Showing results by narrator "Alex Lee" in All Categories

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born at Yasnaya Polyana, his ancestral estate located about 120 miles from Moscow. While he would live and travel in other places over the years, he always considered this family residence in the Russian heartland as his home. His lifelong quest for truth and meaning began while he was a university student. In Simply Tolstoy, Professor Donna Tussing Orwin traces the author’s profound journey of discovery and explains how he mined his tumultuous inner life to create his great works.

Before Anne Boleyn stole the heart of a king and demanded marriage, another woman strove to wed an already-married King of England. This is the story of Elfrida, who would become the first crowned Queen of England.

1352. In Meonbridge, a resentful peasant rages against Eleanor Titherige’s efforts to build up her flock of sheep. Susanna Miller’s husband, grown melancholy and ill-tempered, succumbs to idle gossip that his wife’s a scold. Agnes Sawyer’s yearning to be a craftsman is met with scorn. And the village priest, fearful of what he considers women’s “unnatural” ambitions, is determined to keep them firmly in their place.

Rachel's plans to spend Christmas with her fiancé are in tatters after he is called to Italy at short notice. Rather than spend Christmas with her parents, Rachel decides to take a last-minute Canary Island cruise. Sarah, cruise ship nurse and Rachel's best friend, is only too pleased to have her along, as Sarah's parents are taking their first cruise. With her mother keen for her to settle down, she is glad of the moral support.

Daughter of the ambitious Earl of Warwick, Anne Neville is drawn into the ferocious war between Lancaster and York; a series of battles we now know as the Wars of the Roses. When Anne's father falls foul of Edward IV she is married without royal sanction to the Lancastrian heir, a man she has been taught to loathe.

It is 1356, seven years since the Black Death ravaged Meonbridge, turning society upside down. Margaret, Lady de Bohun, is horrified when her husband lies about their grandson Dickon’s entitlement to inherit Meonbridge. She knows that Richard lied for the very best of reasons–to safeguard his family and its future–but lying is a sin. Yet she has no option but to maintain her husband’s falsehood....

As a thank you for her previous brilliant crime solving, amateur sleuth, Martha Miller is guest of honour at the Winteringham Country Fair. However, this time she is looking forward to simply judging dog shows and eating cream teas rather than apprehending a killer! And Martha is just beginning to enjoy spending quality time with Vicar Luke Walker away from the prying eyes and gossips of her own village, when disaster strikes, and the local teenage femme fatale is found stabbed to death behind the tea tent by Martha’s trusted red setter Lizzie!

The Velveteen Daughter reveals for the first time the true story of two remarkable women: Margery Williams Bianco, the author of one of the most beloved children's books of all time, The Velveteen Rabbit, and her daughter Pamela, a world-renowned child prodigy artist whose fame at one time greatly eclipses her mother's. But celebrity at such an early age exacts a great toll. Pamela's dreams elude her as she struggles with severe depressions, an overbearing father, an obsessive love affair, and a spectacularly misguided marriage. Throughout, her life raft is her mother.

In Simply Eliot, Joseph Maddrey plumbs the emotional and intellectual life of the man whom critic Edmund Wilson called "one of our only authentic poets". He chronicles Eliot's attempts to create a coherent worldview, and explores how his religious conversion in 1927 led to a spiritual rebirth that allowed him to produce his ultimate poetic statement.

When Delaney is rescued by a handsome stranger, Drew seems to be her savior—until she wakes up in his house where he has her daughter and knows far too much about her. The strange sensations she experiences when he’s near might be a warning…maybe he’s the real danger. Fear and anger mix with passion and soon Delaney’s not sure what’s real. Drew doesn’t know how to tell Delaney that she’s his soulmate. He can’t just dump their past on her and expect her to believe him. Not when she doesn’t remember anything about him or the things she’s capable of—but they’re running out of time.

One woman knows he is a murderer, but nobody believes her. One woman has disappeared. One woman has never been so happy...until a visit from a stranger blows her life apart. Three women. One secret. Liz, Amber, and Sarah. After years of obsession, Liz is ready to move on. Until she discovers her ex has a new victim. Damaged and dangerous, she's determined he won't get away with it this time. Amber couldn't be happier. Life is finally falling into place. Married to a man she adores, she is looking forward to a bright future.

One night in Montreal, an ageless man hires a young female translator to help settle mysterious debts with an array of desperate characters.

What if everything we know about Jesus and Mary Magdalene are wrong? What if there's a story that goes deeper...a story that when revealed, could rock the Christian world? What will powerful factions do to get hold of this information? How will they use it? Near the Qumran Caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, archaeologists unearth scrolls supposedly written by the apostles Philip and Thomas. And they're telling a different story.

Each night, after dark, men flock to Bankside seeking girls of easy virtue, prostitutes known as the Winchester Geese. Joanie Toogood has worked the streets of Southwark since childhood, but her path is changed forever by an encounter with Francis Wareham, a spy for the King’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Meanwhile, across the river, at the glittering court of Henry VIII, Wareham also sets his cap at Evelyn and Isabella Bourne, members of the Queen’s household and the girls, along with Joanie, are drawn into intrigue and the shadow of the executioner’s blade.

Rachel's got a lot on her mind when she joins the luxurious Coral Queen for the Indian leg of its world voyage. She's delighted to meet up with newlyweds, Sarah and Jason, who have rejoined the ship to work, but something is troubling the two of them.

A long-buried secret has come to light in the village of Midbury, England. A secret of betrayal and murder. The past seems long dead, but it intrudes on the present of the vicar of St. James parish and his family. Beth Granger and her grandmother, the famous mystery writer Dame Joan, join forces with the vicar, Joseph Levi, inspector Janice Sidwell, and her sergeant, Davy Collins. Together they work to solve a very old murder and a very new one. The story begins in 1960 and moves on to the present.

Beth and Gran begin to read Grace Robinson Nesbitt's journal of the time just before World War II. It turns out the Grace was secretly a code-breaker at the famous Bletchley Park! Dame Joan is just now finding out that her own mother was a hero. Due to the Official Secrets Act, Grace was never able to divulge that she was a "Bletchley Girl"! It's Christmas in 1938 and the present. In the present day, Beth's growing relationship with the local vicar is relayed between the journal entries.

When Rachel Prince cruises. It's no honeymoon! Rachel's dream honeymoon is disrupted when Sarah's eccentric cousin is found dead. With wedding plans up and down, Rachel and Carlos have finally managed to tie the knot and head off on a Mediterranean cruise. Their honeymoon spirals out of control when murder interrupts marital bliss, and Carlos receives a mysterious phone call from an old flame.

Jessica Lockhart is in need of a live-in carer over the Christmas period; Isla Barrow is the woman who takes the job. After a fraught journey to reach her along remote country lanes, Isla arrives to find the old woman in distress, and the house strangely unnerving. With the weather hostile, no phone line or mobile signal, and her charge growing increasingly frail, Isla realizes death is waiting. And something else besides: vengeance.

Rachel Prince once again joins the Coral Queen for the holiday of a lifetime with her octogenarian friend Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe and her parents. One day into the voyage and a nun who is part of an exclusive religious party collapses. It's not long before the death is seen as suspicious. The chief of security, Jack Waverley, is flummoxed by the case and asks Rachel to assist. All is not what it seems with this religious order and the woman's dying words are a cause for concern.