Showing results by author "H.L" in All Categories

Dublin native Freda Wilson considers herself to be an acquired taste. She has a habit of making offensive jokes and speaking her mind too often. She doesn't have the best track record with first impressions, which is why she gets a surprise when her new neighbor, Nicholas, takes a shine to her. Nicholas is darkly handsome, funny, and magnetic, and Freda feels like her black and white existence is plunged into a rainbow of color when she's around him.

Available for the first time in a single volume, all five Nyssa Glass Adventures. Nyssa Glass is a reformed cat burglar turned electrician's apprentice, settled into a life repairing videophones and radio-sets. However, when her past comes calling, she finds herself on the run for a murder she did not commit. As her quiet life goes up in sparks, she must face killer robots, menacing villains, and sarcastic computers in a race for survival.

While war and revolution continue to ravage Europe, Dorothy Peto embraces her new role at Scotland Yard as she and several detectives investigate a series of jewel thefts. Then Dorothy is tasked with assisting the inscrutable Inspector Derwent and the charming Colonel Cartier to find a missing French aristocrat. Their enquiries take them to a country house in Yorkshire, that’s been converted to a hospital for wounded soldiers and was the last place the Frenchman visited. However, the more questions they ask, the more questions they have.

On a lonely cliff beside the vast blue sea there is a house. In the house there lives a girl, and in the girl there lives a dream. Soon she'll be as free as the fishes that swim beneath the water. But until then she bides her time and lives quietly, her every move ruled over by an uncaring, heartless stepmother. The hope for freedom is all she has to hold onto. So close she can almost taste it. But when her stepmother’s estranged younger brother comes to stay, he presents a mystery that lures her in.

Sometimes protecting those we love means working with those we hate. Seven years ago Sorcha saved the life of Lachlan, Crown Prince of the Seelie Court, and became the object of affection for the kelpie, Murdoch, who sought to best him and destroy the court from within. Five years ago she saved them both from the wrath of the Unseelie king by giving up half her life. Now it’s time to pay up. The last thing Sorcha wanted was an immortal life, but now she may not have a choice in the matter.

American author, scholar, and satirist H.L. Mencken wrote The American Language in 1919, intending to defend American speech from prescriptivist critics. "America itself is unutterably vulgar. But vulgarity, after all, means no more than a yielding to natural impulses in the face of conventional inhibitions, and that yielding to natural impulses is at the heart of all healthy language-making."

Pregnant and running for her life, Nora flees for the sanctuary known as Morala, an all-female asylum. Instead, she finds herself on Kilton, a sanctuary for criminals running from their sentencing. Now Nora must adapt to her new home, and do so quickly before her baby arrives, and deal with the ever-present reality that if she's found, her fate could be worse than what she ran away from.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this volume the Mad Scientist takes centre stage. Naturally the stories come in all shapes and sizes and in the pens of our classic authors the scientists more usually arrive as dark, twisted and evil as they go about their work illuminating humanity as only a mad scientist can.

When Scarlett Duke discovers the truth about her birthright, she’s whisked away to live with her grandmother in the dark depths of the woods. Desperately trying to reconnect with her estranged family, Scarlett soon finds herself increasingly drawn to the mysterious wandering merchant who saved her life two years prior. Adrian Wolfe is a merchant and con man with a dark secret. Cursed by Scarlett’s grandmother for one of his tricks, he’s determined to do whatever it takes to rid himself of the spell. And when he lays eyes on Scarlett, he knows he’s found his chance.

Nine hours and eleven minutes... That's how long it's been since Ella Hope was left for dead. She lies, unable to move and praying for somebody to find her, as she counts down the minutes and wonders who could have hated her so much to have hurt her so badly. Was it the man she went on a date with the previous evening, the man linked to the deaths of two other women? Or somebody else, somebody who wants her out of the picture so much they're willing to kill? Whoever it is, they will pay.

When Cassie Hunt learns that her beloved Aunt Aggie is dying, she rushes back home to be with her during her final days. For as long as Cassie can remember Aggie has spoken about the forgotten world that exists just below their feet, in the tunnels and catacombs of the mysterious Sand House. But on her deathbed, Aggie reveals a terrible secret that she’s buried as deep as the tunnels beneath the old house, and when excavation work begins on the site, Cassie is the only one who can help keep the truth hidden.

Dragon Prince Ewan has promised his beloved, Shannon, that he will become a man again or die in the attempt. Now he will do anything to make good on that promise. With the aid of his scholarly friend, Martin, Ewan consults the great Dragon Queen Harviss, who offers him a unique solution: return to the past to find Ewan's Fey ancestor and beg for her help. Leaving Shannon behind, Ewan and Martin travel to a dangerous past and fall into the clutches of a powerful Fey queen. Will Martin and Ewan ever find the cure they seek?

Chief Inspector John Shadow returns from a rare holiday to Italy but before he can unpack, he’s investigating the theft of an antique sabre. Everyone involved assumes it’s a prank, however later that evening, a reluctant Shadow attends the local pantomime—his least favorite form of entertainment—with his star struck sergeant. They watch stunned as Prince Charming dies on stage. Shadow suspects poison and launches an investigation. When he discovers the missing sabre backstage, Shadow realises the theft was no joke and the entire cast and crew are murder suspects.

This collection of essays by five notable Masonic scholars, discuses the single most important symbol that Freemasonry has. It covers the antiquity as well as the esoteric symbolism of our most valued vestiture and what is often overlooked by those outside of the fraternity: a simple, square, white, lambskin apron.

From its launch in 1920 until its demise in 1951, the magazine Black Mask published pulp crime fiction. The first hard-boiled detective stories appeared on its pages. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner and John D. MacDonald got their start in Black Mask. The urban crime stories that appeared in Black Mask helped to shape American culture. Modern computer games, films, and television are rooted in the fiction popularized by the magazine.

This Halloween, the notorious rivalry between York's iconic ghost walk tour guides spirals out of control when the body of one guide dressed as the infamous highwayman Dick Turpin is found hanging from a tree. A few days later, his partner, who plays Guy Fawkes, is killed by an explosion of gunpowder at their office. Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow is a man of contradictions. Although he would prefer to work alone, he is assisted by Sergeant Jimmy Chang. The two men investigate the murders that have York on edge. Are the murders the work of a madman or a business feud?

In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors… Have selected best new voices of the year.

He came back to me 16 minutes and 59 seconds into Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7. We parted amid tragedy, so it seemed poetic. Dylan O’Dea, my childhood sweetheart, once meant everything to me. Now we were strangers, and honestly, after 11 years I never thought I’d see him again. I lived in the world of the average, of getting paid by the hour and budgeting to make ends meet. But Dylan, he lived in the world of wealth and success. He’d achieved the great things I always suspected he would. The dissatisfaction he’d felt as a teenager had obviously been an excellent motivator.

God-fearing Rebecca Briar was raised to believe that her community, her parents, and her church know best. That if she follows the rules, one day she’ll be able to choose for herself. Yet after an irresistible stranger moves in next door, she begins to suspect that the rules she’s lived by weren’t there to keep her safe. They were there to control her. Hardened and lonely James Walton has five rules for a reason—he has promises to keep and ambitions to move to San Francisco to become a rockstar.

What do you do when winter never ends? Tempestuous, hedonistic Kilian Hale does not wish to be king. Only a curse cast by his father on his deathbed ties him to the throne until his elder brother, Gabriel, returns from war. Spurned for not possessing the blonde hair and blue eyes of the people of Alder, Elina Brodeur seeks to win their approval by requesting an audience with their cruel, lazy king. But Kilian is not interested in the town’s pleas for extra provisions to help them through the particularly harsh winter, and time and again turns Elina away.