Showing results by narrator "Henrietta Meire" in All Categories

Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) cultures - European, post-Independence Indian, and American - is never more acute.

Emma Temple sits looking out of the window in her beautiful apartment in the heart of London, surrounded by memories of her younger years as one of England’s most influential artists. Nearly 90, it would be easy to overlook her as a forgetful older lady. But Emma’s past, including her great love affair which survived two world wars, is about to come crashing into the present.

When Emma Reed moved to the Cornish village of Trevena, she was looking forward to making new friends, opening up a small tea shop, and taking plenty of brisk walks with her talking dog, Oliver. But when a valuable motorcycle and an old skeleton are found together under the local pub, Emma's antique dealing friends David and Charles become prime suspects in a forty year old mystery. The local gossip is soon flowing faster than tea in Emma's shop, and old secrets are being unearthed right along with the old bones.

When Gina Temple decides to go Christmas shopping for her girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Kate Brannon, in the Norfolk town of King's Lynn, it seems like an easy enough task. If only life were that simple. A split-second event, months in the planning, tips their safe world upside down.

In a sparkling debut in the entertaining pop science vein of Mary Roach, scientist Emma Byrne examines the latest research to show how swearing can be good for you. She reveals how swearing has been around since the earliest humans began to communicate, and has been shown to reduce physical pain, to lower anxiety, to prevent physical violence, to help trauma victims recover language, and to promote human cooperation.

In this fractured world, a sinister force is coming for Riley, and the only things keeping her safe are a perimeter fence and the people she loves. As her life is threatened, she must make impossible choices. But help comes from the most unlikely of places, and all Riley needs to know is: Who can she really trust? Meanwhile, a repentant killer searches for peace and salvation, but what he gets is the exact opposite. Now, he'll have to make the hardest decision of his life.

At the age of 19, Lara Prior-Palmer discovered a website devoted to "the world's longest, toughest horse race" - an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of 25 wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, and many fail to finish. Rough Magic captures the extraordinary story of one young woman who forged ahead, against all odds, to become the first female winner of this breathtaking race.

December 5th, 2013 left its mark on the North Norfolk Coast in more ways than one. A tidal surge and storm swept millennia-old cliff faces into the sea and flooded homes and businesses up and down the coast. It also buried a secret in the WWII bunker hiding under the golf course at Brancaster. A secret kept for years, until it falls squarely into the lap of Detective Sergeant Kate Brannon and her fellow officers. A skeleton, deep inside the bunker. How did it get there? Who was he...or she?

Fantasy icon Jane Yolen is adored by generations of readers and listeners of all ages. Now she triumphantly returns with this inspired gathering of fractured fairy tales and legends. Yolen breaks open the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets: a philosophical bridge that misses its troll, a spinner of straw as a falsely accused moneylender, the villainous wolf adjusting poorly to retirement. Each of these offerings features a new author note and original poem, illuminating tales that are old, new, and brilliantly refined.

Ever since she was 10 years old, Rosalie Wright's eyes have been on the skies. But at the age of 18, on the verge of earning her pilot's license, the English farmer's daughter watches her dreams of becoming an aviatrix fly away without her. Britain's entry into World War II brings civilian aviation to a standstill. Then, Rosalie's father dies, leaving her, her mother, and her brothers to run the farm. Everything changes when she learns that the Air Transport Authority is recruiting women pilots to ferry warplanes across Britain to RAF bases.

Zoe knows that it wasn't really her fault. Of course it wasn't. But if she'd just grasped harder, run faster, lunged quicker, she might have saved him. And Edward doesn't really blame her, though his bitter words at the time still haunt her, and he can no more take them back than she can halt the car that killed their son. Two years on, every day is a tragedy. Edward knows they should take healing steps together, but he's tired of being shut out. For Zoe, it just seems easier to let grief lead the way.

Following the hypnosis of a violently disturbed psychiatric patient, Ruby Dean, an unholy dark force was unleashed on the medical staff who tried to help her. Now only one of the original team remains - Ward Sister, Becky. Despite her fiancé, D.I. Ross, being unconscious and many of her colleagues either dead or critically ill, Becky is determined to rescue Ruby's 12-year-old daughter from a similar fate to that of her mother.

Aspiring actress and part-time private investigator Fran Varady knew there would be maximum disruption when her friend Ganesh decided to modernize his uncle's newsagents, starting with the washroom. But she isn't prepared for the nightmare that begins when an agitated passerby asks to use it: Hours later, he's found stabbed to death, leaving a message for Fran to meet him, and a mysterious roll of film hidden behind the old pipes....

Max and Alissa have a fairy tale life - newlywed, madly in love and enviously rich. Then Max is brutally stabbed to death at their home and Alissa, miraculously, escapes with her life. But why was she spared? The hunt for the killer begins, uncovering a number of leads - was Max's incredible wealth the motive? Had his shady business practices finally caught up with him? Or was it a stalker with a dangerous obsession?

Despite 21st-century fears of an "epidemic" of loneliness, its history has been sorely neglected. A Biography of Loneliness offers a radically new interpretation of loneliness as an emotional language and experience. Using letters and diaries, philosophical tracts, political discussions, and medical literature from the 18th century to the present, historian of the emotions Fay Bound Alberti argues that loneliness is not a historical, universal phenomenon. It is, in fact, a modern emotion: before 1800, its language did not exist.

This fast-paced paranormal adventure combines passion and drama with a historical twist. The lives of Madison and Alexandre are plunged into darkness and danger. To save Maddy, Alexandre is forced back to a world he thought was dead and buried. But time is running out. The chase is on.

On a routine flight from Africa to England, Dr. Mason Palmer is tragically killed when the light aircraft he's traveling on crashes and disappears in dense bushland. Ten months later, Nicole Palmer is still trying to block out the grief of her husband's sudden death. Until one morning she receives a photo of Mason through the post, along with a cryptic message. A message only he could've written.

In the dead of night, four teenagers taking a shortcut through an archaeological dig site find a woman’s lifeless body in a muddy trench, her hands and neck locked in a medieval device known as a Shrew’s Fiddle. It doesn’t take long to see that these are no ancient remains: the woman was killed just hours earlier.

In the English countryside—decimated by heat and drought—Penelope archives what remains of an estate's once notable collection. As she catalogues the library's contents, she keeps a diary of her final months in the dilapidated country house that has been her home for two decades and a refuge for those who have been displaced by disasters. Out of necessity, Penelope and her partner, Aidan, have sold the house and its scheduled demolition marks the pressing deadline for completing the archive. But with it also comes the impending return of Aidan's brother, Julian.

In the ravaged future, children are disappearing. Riley lives safely behind her perimeter fence, but soon she'll have to confront the terrible truth of what's happening outside. An old enemy is approaching. Threatening to extinguish her way of life. To save herself, Riley must fight to save another. She must put herself in the last place she ever wanted to be.