Renaissance Fiction

This audiobook compiles Ralph Waldo Emerson's most important works: "The American Scholar", "The Divinity School Address", "Self-Reliance", "The Over-Soul", "The Poet", and "Thoreau". The audiobook is expertly read by Daniel Adam Day. Published by American Renaissance Books.

Phantasiereise ins England des 16. Jahrhunderts: Rebecca Gablé zählt zu den bekanntesten Autorinnen für historische Geschichten. Mit "Der dunkle Thron" knüpft sie an ihre erfolgreiche Waringham-Trilogie an. Detlef Bierstedt erzählt die Geschichte der Familie Waringham in diesem Hörbuch spannend weiter.

Sélection d'Essais de Jean-Yves Tadié. Montaigne se lance dans la rédaction des "Essais" avec un objectif : se connaître soi-même. Philosophie, nature, justice, lecture, histoire... Les réflexions qui nourrissent l'œuvre de cet humaniste curieux et érudit sont le résultat d'une vaste introspection. Le génie de Montaigne est de donner à cette découverte du moi une portée universelle. Le plaisir de lecture qu'offrent les "Essais" ne serait rien sans la saveur d'une langue si singulière. L'ancien français - parfois difficile d'accès - a été ici "rajeuni".

Angelic Essie Belle Johnson and devilish Laura Reed both agree that they need to do something to spice up their lives and earn more money. So, they start their own church on the street in front of their Harlem apartment. With Laura's gift for performing and Essie's melodious voice, the two quickly become a hit and must move their services into a renovated theater. But as their congregation grows, a host of misfits enter the scene - some honest, but others who just want a piece of the pie.

Beatrice is the convent's librarian. For years, she has shunned the company of her sisters, finding solace only with her manuscripts. Then, one carnival night, two women, bleeding and stricken, are abandoned outside the convent's walls. Moments from death, one of them presses something into Beatrice's hands: a bewitching book whose pages have a dangerous life of their own.

Eldest daughter of the royal House of York, Elizabeth dreams of a crown to call her own. But when her beloved father, King Edward, dies suddenly, her destiny is rewritten. Her family's enemies close in. Two young princes are murdered in the Tower. Then her uncle seizes power—and vows to make Elizabeth his queen. But another claimant seeks the throne, the upstart son of the rival royal House of Lancaster. Marriage to this Henry Tudor would unite the white rose of York and the red of Lancaster—and change everything.

In 1660, Amsterdam is the trading and map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is one of the colorists paid to enhance black-and-white maps for a growing number of collectors. Her artistic talent brings her to the attention of the Blaeu printing house, and she begins to color for a rich merchant, Willem de Groot. But Anneke is not content to simply embellish the work of others; she longs to create maps of her own. Cartography, however, is the domain of men - so it is in secret that she borrows the notes her father made on a trip to Africa in 1642 and sets about designing a new map.

JAPON. 1600. John Blackthorne rêvait d’y accoster. Il n’imaginait pas que, pour y parvenir, il aurait à braver une tempête. Craché par l’océan, l’équipage du pilote anglais touche enfin terre. Mais les marins regrettent bien vite leur découverte, car ils sont maintenant prisonniers de samouraïs aux mœurs très différentes des leurs. Amené devant Toranaga et Ishido, deux daimyō rivaux dont l’ambition secrète est de devenir Shōgun, Blackthorne fera tout pour recouvrer sa liberté. Mais il faudra bien des sacrifices pour survivre sur cette "Terre des Larmes", où la mort est une fatalité.

Secrets deepen, alliances shift—and love is no longer the only risk. As Lady Abigall’s secret romance with Prince Everald grows more serious, she dares to introduce him to the one person she trusts most: her loyal friend and maid, Mairi. But in the shadows, Alisa—driven by ambition and unrelenting desire—schemes to use their forbidden love for her own gain. When Abigall falls unexpectedly ill, a shocking revelation threatens to shatter the fragile world she’s built. As she struggles to hold her secrets together, Mairi finds herself caught up in a budding romance of her own—one ...

A riveting love story with a captivating mystery at its heart, Mistress of the Sun resurrects a fascinating female figure from the shadows of history, and illuminates both the power of true and perfect love and the rash actions we take to capture and tame it.

The Agents of the Crown - the “rollicking new historical thriller” (The New York Times Book Review) series - returns with this riveting novel following the original MI6 agent as he is assigned a dangerous mission to recreate a weapon from antiquity.

What could go wrong when two strangers pair up to look after their friends' dog? "A charming story that dog lovers and romance fans will enjoy."—Publishers WeeklyIn the leafy New York suburb of Bronxville, Hint is supposed to hand Percy off to Jack on day five of the ten days their friends are away. But at the handoff, the dog ends up running away. Neither is willing to tell their friends the bad news that Percy is missing. Instead, they spend five frantic days desperately searching for the Schnoodle, with wildly different ideas on how to go about it. Between Jack's heavy-handed approach ...

Deceived into leaving Haiti and Cuba by Mr. and Mrs. Vega, Billie and Carmine are confronted with a harsh reality once on American soil. The teens realize they are sex workers for the Pricey Pussy Empire, and the couple who lured them to the US actually run their own division for the underground flesh-for-sale operation. Billie and Carmine will suffer through human indecency, cruel punishment, and sexual assault in hopes of breaking the chains of captivity. There is an expensive price tag attached to vengeance, and once it is theirs, they may just end up paying with their souls.

Believing fiction to be an invaluable tool for social change, Pauline E. Hopkins used her first novel to challenge the racist and sexist assumptions of her time. Contending Forces operates on an epic scale - with settings ranging from antebellum North Carolina to post-Civil War Boston - and Hopkins surveys this panorama with an eye in particular on the intersections of race, class, and gender relations.

Adored only child of King Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine of Aragon, young Princess Mary grows up as the sole heiress to the English throne. But her father wants a son, and soon Mary's world begins to fall apart. With her parents' marriage - and England - in crisis, Mary is banished from the court and kept apart from the mother she adores. The King promises to restore his daughter to favour, but first Mary must do something for which she will never forgive herself. She seeks solace in her faith.

What would you think if, in your old age, the doctors tell you that you only have a couple years left to live, and even ultra-modern medical technology is powerless to help? Some may spend their remaining years at the bottom of a bottle, others may choose to spend it quietly, with family...But there are also those who are ready to leave everything behind. Volper is one of those who has decided to have one last hurrah and immerse himself in a virtual reality.

Le XVIème siècle est très riche, notamment en raison des grandes découvertes et à la pensée humaniste qui se diffuse chez tous les intellectuels de l'époque. Il y a effusion et diffusion des connaissances : on veut tout savoir, tout comprendre. C'est aussi un moment de retour aux textes antiques. La Pléiade, avec Du Bellay et Ronsard, est un groupe d'amis poètes qui ont pour volonté de renouveler la poésie du Moyen Age qu'ils considèrent comme dépassée.

England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future.

When The Sport of the Gods opens, the Hamilton family is doing relatively well. They have stable jobs and good reputations as servants for a wealthy Southern family - but they also have little sense of how tenuous their existence has become. When money goes missing, the supposed victim points a finger at patriarch Berry Hamilton, and Berry is sentenced to ten years of hard labor. In response, Berry’s wife, Fannie, and his two children, Joe and Kit, migrate to New York City. Their hope is that the great city of the North will provide them with a fresh start.

Harlem, 1927. Twenty-seven-year-old Louise Lloyd has found the perfect job! She is the new manager of the Dove, a club owned by her close friend Rafael Moreno. There Louise meets Nora Davies, one of the girls she was kidnapped with a decade ago. The two women—along with Rafael and his sister, Louise’s girlfriend, Rosa Maria—spend the night at the Dove, drinking and talking. The next morning, Rosa Maria wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the previous night. Nora is lying dead in the middle of the dance floor.