Showing results by narrator "Fiona Hardingham" in All Categories

She was born a princess. They made her an assassin. One was an accident. Two a coincidence. By three, they would know. It would be harder, but I would avenge my mother’s death. These kings would pay that price. Seven cities make up the Storm Queen’s Realm, each of their self-crowned, murderous kings are one of Princess Myrina’s marks. The treasonous curs may have banded together to share a stolen throne, but soon they will fall. They thought her dead, killed in the massacre. They thought their rule secure, but Myrina of Stormskeep has awoken.

You may think you know the story. Penniless orphan Jane Eyre begins a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester - and, listener, she marries him. Or does she? Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions in this standalone follow-up to My Lady Jane, which was called “an utter delight” (ALA Booklist, starred review), and “an uproarious historical fantasy that’s not to be missed” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

For generations, the noble polar bears have ruled the Northern Kingdoms. But now, their society is on the brink of collapse. A group of power-hungry bears has seized control, and darkness is creeping across the snow. Cubs First and Second don't know any of this. Although they're twins, they couldn't be more different. First loves imagining stories, while his adventurous sister, Jytte, wants to live them. When their mother is taken prisoner, the cubs' world falls apart. They know they have to rescue her, but how can two cubs who've barely learned to hunt survive a treacherous journey across the ice?

Katie Brenner has the perfect life: a flat in London, a glamorous job, and a supercool Instagram feed. Okay, so the truth is that she rents a tiny room with no space for a wardrobe, she has a hideous commute to a lowly admin job, and the life she shares on Instagram isn't really hers. But one day her dreams are bound to come true, aren't they? Until her not-so-perfect life comes crashing down when her megasuccessful boss, Demeter, gives her the sack. All Katie's hopes are shattered.

A train carrying exiled German prisoners from a labor camp arrives in southern France. Within moments, word spreads that Nazi capture is imminent, and the men flee for the woods, desperate to disappear across the Spanish border. One stays behind, determined to ride the train until he reaches home, to find a woman he refers to simply as “her.”

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a strange book hidden in the library stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to a subterranean library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.

It is the summer of 1929. Lou Trevelyan is a small-town girl with big dreams of becoming a writer. Then she meets the Cardew siblings: the bubbly Caitlin and her handsome, enigmatic brother, Robert. Lou is swept into their glittering whirlwind of moonlit parties, unrivaled glamour, and whispered secrets. As she falls deeper into the world of high society, Lou must find a way to stay true to herself...and her heart.

Three little girls set off to school one sunny May morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead. Fifteen years later, Kitty lives in an institution. She can't speak and has no memory of the accident that put her there, or her life before it. Nearby, Alison, a local artisan, struggles to make ends meet and to forget her past. When a job opens up in a prison as an art teacher, she takes it. Soon, though, she starts to receive alarming notes - followed by a frightening prisoner-on-prisoner assault while her back is turned.

Ember St. George is a dragon. At least she was before her adoptive father - a powerful but accident-prone magician - turned her into a human girl to save her life. Unfortunately, Ember’s growing tendency to burst into flames at certain temperatures - not to mention her invisible wings - is making it too dangerous for her to stay in London. The solution: ship Ember off to her aunt’s research station in frigid Antarctica. Though eccentric Aunt Myra takes getting used to, Ember quickly feels at home in a land of ice storms, mischievous penguins, and 24-hour nights.

Thirty-year-old Celeste Hamilton's life is at a crossroads: she has just left a disastrous marriage, and her estranged mother has recently died, leaving the family's rose business in jeopardy. Reluctantly, Celeste returns to the family home, a moated manor house in Suffolk, to help her two younger sisters sort out the estate and revive the business.

Someone's been sending Gemma compromising photos. Photos she doesn't remember posing for. She can't recall much about that night during a work conference - she'd written off her headache the next morning as the result of too much drinking at the hotel bar. But then increasingly disturbing photos start appearing in her email, along with bills and other items she can't account for. As the blackmailer grows bolder and events start to escalate beyond her control, Gemma fears for her already shaky marriage and worries that the truth of what really happened that night must be more twisted than she imagines.

From the celebrated author of Swimming at Night comes a powerful and moving saga of one woman's struggle to overcome her husband's death and uncover his dark, mysterious past. Eva has only been married for eight months when her husband, Jackson, is swept to his death while fishing. Weighed down by confusion and sorrow, Eva decides to take leave of her midwifery practice in London and visit Jackson's estranged family in Tasmania with the hope of grieving together.

Cubs Stellan and Jytte survived their treacherous trek across the Nunquivik, but their quest to rescue their mother has only begun. Svenna is imprisoned at the sinister Ice Clock - the headquarters of the Grand Patek whose dangerous influence is spreading throughout the bear kingdom. Only one bear has ever stood up to the Grand Patek - Svern, the cubs' father, a famous warrior who's been in exile for years. And so, along with their friend Third, the cubs set out to find Svern in the legendary Den of Forever Frost - a place some bears claim never existed at all.

It’s spring, and Headmistress Dowling is organizing an orientation day for the students coming to Alfea next year. Stella volunteers to head the committee to welcome the new students, and she insists that her boyfriend, Sky, help out. But Sky is preoccupied with the bad behavior of his moody roommate, Riven. Incoming students Aisha, Musa, and Terra are nervous about orientation day. Aisha is eager to prove that she can hold her own among the magical talents at Alfea.

Rina Veraiin has youth, beauty, and strength. She is a born warrior, able to outride any man, deal death with her fierce blade, and command awesome and mysterious forces granted to her by a set of magical tattoos. Now as the newly minted duchess of Klaar, Rina confronts a menace that threatens her world in a divine conflict that will push her newfound abilities to their limits.

At 17, Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, was expected to do nothing more than pour an elegant cup of tea, sew a fine seam, and catch a rich husband. Unfortunately, Claire's talents lie not in the ballroom, but in the chemistry lab, where things have a regrettable habit of blowing up. When her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses, Claire finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. It's not long before a new leader rises in the underworld, known only as the Lady of Devices...

Julianne Westcott was living the kind of life that other Protestant girls in prewar Liverpool could only dream about: old money, silk ball gowns, and prominent young men lining up to escort her. But when she learns of a blind-and-deaf brother, institutionalized since birth, the illusion of her perfect life and family shatters around her.

Lottie just knows that her boyfriend is going to propose during lunch at one of London’s fanciest restaurants. But when his big question involves a trip abroad, not a trip down the aisle, she’s completely crushed. So when Ben, an old flame, calls her out of the blue and reminds Lottie of their pact to get married if they were both still single at 30, she jumps at the chance. No formal dates - just a quick march to the altar and a honeymoon on Ikonos, the sun-drenched Greek island where they first met years ago. Their family and friends are horrified. Fliss, Lottie’s older sister, knows that Lottie can be impulsive - but surely this is her worst decision yet.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality.

Ashlee Parker is dead, and Emily Shepherd's dad is accused of the crime. A former soldier suffering from PTSD, he emerges from the woods carrying the girl's broken body. "Gone," he says, then retreats into silence. What really happened that wild night? Emily knows in her bones that her father is innocent - isn't he? Before he's convicted, she's got to uncover the truth. Does Damon Hilary, Ashlee's charismatic boyfriend, have the answers? Or is he only playing games with her...the kinds of games that can kill?