Showing results by narrator "Saskia Maarleveld" in All Categories

In London in the mid-1920s, a young Australian and her aunt are each on a journey of self-discovery - one by attempting to swim the English Channel, the other to rediscover the woman she used to be. It's 1925, and 15-year-old Catherine Quick longs to feel once more the warm waters of her home, to strike out into the ocean off the Torres Strait Islands and swim, as she's done since she was a tiny child. But with her recent move to London, where she lives with her aunt Louisa, Catherine feels that everything she values has been stripped away.

Fresh off a breakup, Taylor Manning accepts a yearlong teaching position in Cougar Point, Montana, and plans to focus on herself, avoid men, and return home a changed woman. That’s before she meets Russ Palmer, a local rancher who’s as stubborn as he is handsome. With his old-fashioned attitudes about women, Russ is the last man Taylor could imagine dating, and the feeling seems to be mutual. So why can’t she seem to get him off her mind?

This collection of two short stories and assorted short pieces were published previously, and gathered here for the first time. "The Perils of Effrijim" is loaded with quirky characters, a fast-paced story, and an adorable demon who just wants to be with his beloved. In "Cat Got Your Tongue", Joy Randall thought her honeymoon with husband Raphael was going to fulfill all her expectations, but almost immediately they run into a decades-old curse, a spurned ghostly first wife, and a long-dead randy Scottish Laird.

Prague in the 1950s is a city of numerous small terrors, of political tyranny, corruption, and surveillance. There is no way of knowing whether one's neighbor is spying for the government, or what one's supposed friend will say under pressure to a state security agent. A loyal party member might be imprisoned or executed as quickly as a traitor; innocence means nothing for a person caught in a government trap.

Brooklyn, 1942. War rages overseas as brother and sister Will and Maggie Scripps contribute to the war effort stateside. Ambitious Will secretly scouts for the Manhattan Project while grief-stricken Maggie works at the Navy Yard, writing letters to her dead mother between shifts. But the siblings’ quiet lives change when they discover a beautiful woman hiding under their back stairs. 

Released from the captivity of the Fae, Murdoch Seton wants nothing more than to forget his lost years. Undertaking a quest to recover treasure stolen from his family seems the perfect solution - but Murdoch is not counting upon a curious maiden who holds both the secret to the theft and his sole redemption. Isabella is outraged to find her brother's keep besieged by a renegade knight - especially one who is too handsome for his own good or hers.

Matthew, Claire, Ian, and Mason haven’t set foot on the Merle family property since the summer they were sixteen. They tried for years to put their history behind them, to forget the mystery of the girl who vanished so long ago. But a powerful force from their past is still at play. This time, there’s no hiding from it.

American Alexandra Freemar isn't about to put up with any flak from the uptight - albeit gorgeous - Scotland Yard inspector who accuses her of breaking and entering. She doesn't have time. She has two months in London to write the perfect romance novel - two months to prove that she can succeed as an author. Luckily, reserved Englishmen are not her cup of tea. Yet....

Cora Dove and her sisters’ questionable legitimacy has been the lifelong subject of New York’s gossipmongers and a continual stain on their father’s reputation. So when the girls each receive a generous, guilt-induced dowry from their dying grandmother, the sly Mr. Hathaway vows to release their funds only if Cora and her sisters can procure suitable husbands—far from New York. For Cora, England is a fresh start. She has no delusions of love, but a husband who will respect her independence? That’s an earl worth fighting for.

In 1949, Lloyd Wilkinson Petrie has returned as a trustee to live in the long-defunct boarding school that he had attended as a child. There he is preparing a memoir. He writes, with faltering recall, of the subtle anti-Semitism that pervaded the school's ethos and of his fascination with the Egyptian archaeological adventures of his distant cousin, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie. Memories return, too, of the passions of a boyhood friendship with named Ben-Zion Elefantin, a mystifying older pupil who claims descent from Egypt's Elephantine Island.

On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling. Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. An Athens native and the daughter of a UGA professor, she knows all its shameful histories, from the skull discovered under the foundations of Baldwin Hall to the hushed-up murder-suicide in Waddel.

World War II London: When Victoire “Paddy” Bennett first walks into the Admiralty’s Room 39, home to the Intelligence Division, all the bright and lively young woman expects is a secretarial position to the charismatic Commander Ian Fleming. But soon her job is so much more, and when Fleming proposes a daring plot to deceive the Germans about Allied invasion plans he requests the newlywed Paddy's help. She jumps at the chance to work as an agent in the field, even after the operation begins to affect her marriage. But could doing her duty for King and country come at too great a cost?

A people pleaser through and through, Christy Manning takes off work to drive from Seattle to Cougar Point, Montana, for the birth of her sister’s first child. But when the blessed event arrives early, her brother-in-law is M.I.A. and her sister refuses to leave without him. Things are looking hopeless, until Christy calls Sheriff Cody Franklin. Even before he saves the day, sparks are flying between them. There’s just one problem: She’s reluctantly accepted a proposal from another man.

Lady Eleanor knows better than to dream of romance and love. Married twice to secure her father's alliances, she has learned that she is desirable only for her fortune. When the laird of Kinfairlie's sisters ask her to wed their brother, Alexander, Eleanor agrees, expecting only to save herself from danger. Alexander is like no man she's known before. He is a man more interested in courting her smile than her obedience. He is a man who values her counsel as much as her newly awakened passion.

Douglas Island sits off the coast of New York State, its imposing cliffs warning away visitors. Still, Finn Douglas has big plans for his inheritance and the rambling manor house that dominates the landscape. He has a vision to turn the island into a resort getaway for overworked city dwellers. But when the broken body of his business partner is found at the base of the rocky escarpment, he fears it wasn’t an accident. 

Someone is murdering beautiful young women in the New York area and displaying them in mausoleums and underground tombs. The FBI is handling the case, with Special Agent Craig Frasier as lead. Kieran Finnegan, forensic psychologist and part owner of Finnegan's, her family's pub, is consulting on the case. Craig and Kieran are a couple who've worked together on more than one occasion. On this occasion, though, Craig fears for the safety of the woman he loves.

Her name is Inanna. Spoiled granddaughter of King Anu of the planet Arra, she is more obsessed with being a queen on Earth than in saving Arra from a disaster set in motion by her malicious father, Morgoth. The feud between the Arkonian Morgoth and his Arran half-brother Ea, a deadly struggle for Anu's throne that began on Arra, continues after they arrive on Earth.

Meet the Godmothers: Filomena is a clever and resourceful war refugee with a childhood secret, who comes to America to wed Mario, the family's favored son. Amie, a beautiful and dreamy French girl from upstate New York, escapes an abusive husband after falling in love with Johnny, the oldest of the brothers. Lucy, a tough-as-nails Irish nurse, ran away from a strict girls' home and marries Frankie, the sensuous middle son. And the glamorous Petrina, the family's only daughter, graduates with honors from Barnard College despite a past trauma that nearly caused a family scandal.

Ancora's survival came at a great cost, and the reconstruction is an endless task for those who remain. Jacob and Alice explore what's left of the Lowlands, discovering the lost journals of Charles von Atlier in the rubble. Between those leatherbound covers, Jacob finds a secret that could help him rebuild Ancora, but first it will lead him back to the desert city of Midstream. 

Being an undercover poison taster for the rich and famous might sound glamorous, but for Isobel Avery it means stomaching bad clients and even worse coffee. The one side of the job that lives up to expectations is the money. Which is just as well for Izzy, since she needs an awful lot of it. Who knew when she made a lifelong commitment to a man that it would be one year living with him and the rest of her life paying for it?