Showing results by narrator "Philip Battley" in All Categories

Daniel Stanton has been blessed with everything. He is charming, confident and handsome—and heir to the great Stanton fortune. At age 24, he has had his fair share of amorous adventures with women, as well as one tantalising experience with a man, leaving him wondering about his sexual inclinations. Those questions are quickly answered when he first meets Ambrose Cranshaw, his grandfather's estate manager. He wants the man, and what he wants, he usually gets. Not this time though.

As the ruthless commander of Unit 23, I’ve dedicated my life to eliminating the world’s deadliest threats. Infiltrating crime syndicates and executing covert missions is all I’ve ever known. But when I meet Eliza Fox, my carefully constructed world begins to crumble. For the first time, I find myself longing for a life beyond the shadows. As our whirlwind romance blossoms, I’m thrust into a dangerous game of cat and mouse with my former mentor—a man I thought long dead. With everything I hold dear at stake, I must confront the ghosts of my past to secure our future.

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge's wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.

K19 Allied Intelligence, a covert paramilitary operations unit, is the world’s most secretive, deadly, and lowest profile special ops organization. When innocent lives are threatened, this team has the strength and intelligence to save them. As the K19 Allied Intelligence Team One agents gear up for counterattacks, the war on trafficking ignites. Come hell or high water, these agents will take down the enemy one by one. Get ready for a perilous and passionate ride in this five-book K19 spinoff series.

Lady Charity MacGalloway likes little dogs, long country walks, and summer cloudbursts, but she wants absolutely nothing to do with the Season or the pompous heirs trolling the marriage mart. Harry Mansfield is not only the town of Brixham's butcher, he's also a boxer, and he's about as far removed from polite society as any man can be. But when Lady Charity steps into his shop, she manages to take everything he thinks he knows about women of quality and turns it upside down.

1815 - Along the wild and untamed coast of Cornwall, smuggling is not only a way of life but a means of survival. Henrietta Morton knows well to look the other way when the free trading 'gentlemen' are at work. Yet when a notorious pirate, known as The Rogue, bursts in on her in the village shop, she takes things one step further. Bewitched by a pair of wicked blue eyes, in a moment of insanity she hides the handsome fugitive from the local militia. Her reward is a kiss that she just cannot forget. But in his haste to escape with his life, her pirate drops a letter.

Oxford, late summer, 1353. On hearing that his cousin is short-handed for the harvest, Nicholas Elyot takes a group of friends back to the family farm to help. When a deer hunt in Wychwood ends in tragedy, suspicion is directed toward the huntsman, a boyhood friend of Nicholas. But the victim has made many other enemies, any one of whom could have shot the fatal arrow. Can Nicholas uncover the real killer before it is too late?

Graham Greene's first published novel tells the story of Andrews, a young man who has betrayed his fellow smugglers and fears their vengeance. Fleeing from them, with no hope of pity or salvation, he takes refuge in the house of a young woman, also alone in the world. Elizabeth persuades him to give evidence against his accomplices in court, but neither she nor Andrews is aware that to both criminals and authority, treachery is as great a crime as smuggling.

Freddie is unremarkable—too unremarkable. He doesn't stand out in any way, and in fact teachers and fellow students keep forgetting who he is. Even his mom thinks he's a disappointment, and spends almost all her time at work, producing a TV show. After a particularly awful night when he embarrasses himself in front of Jasper Perry (the gorgeous teen star of his mum's new show), Freddie decides to follow a proactive new philosophy designed to transform his social and romantic life: saying 'yes' to every opportunity.

London, 1889. For Ira Adler, former rent-boy and present plaything of crime lord Cain Goddard, stealing back the statue from Goddard's blackmailer should have been a doddle. But inside the statue is evidence that could put Goddard away for a long time under the sodomy laws, and everyone's after it, including Ira's bitter ex, Dr. Timothy Lazarus.

Dreams of love are all well and good, but all Prunella Chuffington-Smythe wants is to publish her novel. Marriage at the price of her independence is something she will not consider...Robert Adolphus, The Duke of Bedwin, is in no hurry to marry, he’s done it once and repeating that disaster is the last thing he desires...Surely showing the man she’s not actually the meek little wallflower he is looking for should be enough to put paid to his intentions? When Prue is dared by her friends to do something drastic, it seems the perfect opportunity to kill two birds.

Georgiana returned to Pemberley fresh from a highly successful London season, yet unmoved by any of the young men who lined up for introductions. Then, out of a terrible storm, there arrives a young French count with the face and address of an angel. Is this the one for which her heart has waited?

Captain Gibb MacGalloway might adore women, but he does not allow them aboard his ship. Females are too distracting for his crew—and too distracting for him, truth be told. But when his brother, the Duke of Dunscaby, asks him to provide safe passage to Miss Isabella Harcourt, the daughter of an old family friend, Gibb has no choice but to bend his rules. However, it is not until the lass comes aboard that he realizes Miss Harcourt is the lovely wallflower he'd tricked into giving him a wee kiss only the day before.

Oxford, Autumn 1353. St. Frideswide's Fair is a great annual event in Oxford, bringing together merchants and buyers from all over England and Wales, and from as far away as Flanders and France. Yet the earnings from the fair, granted to the Priory of St. Frideswide centuries before, are resented by the town, and resentment can turn to violence. Under the unscrupulous Prior de Hungerford, even more trouble is brewing.

When Nicholas Elyot and his friends set out to spend the Christmas season in the country, they are prepared for a hard journey in winter. They are also wary of violence on the road, for these are troubled times after the Great Pestilence, when bands of dispossessed and desperate men roam the countryside of England. It is not surprising, therefore, when the troubadours hired to provide entertainment at Leighton Manor are attacked in Wychwood. Yet why should this group draw the attention of outlaws, who are searching for something? Is one of the troubadours not quite what he seems?

Dan Hollis lives a happy, solitary life carving exquisite Celtic harps in his barn in the countryside of the English moors. Here, he can be himself, away from social situations that he doesn’t always get right or completely understand. On the anniversary of her beloved father’s death, Ellie Jacobs takes a walk in the woods and comes across Dan’s barn. She is enchanted by his collection. Dan gives her a harp made of cherrywood to match her cherry socks. He stores it for her, ready for whenever she’d like to take lessons.

Catherine Cook, unclaimed granddaughter of the great explorer James, Cook is on her way to America to re-connect with her mother’s family when fate intervenes and thrusts her into ultimate peril. All of her life, Kate has yearned to go to sea and to command a sailing ship in the Royal navy…an impossible dream for a young woman in 1797.

Mr. George Knightley. According to Emma Woodhouse, you won’t see one in a hundred who is so clearly the gentleman. Respected by all, he’s kind, unpretentious, and scrupulously honest, with an air so remarkably good that it’s unfair to compare other men to him. We also know he’s been his “own master” from a young age. But Jane Austen tells us little more.

Iolanthe Seabourne is the greatest elemental mage of her generation - or so she's been told. The one prophesied for years to be the savior of the Realm. It is her duty and destiny to face and defeat the Bane, the most powerful tyrant and mage the world has ever known. This would be a suicide task for anyone, let alone a reluctant 16-year-old girl with no training.

After spending the summer away from each other, Titus and Iolanthe (still disguised as Archer Fairfax) are eager to return to Eton College to resume their training to fight the Bane. Although no longer bound to Titus by blood oath, Iolanthe is more committed than ever to fulfilling her destiny - especially with the agents of Atlantis quickly closing in. Soon after arriving at school, though, Titus makes a shocking discovery, one that throws into question everything he believed about their mission.