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. 

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of...

A "Muslim" attack in Cape Town? Too far-fetched. It can't be true. So why is the Presidential Intelligence Agency so desperate to intercept a shipment? Why is the CIA bringing in its big guns? And why, if it's only a rumor, is it having such violent consequences - on the life of Milla Strachan, a former housewife who just wanted to live a little dangerously; Lemmer, a freelance bodyguard turned reluctant smuggler; and former cop Mat Joubert, who's working on his first case as a private eye?

Prepare to experience paradise... No author in history has more material in print than Charles Spurgeon. Today, more than a century after his death, countless people continue to have a passion for this London preacher, and more and more discover him every day. Some of Spurgeon’s most powerful sermons were those he preached on Heaven.

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

Peter Gardner, a white scientist from England, is exiled after performing dangerous experiments on patients. He flees with his beautiful young daughter, Virginia, to the Caribbean, where he raises her in isolation among few people - all natives. One of those natives is Carlos, a young boy of mixed race. Virginia and Carlos develop a forbidden friendship, which later blooms into a love that binds them above all cultural, racial, and paternal resistance. This is a touching love story and a haunting coming-of-age tale.

As Jon prepares for the inevitable battle with Rohaer, strategies must evolve in response to the enemy’s overwhelming advantage. But Rohaer is not Jon’s only concern. Political players among his allies may plan to use the upcoming strife as an opportunity to grab power for themselves. Jon must protect their king from an internal betrayal at the same time that they’re defending their land from an unrelenting force bent on conquest.

In this classic story, set in Victorian England, a well-born colt tells his life story, from his early years in a pleasant meadow to his experiences as an elegant carriage horse and then an overworked cab horse. As he passes from one owner to another, some gentle, some cruel, Black Beauty tells a moving tale of an animal's perspective on the human world.

Within the mysteries of the body, especially those who have been murdered, 18th-century anatomist Dr. Thomas Silkstone specializes in uncovering the telltale clues that lead toward justice. Newly released from the notorious asylum known as Bedlam, Lady Lydia Farrell finds herself in an equally terrifying position - as a murder suspect - when she stumbles upon the mutilated body of Sir Montagu Malthus in his study at Boughton Hall.

Secular humanism has triumphed. Everything the late Victorians and Edwardians believed would bring human happiness has been achieved: Technology has made it so no one needs to work for a living, the social sciences ensure a smooth-running social order, and, in the name of tolerance, religious beliefs have been uprooted and eliminated except for a single holdout - a largely discredited and rapidly shrinking Catholic Church. Yet people are unhappy.

A serious attack against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford in 1903 impelled Chesterton to seize the gauntlet of refutation. His reply was immensely successful and was the early formation of his convincing credo that is so brilliantly and cogently argued in Orthodoxy, a masterwork that was published just five years later.

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.

Two hundred years ago a loyalist family fled to England to escape the American War of Independence and seemingly vanished into thin air. American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to find out what happened, but it soon becomes apparent that a calculated killer is out to stop him.

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.

Ringil Eskiath, a reluctant hero viewed as a corrupt degenerate by the very people who demand his help, has traveled far in search of the Illwrack Changeling, a deathless human sorcerer-warrior raised by the bloodthirsty Aldrain, former rulers of the world. Separated from his companions - Egar the Dragonbane and Archeth - Ringil risks his soul to master a deadly magic that alone can challenge the might of the Changeling.

Christian Stern, an ambitious young scholar and alchemist, arrives in Prague in the bitter winter of 1599, intent on making his fortune at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, the eccentric Rudolf II. The night of his arrival, drunk and lost, Christian stumbles upon the body of a young woman in Golden Lane, an alley hard by Rudolf’s great castle. Dressed in a velvet gown, wearing a large gold medallion around her neck, the woman is clearly well-born—or was, for her throat has been slashed.

Mankind has failed to stop a growing rift for more than a decade. It will destroy all life on Aathon if nothing changes. But when Leo arrives with half of the human army, it seems that every leader is finally intent on stopping this growing rift together. What Leo will find out, however, is that some of these very powerful people don't see the rift as a problem. They intend to use it as an opportunity. 

The four books of Saint Augustine are a compilation of exegetical theology to guide the reader and listener in the understanding and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures, according to the analogy of the faith. The first three books were written A.D. 397 and the fourth was added A.D. 426.

Few authors can claim to have marked a genre so thoroughly and personally that their words have leaked into every aspect of modern pop culture. Clive Barker is such an author, and the Books of Blood marked his debut - his coming out to the world - in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. Crossroad Press is proud to present Clive Barker's Books of Blood in digital for the first time.

Threatened by an Elloryan invasion reinforced by the Ancients, the sanctuary Ember and Max sought in DormaSai after Kael’s burial is at its end. A civil war rages in Cethos, and the threat of Wildland tribal attacks in the Blood Kingoms is imminent. They can offer no help to their Southern neighbors, leaving DormaSai as all that stands in the Ancients’ way. When the peace conclave crumbles and the Ancients are forced from DormaSai by unexpected allies, Ember and Max turn their attention to preparing for the Ancients’ inevitable return.