Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Contemporary Fiction

Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime's experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking.

When Lord Petrefact hires Walden Yapp, Professor of Demotic Historiography at Kloone University, to write a scurrilous family history Yapp finds plenty of material in Buscott village, where Frederick Petrefact is running the Mill and adding new vices to the family collection. If Yapp can lay his hands on the Petrefact Papers in the Buscott Museum he may be able to expose the multi-national capitalism of the Petrefacts to the whole world.

Gossip From Thrush Green returns readers to that delightful English village, neighbour to Fairacre, for a golden summer. But this sleepy, pristine setting conceals a flurry of activity among the villagers. Rumour has it that Mr. Venables is considering retirement just as the village’s teacher is about to make an important decision. Molly Curdle prepares for a new baby. The kindly vicar, Charles Henstock, works on his sermon - quite unaware of the disaster that will overtake him.

Nestled in the heart of the Cotswolds, Thrush Green is normally a peaceful place. But as autumn turns to winter, feelings are running high in the village. Miss Fogerty, a respected teacher at the village school for over thirty years, is troubled by the methods of the new young teacher. Dotty Harmer takes up driving, much to the concern of others, and it isn’t long before she is involved in an accident and a threatening court case.

Brenda has had a long and eventful life and she has come to Whitby to run a B&B in search of some peace and quiet. She and her best friend Effie like nothing better than going out for tea and keeping their eyes open for any of the mysterious goings on in town. But the oddest thing in Whitby may well be Brenda herself. With her terrible scars, her strange lack of a surname or the fact that she takes two different shoe sizes, Brenda should have known that people as, well, unique as she is, just aren’t destined for a quiet life.

Late one summer evening, antiquarian bookseller Adam Snow is returning from a client visit when he takes a wrong turn. He stumbles across a derelict Edwardian house, and compelled by curiosity, approaches the door. Standing before the entrance, he feels the unmistakable sensation of a small cold hand creeping into his own, ‘as if a child had taken hold of it’. At first he is merely puzzled by the odd incident but then begins to suffer attacks of fear and panic, and is visited by nightmares.

Henry Tillotson, a generous, genial man, rescues Margaret from a disastrous marriage in Egypt and brings her home to the West Country as his new wife. On the threshold she gives him a black eye and retires straight to bed where she remains, apart from the occasional malevolent outburst, for the rest of her life.

Fay Langdon and Julia Morton might have met far earlier, since Fay was once a successful singer and Julia a famous diseuse. From the outset, theirs is a precarious friendship, both out of step with their times, allied by the disappointments that age brings.

Cuatro mujeres y una librería donde volver a empezar. Elsa, Lili, Sylvana y Gabriela coinciden a menudo en La Colombaia, una preciosa librería-café propiedad de la primera. Todas rondan la cincuentena y arrastran pérdidas, heridas y secretos. Cada una ha tocado fondo a su manera, pero entre libros, tartas y plumcakes descubrirán que nunca es tarde para reconstruirse.

>One king. A group of incorrigible women. Nine nights. The demon-king, Mahisha, rules Jambudvipa with an iron fist. He wears the horns of a buffalo and has the will of a bull. With allies far and wide, his kingdom—usurped from the Aryas—is prosperous. All seems aboveboard. But Jambudvipa's underbelly rots. Teeming with crime, sin, and greed, the city and its people are not what they seem. Most of all, Mahisha himself.

पढ़ाई-लिखाई पूरी करने के बाद अपने गाँव या शहर को छोड़कर नौकरी करने या फिर बिजनेस करने के लिए दूसरे शहरों में जाकर बस जाने की प्रक्रिया इंसान की जिंदगी में बहुत झंझावात लेकर आती है। इस प्रक्रिया में बिछड़े हुए लोग अगर प्रिय हों, प्रेमी हों या प्रेमिकाएँ हों, तो फिर जिंदगी बार कहती है कि रिटर्न टिकट लेकर लौट जाओ अपनी जड़ों की तरफ। लेकिन जिंदगी सबको लौट जाने का मौका नहीं देती।

एक उपन्यासकार का मस्तिष्क बहुत हाल के नहीं अपने पूर्वज उपन्यासकारों के पाठ और कथा-विवेक से बनता है। यहाँ एक सुविधा के लिए मान लीजिए कि अब तक हुए सुप्रतिष्ठित उपन्यासकारों के मार्ग विविध-विभिन्न सही, पर उनका केंद्रीय लक्ष्य एक ही रहा होगा—उपन्यास की अब तक प्रस्तुत-प्रचलित परिभाषाओं, कथाओं और संरचनाओं से बाहर चले जाना। इसमें

गृहयुद्ध में तबाह सीरिया वहाँ की स्त्रियों के लिए भयावह यातनाघर बन गया। चोटिल देह और आत्मा लिए भारतीय मूल की एक सीरियाई लड़की भारत आती है। यहाँ उसकी मुलाक़ात भारतीय सेना के उस ऑफ़िसर से होती है, जो आतंकवाद से लड़ने में अपना बहुत-कुछ गँवा चुका है।

Joey Cooley is a golden-curled child film star, the idol of American motherhood. Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot, is a boxing blue on a mission to save his wayward cousin from the fleshpots of Hollywood. Both are under anaesthetic at the dentists when something strange happens - and their identities are swapped. Suddenly Joey can use his six-foot frame to get his own back on his Hollywood persecutors. But Reggie has to endure everything Joey had to put up with in the horrible life of a child star - including kidnap.

It was a preference for cricket over schoolwork that united Mike and Psmith in their reluctance to attend their new school, Sedleigh. The school insists that its attendees be keen, but it is sorely unprepared for boys of such foresight and resources as Mike and Psmith who have decided to indulge in all manner of high-jinks and adventures.

Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire – but that doesn’t stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to ‘Biscuit’, Lord Biskerton, who doesn’t have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann – just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine.

For the whole of Rose's respectable married life, she had kept faith with two men. To Ned she was a perfect wife, mother of his son, and elegant hostess of Slepe. To Mylo, Rose was an impetuous and unconventional mistress, answering his erratic and impassionate calls throughout 50 years of tactful duplicity. After Ned's funeral Rose looks back on a life of dual constancy, passion, humour, and the ambiguities of love - and chooses her future.

The first charming Caxley tale introduces the deep-rooted camaraderie between Septimus Howard, a calm and controlled man, and Bender North, a confident, successful but gruff ironmonger. Their argumentative sides often clash, displaying moments of fury and forgiveness with wonderful tenderness. Theirs is a friendship that survives misunderstandings, the tragedy of war, and the bitterness of loss. The story of their families continues through the generations. Read by June Barrie.

A traveller on a train returning to London smells the burn of brakes as it hisses to a stop in the middle of the countryside. He sees a white-faced woman leap from the train and race to the aid of a sheep stranded on its back, unable to rise, in a field. Righting it, she turns, and he sees her face is full of tragedy. Considering tragedies of his own, he does not intrude, but the image lodges in his mind: a strange but familiar despair, unable, despite itself

The Group follows eight graduates from exclusive Vassar College as they find love and heartbreak, and choose careers and husbands against the backdrop of 1930s New York.