Showing results by narrator "Sarah Nichols" in All Categories

England, late 1547. King Henry VIII is dead. His 14-year-old daughter Elizabeth is living with the king's widow, Catherine Parr, and her new husband, Thomas Seymour. Seymour is the brother of Henry VIII's third wife, the late Jane Seymour, who was the mother to the now-ailing boy king. Ambitious and dangerous, Seymour begins an overt flirtation with Elizabeth that ends with Catherine sending her away. When Catherine dies a year later and Seymour is arrested for treason soon after, a scandal explodes.

A lonely young heiress becomes the poorest wealthy woman in Victorian England when her father dies without telling anyone where he hid his fortune. Can Tressa and the no-nonsense estate manager find the fortune before the greedy relatives get to it first? Tressa Harlowe's father did not trust banks, but neither did he trust his greedy extended family. He kept his vast fortune hidden somewhere on his estate in the south of England and died suddenly, without telling anyone where he had concealed it.

In Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging spinster's struggle to break away from her controlling family - a classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence, while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of 20th-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson.

Looking into the past, the Crusades seem incomprehensible. What combination of religious fervor, hatred of people of different faiths, and gall led Europeans of AD 1100 to make their way thousands of miles to conquer the Holy Land? Why did they continue for 200 years? How did the Crusades change the world? The intriguing story is peppered with colorful characters. Over the centuries crusaders saw - and participated in - the evolution of warfare and the transformation of society from feudal fiefdoms to nations and empires.

Dame Cecile Savoy's "revolting floor mop" of a Pekinese has passed away at a ripe old age. Now, the aging British actress convinces her rivals on stage and screen, Trixie and Evangeline, to support her in her hour of grief...by accompanying her to a taxidermist. But it's a cab ride straight to a cat-astrope! No sooner do the three elderly thespians enter "Stuff Yours" than they discover a dead body, a live kitty in a cage, and flames bursting from the back room. Fortunately for a rare Japanese bobtail called Cho-Cho-San, Trixie grabs the cat before fleeing the scene.

Trixie’s daughter Martha has taken up residence in the kitchen she shares with her friend Evangeline. Martha is frantically testing last-minute recipes to meet the deadline for her cookbook, helped by Jocasta, her overworked editor. When a strange man bursts into their lives, it’s revealed that Martha was not the first choice for the cookbook, and that the woman originally working on it died after eating something at a cooking demonstration. Unwanted guests descend on the already crowded and tense apartment, one of whom ends up dead.

When millionaire Arthur Arbuthnot mistakes gossip maven Annabel Hinchby-Smythe for a decorator - and hires her to redecorate his apartment - the fiscally challenged Annabel can't refuse. When she sees Arbuthnot's tatty London flat, she knows anything will be an improvement. And any gossip she can dig up will be pure gold for the tabloids. But when Arthur is found dead, his frisky relatives begin to lick their chops. Arbuthnot's beloved tabby, Sally, was the only witness to the homicide - and the sole heir to his estate.

It's the most important night of the year for the Catskills Shakespeare Theater Company: the annual fundraising performance at the country estate of the wealthy widow Paula Van Dusen. And this year promises to be even more special as the company will give a moonlight performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream as part of the wedding celebrations for Paula's daughter, Belinda, and her fiancé Adrian. But "the course of true love never did run smooth", and in the wake of a disastrous after-party, the stage is set for murder.

As the Christmas holidays begin at Maude Daneson's rooming house, unsuspecting lodgers receive a most unwelcome present from the person responsible for a series of senseless and bizarre murders - a killer much more cunning than they had suspected.

A Catskills resort's production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet takes a wickedly ironic turn when the leading lady, Lauren Richmond, is first poisoned and then stabbed. Who would extinguish the life of such a beautiful young thespian? It seems like just about everyone had a motive to pull the ropes on her final curtain call. At the center of this Shakespearean tragedy is Charlotte Fairfax, formerly the costume mistress of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The last thing 11-year-old Robin wants to hear is that his mother and her new husband are extending their honeymoon indefinitely. The members of the school gang are insisting that he complete a dare before they let him join the group. They want Robin to kidnap Mrs. Nordling’s prize-winning cat when no one is home. Getting into the Nordling’s house is easy, and Robin manages to find the cat and put him in his bag. As Robin is leaving, however, he stumbles upon a terrifying scene - Mr. Nordling leaving the master bedroom with blood all over his body.

In London, early in the nineteenth century, five-year-old Mary Godwin, daughter of philosopher William Godwin, plays with her sister Fanny, mourns her deceased mother, and marvels as a hot-air balloon lands not far from the Thames River. Nearby, in Sussex, eleven-year-old Percy Shelley entertains his three sisters by telling them stories and performing tricks with chemicals and fire. A few years later, Mary and Percy meet and fall in love in the Godwin bookshop near Black Friar’s Bridge.

England's first Queen Elizabeth gave her name to an age. Inheriting a bankrupt, famished, and powerless country, she healed its religious rifts, replenished its treasury, redefined diplomatic guile, defeated the Spanish Armada, and inspired a new flowering of English culture. Her father, Henry VIII, beheaded her mother, Anne Boleyn, and Elizabeth was declared a bastard. As Henry kept marrying and discarding wives, she had to be adroit and canny to avoid being snared in the schemes of courtiers plotting to win the crown.

A teenage girl has gone missing. The whole community has been called upon to join the search. And now an interviewer arrives, intent on capturing the community's unstable stories about life in the weeks and months before Becky Shaw vanished. Each villager has a memory to share or a secret to conceal, a connection to Becky that they are trying to make or break.

Who is Old Tom? A sad and lonely fusspot? Or a forgotten figure whose bewildering deductive abilities hint at something more? Does he ever leave his armchair? Why is he only ever seen or heard by engaging local newspaper reporter Trench? And what surprising secret are the Mayflower Court Flats really hiding?

A lifetime of craving cuddlier companionship than her hectoring mother has led 40ish Bettina Bilby to board her neighbors' felines - an expectant tabby, a pampered blue-eyed Balinese, a depressed ginger Persian with a cod-liver-oil addiction, and Adolf, an imperious mouser with a patchwork face - for a long holiday weekend.

Matilda is the only legitimate daughter of Henry I of England. She’s also the granddaughter of William the Conqueror and is a descendent—through her mother—from the ancient line of Anglo-Saxon kings. She is made a widow in her early twenties and is the only surviving heir to the throne of England. Now she must marry Geoffrey of Anjou, a boy ten years younger, and share the task of leading an often rebellious state. Before long she gives birth to three sons and provides her father with the male heirs he’s longed for.

Forever a jaded, creative outcast, Sophia Hillcrest has always had the worst luck with guys, but when Grayson Cawthorne, the newest student at Hardingdale High, comes to her aid after a nasty fall, every wall she’s put up around her heart begins to crumble. Suddenly, the stars are shining a bit brighter, and life is becoming a bit more like the fairy tale she’s always envisioned. But when a series of bizarre happenings threatens to drive a wedge between them, can they rise above the chaos? Or will they lose their chance at love before it really begins?

In this book, the fourth in the series, Mee’s happiness has been stolen by jealousy. Mee must find goodwill and gratitude to get back a piece of stolen happiness. Along the way, Mee is assisted by several adorable characters. Meet Gordo the emperor tamarin monkey, Sunny the scarlet macaw, Domino the ocelot cat, Stary the sloth, and J.C., Mee's cousin. Each one will help Mee along the way as Mee must defeat the jelly-us. The story is adventurous and fun in addition to teaching a wonderful life lesson!"