Showing results by narrator "Davina Porter" in All Categories

Ayleswick-on-Teme, 1813. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has come to this seemingly peaceful Shropshire village to honor a slain friend and on a quest to learn more about his own ancestry. But when the body of a lovely widow is found on the banks of the River Teme, a bottle of laudanum at her side, the village's inexperienced new magistrate turns to St. Cyr for help.

A bravura performance: a witty, moving, sexy book that bursts with as much color and excitement as the city of Constantinople itself." -Financial Times Roman historian Procopius publicly praised Theodora of Constantinople for her piety-while secretly detailing her salacious stage act and...

The prize-winning historian’s fresh look at the people and events that decided America’s struggle for independence. Its suspenseful climax is the 500-mile march undertaken by General Washington to surround Cornwallis at Yorktown.

In the latest mystery from the national best-selling author of When Falcons Fall, the gruesome murder of a young boy takes Sebastian St. Cyr from the gritty streets of London to the glittering pleasure haunts of the aristocracy....

Isabel's life is thrown for a few loops when her cousin Mimi arrives from Dallas with her husband Joe. Through Mimi and Joe, Isabel meets Texas hotshot Tom Bruce, who is about to marry someone Isabel suspects of gold-digging. Further complicating matters, Tom seems to have an unusual level of interest in Isabel. Meanwhile, Isabel has her own feelings to deal with, not to mention those of her beloved niece Cat, whose romantic interest may not be up to snuff.

From the start, St. Cyr's mission is sensitive: finding out who killed the bishop of London, a leading candidate for archbishop of Canterbury, in the crypt of the same country church where the mummified body of another murder victim was discovered only hours earlier. It becomes downright dangerous once the charismatic viscount unearths the surprising connection between the men as well as the many powerful enemies with motives for their murder - including his own father.

Rupert, the young Earl of Westerholme, returns home from the war - and Anna, a housemaid, falls hopelessly in love with him. But they can never be together - Rupert is engaged to the snobbish and awful Muriel. And anyway, Anna is only a servant. Or so everybody thinks.

In this delightful second installment in Alexander McCall Smith's best-selling new detective series, the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie, editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, gets caught up in an affair of the heart, this one a transplant.

Wexford is horrified by the carnage he encounters at Tancred Manor, home of a famous anthropologist, but he is determined to do all that he can for 17-year-old Daisy, the only survivor of the mass murders that obliterated her family.

The law of Eldearth claims that only a boy can be a wizard and Keeper of the Light. Princess Arnelle is determined to prove that the proclamation is foolish and embarks on the difficult quest required of a hopeful Apprentice Keeper. Does Nell have the courage and cunning to battle the forces of Evil and Ignorance alone? Jackie French Koller’s engaging writing whisks listeners into a world where witches and wizards, dragons and unicorns all blend together in a fantastic combination.

They were the most horrific crimes of a new century: the murders of newborn innocents for which two British women were hanged at Holloway Prison in 1903. Decades later, mystery writer Josephine Tey has decided to write a novel based on Amelia Sach and Annie Walters, the notorious “Finchley baby farmers,” unaware that her research will entangle her in the desperate hunt for a modern-day killer.

In her third outing as amateur sleuth, Elizabeth MacPherson has the chance to revel in the rites of the old country at the annual Glencoe Mountain Games. But the innocent ethnic fair is cursed when the loathed Colin Campbell is found murdered. When a second reveler is found dead, Elizabeth lays to hunt and untangles all....

One of the most determined, energetic, and lusty heroines in all of English literature, Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders will do anything to avoid poverty. Born in Newgate Prison, she was for 12 years a whore, five times a wife (once to her own brother), 12 years a thief, and eight years a transported felon in Virginia before finally escaping from the life of immorality and wickedness imposed on her by society. She is as much a survivor and just as resourceful as Defoe's other great literary creation, Robinson Crusoe.

Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little.

A little island town is the scene of a conflict between two men of God: the outgoing minister of the local church and his successor, each known as Jack. But Victoria Trumbull is concerned with a series of unexpected deaths, which turn out to be the result of anonymous food packages left on people's doorsteps. Elderly Victoria's get-up-and-go attitude, her courage, and her exhaustive knowledge of Martha's Vineyard and its people once again help her to discover the truth behind the mystery.

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?

Wexford is shopping for his wife’s birthday present when the body of a strangled woman is discovered nearby. Then his daughter is arrested for an anti-nuclear war demonstration, and a car bomb puts him in the hospital while a psychopathic killer is loose and bent on revenge.

The year is 1771. Claire Randall is still an outlander, out of place and out of time. But now she is linked by love to her only anchor - Jamie Fraser. They have crossed oceans and centuries to build a life together in North Carolina. But tensions, both ancient and recent, threaten members of their clan. Knowing that his wife has the gift of prophecy, James must believe Claire, though he would prefer not to. Claire has shared a dreadful truth - there will, without a doubt, be a war. 

Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned then neglected, young Gemma seemed destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands. But Gemma’s biggest trial is about to begin....

Popular biographer Carolly Erickson creates intimate and richly detailed portraits of her historical subjects. In this book she offers a provocative new perspective on Josephine and her fabled marriage to Napoleon.