Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

The Story of the Country House is an authoritative and vivid account of the British country house, exploring how they have evolved with the changing political and economic landscape. Clive Aslet reveals the captivating stories behind individual houses, their architects, and occupants and paints a vivid picture of the wider context in which the country house in Britain flourished and subsequently fell into decline before enjoying a renaissance in the 21st century.

It's Maya and Jamie's anniversary, and she waits with excitement for him to return home for a celebratory dinner. There's a knock at the door. It's the police. Jamie has been found hanging in a local wood. His death is ruled a suicide, but Maya doesn't believe Jamie would take his own life. Something isn't right. Someone has broken into her house. Someone is watching her. And someone has gone to great lengths to cover up what Jamie was doing before he died.

Someone is poisoning British soldiers in Cyprus; the same killer has murdered a British intelligence agent in Athens. James Bond himself barely escapes with his life.... But the secrets behind these and other deaths first start to come to light in Texas, where Bond goes in search of the assassin of M's friend and lover. Fearful of an international scandal that could engulf both his service and his country, he learns instead of the existence of the Decada.

As part of the d'Artagnan Romances following The Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, and devoted in large part to romantic events at the court of France's King Louis XIV, Louise de La Valliere is the second part of Alexandre Dumas's 268 chapter novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, which first appeared in serial form between 1847 and 1850.

The extraordinary life and career of music legend Rod Stewart, in his own words for the first time. With his soulful and singular voice, narrative songwriting, and passionate live performances Rod Stewart has paved one of the most iconic and successful music careers of all time.

The battle for Echo Hold begins, the Uyumaak throwing their might at the fortress. The birth of the Holy Child draws near, and the Chalaine and Padra Athan try to prop up the Ha'Ulrich's failing courage so he can face Mikkik when the time comes. Gen, still separated from the Chalaine, watches from a distance, fearing treachery, hoping he can save her from Mikkik and the incompetence of her cowardly husband.

The Blood Mirror is the action-packed new audiobook in the Lightbringer series by international best seller Brent Weeks. Stripped of both magical and political power, the people he once ruled told he's dead, and now imprisoned in his own magical dungeon, former emperor Gavin Guile has no prospect of escape. But the world faces a calamity greater than the Seven Satrapies has ever seen...and only he can save it.

With the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-chilling characters of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder's The Devil of Nanking, takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century's most brutal events: the Nanking Massacre.

The great pyramids of Giza have intrigued humanity for thousands of years. Questions about the construction and the purpose of these majestic monuments have existed since the middle period of ancient Egyptian civilization; in the sixth century B.C., Herodotus was the first of generations of explorers to travel to Egypt in an attempt to unlock their secrets. Recent cutting-edge research has uncovered information, unimaginable to previous generations, about how and why they were built.

When a British businessman and his family are killed in Japan by a virulent form of West Nile disease, James Bond suspects a mass assassination. Investigating with the help of beautiful Japanese agent Reiko Tamura and his old friend, Tiger Tanaka, Bond searches for the killers and the one surviving daughter, Mayumi.

When Michael Crawford discovers his bride brutally murdered in their wedding bed, he is forced to flee not only to prove his innocence but to avoid the deadly embrace of a vampire who has claimed him as her true bridegroom. Joining forces with Byron, Keats, and Shelley in a desperate journey that crisscrosses Europe, Crawford desperately seeks his freedom from this vengeful lover who haunts his dreams and will not rest until she destroys all that he cherishes.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first issues of Weird Tales Magazine, 100 Years of Weird is a masterful compendium of new and classic stories, flash fiction, essays, and poems from the giants of speculative fiction, including R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, and Isaac Asimov.

After two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, Troost was in no hurry to return to the South Pacific until he began to feel remarkably out of place in modern America. He knew it was time to set off again for parts unknown. Here he tells the story of his time on Vanuatu, a cluster of islands where he struggles against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes but finds himself swept up in the laid-back, clothing-optional lifestyle of the islanders.

Adams returns to the vivid and distinctive world he created in that enduring work, reacquainting listeners with the characters we know and love, including Fiver, Hazel, Bigwig, Dandelion and the legendary rabbit hero El-ahrairah. These compelling tales include all-new adventures, with the younger generation of rabbits eager to find out about the heroic age that existed before they were born.

Seventeen years ago, Criminal Inspector Ewert Grens was called to the scene of a brutal crime. A family had been murdered, and the only survivor - and witness - was the five-year-old daughter. The girl was placed in the witness protection program, and the case went cold, but years later, Grens is still haunted by the seemingly random slaying and the little girl who was spared. So when he learns that the apartment where the crime occurred is now the scene of a mysterious break-in, Grens immediately fears that someone is intent on silencing the only witness.

A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India. Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man, and a deluded American religious seeker. 

English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just fled the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell's poor health, are hungry for a new discovery.

But when a video is sent to the local newspaper showing the deceased man engaging in a compromising act with a minor, Atticus realizes that there's much more to this case than he initially thought. Is it blackmail? Suicide? Or murder? Two more bodies are found and two more videos are sent to the press. Atticus and his former colleague, detective chief inspector Mackenzie Jones, race against time to identify the culprit before he can strike again.

A sinister masterpiece, Our Mutual Friend was Dickens' last completed novel. It is perhaps his ultimate vision of a dark, macabre London and the corrupting power of money.

"Marley was dead to begin with...." These chillingly familiar words begin the classic Christmas tale of remorse and redemption in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Now R. William Bennett rewinds the story and focuses the spotlight on Scrooge’s miserly business partner, Jacob T. Marley, who was allowed to return as a ghost to warn Scrooge away from his ill-fated path. Why was Marley allowed to return? And why hadn’t he been given the same chance as Ebenezer Scrooge? Or had he?