Showing results by narrator "Mary Wells" in All Categories

When computer game designer Traci Campbell gets too close and personal with a bottle of Glenfiddich while vacationing in Scotland, she whisks her kilt-obsessed sister back to 1689 to prove hot guys in kilts are a myth. Hello, hundred bucks! But all bets are off when she meets Iain, the charming playboy in a to-die-for kilt.

"Dark Hero" by Hannah Howell. Unlike most of his clan, Berawald MacNachton chooses to live in comfortable seclusion, far from the enemies who hunt his kind - until Evanna Massey and her young brother intrude upon his solitude…"Bride of the Beast" by Adrienne Basso. When Haydn of Gwynedd first met Bethan of Lampeter, she was a brave and fearless young girl, risking her life to save his..."Kiss of the Vampire" by Eve Silver. Devoted to her work at King's College Hospital, Sarah Lowell is shocked to discover that someone - or something - is killing the weakest patients, draining them of their blood.

Pretty and pampered, Lavinia Yardley always dreamed of becoming a duchess. But family disgrace forces her into marriage with the most vile duke in England, and she finds herself desperate for a way out. When a rustic stranger mistakes her for globe-trotting botanist Muriel Pendrake at a train station, Lavinia has a split second to decide whether to submit to her fate or steal someone else's.

Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants portrayed in Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, Margaret Powell’s classic memoir of her time in service, Below Stairs, is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high. Powell first arrived at the servants' entrance of one of those great houses in the 1920s. As a kitchen maid - the lowest of the low - she entered an entirely new world; one of stoves to be blacked, vegetables to be scrubbed, mistresses to be appeased, and bootlaces to be ironed.

Some wallflowers bloom at night...Violet is a quiet girl. She speaks six languages, but seldom raises her voice. The gentlemen aren’t beating down her door. Until the night of the Spindle Cove Christmas ball, when a mysterious stranger crashes into the ballroom and collapses at Violet’s feet. He’s wet, chilled, bleeding, and speaking in an unfamiliar tongue. Only Violet understands him. And she knows he’s not what he seems. She has one night to draw forth the secrets of this dangerously handsome rogue. Is he a smuggler? A fugitive? An enemy spy?

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict - but how? - and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war, he also faces personal battles back home, where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father's newspaper business. Through their letters Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears - and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

Sarah Gilchrist has fled London and a troubled past to join the University of Edinburgh's medical school in 1892, the first year it admits women. She is determined to become a doctor despite the misgivings of her family and society, but Sarah quickly finds plenty of barriers at school itself: professors who refuse to teach their new pupils, male students determined to force out their female counterparts, and - perhaps worst of all - her female peers who will do anything to avoid being associated with a fallen woman.

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late. When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

Domestic harmony is once again disrupted at the villa, this time by one of the Duke’s ex-lovers—the Comtesse Duras-Valfons, claiming Roxton is the father of her infant son, which is supported by the Salvan ancient aunts.

London, 1813. With his reputation and inheritance on the line, Lord Percy is determined to win the heart of the coveted diamond of the season. When that beautiful woman vanishes, his failure seems all but certain. Unless, that is, he can find her. Lady Grace is devastated when her best friend disappears. Society may be willing to believe the worst, but Grace knows her friend would never run off without leaving her a clue. Someone kidnapped her—but who?

In a town in the south of France in the 1960s, a dazzling encounter with Love itself changes the life of infant orphan Marie-Jeanne forever. As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes that she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her—tiny glowing lights on the faces and hands that shimmer more brightly when the one meant for them is near. Before long, Marie-Jeanne is playing matchmaker, bringing true loves together in her village. As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne helps her foster father begin a mobile library that travels throughout the many small mountain towns in the region of Nyons.

1815, London. Arabella Latham is a free spirit who longs to feel the spark of true love, but few men can match her passion for Shakespeare or her zest for life. Though her prospects seem slim, Arabella knows she can always count on the handsome but stoic Lord Henry Northcott, dubbed “The Brooding Baron” by the ton, to be willing to engage in intelligent conversation and even share a congenial dance with her at almost every ball. His quiet demeanor is the opposite of her vivacious personality, and she finds herself drawn to him, despite their differences.

Two eccentric orphans bring together a grumpy viscount and the free-spirited heroine who steals his heart in the first novel in Eloisa James’s new Accidental Brides series, in which haughty aristocrats find themselves married to the wrong women.

In New York Times best-selling author Cathy Maxwell's new novella, beautiful Jennifer Tarleton has no lack of noble suitors, but the only man who captures her attention is the one her father will never let her marry: Fyclan Morris. He's a brash adventurer, witty, courageous...and Irish! Even worse, her father blames her for their reversal of fortune. And it's a fortune - or, rather, his grandmother the fortune-teller - who foretold that Fyclan would meet "the one", a love prophesied in the stars.

Nimona Weston’s debts are paid. Her contract with the dark society known as the Trust is broken. But the magical ties that bind her to a long-ago bargain are rooted deep. She’s thrust back into the life she’d been forced from as a girl and now her every move is under the watchful eye of the king. A king who wants her dead. But fate has plans of its own and Nim is helpless to stop them, even as the future of the kingdom is placed in her hands.

Catherine feels trapped. Her father is determined to marry her off to a rich man—any rich man, no matter how awful. But by wit, trickery, and luck, Catherine manages to send several would-be husbands packing. Then a shaggy-bearded suitor from the north comes to call—by far the oldest, ugliest, most revolting suitor of them all. Unfortunately, he is also the richest.

When it was discovered in 1922, in an Egypt newly independent of the British Empire, the 3,300-year-old tomb of Tutankhamun sent shockwaves around the world. The boy-king became a household name overnight and kick-started an international obsession that continues to this day. From pop culture and politics to tourism and the heritage industry, it’s impossible to imagine the past century without the discovery of Tutankhamun – yet so much of the story remains untold.

When the Duke of Ashbury returns from war scarred, he realises he needs an heir - which means he needs a wife! When Emma Gladstone, a vicar's daughter turned seamstress visits wearing a wedding dress, he decides on the spot that she'll do. His terms are simple: They will be husband and wife by night only. No lights, no kissing. No questions about his battle scars. Last, and most importantly...Once she's pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again. But Emma is no pushover. She has secrets and some rules of her own....

Edmund Winters' life has been laid out for him by his ambitious father: he had to do whatever it takes to get away from his trade-bound roots and prove himself every inch a gentleman. If that requires marrying the haughty daughter of a local grandee, a loveless match is a small price to pay for acceptance by the ton. His youthful rebellion long forgotten, he is now planning to carry his late father's plans out. However, these are thrown into disarray when the living, breathing, and captivatingly beautiful reminder of that youthful rebellion arrives in Morwood Hall.

Lavinia Dudley, a young novelist catapulted into fame, has been offered a great honor—to attend Queen Charlotte. However, her new duties and the sharp-toothed social circuit drain her. Moreover, she is now at the mercy of haughty ladies who will never let her forget she is merely a music teacher's daughter.