarcho-capitalism. It builds the nonaggression principle from praxeological foundations and develops techniques for applying it to real world conflicts. It explores the edges of libertarianism to show where it shines and where it fails.

They say reformed rakes make the best husbands. They were wrong. Ten years ago, Tabby Russell married the man of her dreams. Or so she thought. The reformed rake had seemed vastly appealing when she was younger, but as life marched on and his old habits returned, Tabby realized too late that she should have chosen wiser when facing the marriage alter. But there is no undoing the decisions of the past or avoiding the ensuing consequences. Even if Tabby wishes otherwise.

A marriage they didn’t choose. A child conceived in a lie. Can they overcome their broken dreams and find happiness in a life forced upon them? At her age, Ruby Jeffries knows better than to dream of love, but then, Lucas Ashbrook sweeps into her life with whispered declarations of love and fervent kisses. He’s everything she’s hoped for, and Ruby would risk far more than the scandal of an elopement to be with him. But when she discovers Lucas faked the wedding to win a bet, Ruby is left with more than a broken heart.

In the sleepy town of Lost Maidens Loch, people sometimes disappear.... Down a quiet lane in town sits a little shop full of oddities you’d probably miss if you weren’t looking for it. This is Love’s Curiosities Inc., and its owner, Temerity Love, is sought by experts all over the world for her rare and magical gift: The ability to find lost things and learn their stories. When Lost Maidens’ pretty local school teacher is found murdered by a poisoned cup of tea, a strange antique hand mirror is discovered nearby.

With a new roof and working electrics in place on her villa in Italy, Rosie is ready for the next phase of turning the 22-roomed derelict Italian villa into a home. It needs to be ready in time for her elderly Irish parents to move in and her daughter to finally visit after being separated for so long.

Everyone in town knows Nancy Jones. She loves her cats. She loves her tumbledown house by the sea. She loves her job in the local school where she tries to help the children who need help the most. Nancy tries hard not to think about her past loves and where those led her.... Nancy never shares her secrets - because some doors are better kept locked. But one day she accepts a cat-sitting request from a local woman, and at the woman’s house Nancy sees a photograph in a bright-red frame. A photograph that opens the door to her painful past....

Lily Kingsley accepts that she is destined to be a spinster - but not until she gets her first kiss. And she knows the perfect gentleman to enlist. Unfortunately, she kisses the wrong one and ends up in the arms of an overbearing and exceptionally frustrating merchant. When busybodies catch them in their illicit embrace, an engagement is the only solution, but Lily doesn’t want a fiancé who’s only doing his duty. And she certainly doesn’t want a gentleman far too used to getting his own way. She simply must make him see how ill-suited they are.

190 AD Pecunia: an insignificant town in west Britain. Romano-Briton Lucretia is determined that her get-rich-quick scheme will not be undermined by minor things like her husband’s death, dubious imposters, or her married daughter’s fascination with a celebrity gladiator. But when the bodies start to mount up, wise-woman Tryssa starts to ask questions. Certain that a forgotten goddess cannot be blamed, Tryssa needs to uncover the truth before another life is lost.

Having three generations of her family living under the same roof was once part of the Italian dream for Rosie. But when her party-loving, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing 85-year-old mother moves over from Ireland to Italy, Rosie’s longed for dolce vita in Umbria is anything but sweet.