Mr Ross lives on an island where no visitors come. He stops people from taking photographs of him. He is young and rich, but he looks sad. And there is one room in his house which is always locked. Carol Sanders and her mother come to the island to work for Mr Ross. Carol soon decides that there is something very strange about Mr Ross. Where did he get his money from? How can a young man buy an island? So she watches, and she listens - and one night she learns what is behind the locked door.

Allegra is an unusual name. It means ’happy’ in Italian, but the little girl in this story is sometimes very sad. She is only five years old, but she tells Adrian, her new friend, that she is going to die soon. How does she know?And who is the other Allegra? The girl in a long white nightdress, who has golden hair and big blue eyes. The girl who comes only at night, and whose hands and face are cold, so cold.

In a house in Oxford, three people are having breakfast: Carol, her husband Jan, and his father Josef. They are talking about Prague, because Carol wants them all to go there for Christmas. Josef was born in Prague, but he left his home city when he was a young man. He is an old man now, and he would like to see Prague again before he dies. But he is afraid. He still remembers another Christmas in Prague, many long years ago - a Christmas that changed his life forever.

Adapted from the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.... Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening – and he knows what question the stranger will ask.

In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street – visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

What does the name "Agatha Christie" mean? To many people, it means a book about a murder mystery - a "whodunnit". "I'm reading an Agatha Christie," people say. "I'm not sure who the murderer is. I think it's…." But they are usually wrong, because it is not easy to guess the murderer's name before the end of the book. But who was Agatha Christie? What was she like? Was her life quiet and unexciting, or was it full of interest and adventure?Was there a mystery in her life, too?

Witches are dangerous. They can kill you with a look, or a word. They can send their friend the Devil after you in the shape of a dog or a cat. They can make a clay picture of you, then break it.... and a few weeks later, you are dead. Today, of course, most people don’t believe in witches. But in 1612, everybody was afraid of them. Young Jennet Device in Lancashire knew a lot about them because she lived with the Witches of Pendle. They were her family.

In the mountains of Transylvania there stands a castle. It is the home of Count Dracula – a dark, lonely place, and at night the wolves howl around the walls. In the year 1875 Jonathan Harker comes from England to do business with the Count. But Jonathan does not feel comfortable at Castle Dracula. Strange things happen at night, and very soon, he begins to feel afraid. And he is right to be afraid, because Count Dracula is one of the Un-Dead – a vampire that drinks the blood of living people.

Adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle story "Silver Blaze".... Horseracing is the sport of kings, perhaps because racehorses are very expensive animals. But when they win races, they can make a lot of money too - money for the owners, for the trainers, and for the people who put bets on them to win.Silver Blaze is a young horse, but already the winner of many races. One night he disappears from his stables, and someone kills his trainer.

As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea. Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire.

The sequel to Paullina Simons’ thrilling Children of Liberty, Bellagrand delves into Harry and Gina’s lives prior to the opening of Simons' The Bronze Horseman. As Children of Liberty concludes with a stunning ending - the story is just beginning. Bellagrand follows Harry and Gina after the happily ever after. After their whirlwind romance, Gina and Harry must learn what it really takes to mesh their families and their cultures. Listeners will be delighted to see exactly how these characters fit into the Bronze Horseman legacy.

No matter what else was going on in his life or where he was - travelling to make movies for G.E., in the California governor's office, at the White House, or on Air Force One, and sometimes even from across the room - Ronald Reagan wrote letters to Nancy Reagan to express his love, thoughts, and feelings and to stay in touch. Through letters and reflections, the characters, personalities, and private lives of a president and his first lady are revealed.

From the Emmy-winning writer and creator of All My Children, One Life to Live, and Loving, a memoir of her trailblazing rise to the top of the television industry, including behind-the-scenes stories from some of the most beloved soaps of all time.

Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa 14-year-old in 1943 - aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal US resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles.

Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Casual mourners, regular visitors, and sundry colleagues - gravediggers, groundskeepers, and a priest - visit her to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee she offers them. Her life is lived to the rhythms of their funny, moving confidences. But her routine is disrupted by the arrival of the local police chief, who insists on scattering the ashes of his recently deceased mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger.

Maeve Binchy imagined a street in Dublin with many characters coming and going, and every once in a while she would write about one of these people. She would then put it in a drawer; “for the future,” she would say. The future is now. Across town from St. Jarlath’s Crescent, featured in Minding Frankie, is Chestnut Street, where neighbors come and go. Behind their closed doors we encounter very different people with different life circumstances, occupations, and sensibilities.

The epitome of grace, independence, and wit, Lauren Bacall continues to astound generations with her audacious spirit and on-screen excellence. Together with Humphrey Bogart, she produced some of the most electric scenes in movie history, and their romance on and off screen made them Hollywood's most celebrated couple.

Two sisters, small-town Ontario, 1934. Canadian author Richard Wright tells their story, from the ordinary to the extraoridinary with an eye for the commonplace and poignant sense of the larger undercurrents that change people's lives.

At the age of 38, Brigitte Nicholson has a job she likes, a man she loves, and a book on the women’s suffrage movement that she will finish - someday. Someday is Brigitte’s watchword. Someday she and Ted, a rising star in the field of archaeology, will clarify their relationship. Someday she will have children. Someday she will stop playing it so safe. Then, on a snowy day in Boston, Brigitte’s life is jolted.

Zainab Salbi was 11-years-old when her father was chosen to serve as Saddam Hussein's personal pilot, her family often forced to spend weekends with Saddam where he watched their every move. As a palace insider, Zainab offers a singular glimpse of what it is like to come of age under a dictator and provides an intimate portrait of the man she was taught to call "uncle". She watched as Saddam pitted friends, spouses, and even children against each other to compete for his approval.

With the help of her old diaries, Sarah Morris recounts her life story. The daughter of an English vicar, she begins by telling of her happy childhood with her brothers and sister in their country village. As a teenager, Sarah’s brother brings home a friend - Charles, a charming Austrian to whom she quickly becomes close. Over the years they fall in love, but when war breaks out Charles must return to Austria. While she awaits his return, Sarah quietly continues working hard and caring for her family. But she can’t stop wondering if she will ever see her sweetheart again…

Unlike the other residents of Middleton Hall, Stella is elegant, smart and in control. Only Jenny, her care assistant, knows that she harbours a painful secret, and only she can prevent Stella from carrying it to the grave. As the women talk, Jenny pieces together the answers to many questions that arise: Why has she kept possession of a house that her family don’t know about? What happened there that holds the key to a distant tragedy?

The First Lord Nanther, expert in blood diseases, particularly the royal disease of Heamophilia, and favoured physician to Queen Victoria, clearly hoped to be the subject of an admiring posthumous biography. But when his great-grandson, Martin Nanther begins to research his life for a biography, the Martin comes to suspect that his great-grandfather’s old records conceal more than they reveal.

It's 2015, and Patricia Cowan is very old. "Confused today," read the notes clipped to the end of her bed. She forgets things she should know - what year it is, major events in the lives of her children. But she remembers things that don't seem possible. She remembers marrying Mark and having four children. And she remembers not marrying Mark and raising three children with Bee instead.

It begins with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession. One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared leaving no trace. Though time brings more success and new love, he remains mystified - and increasingly fascinated - by her absence. Was she kidnapped, blackmailed, or simply bored with their marriage? The unrest she causes is as strong as the attraction she exerts.

From the royal wedding to boring airplane companions, Samuel Beckett to Margaret Thatcher, "senior moments" to life as a waitress, Maeve's Times gives us wonderful insight into a changing Ireland as it celebrates the work of one of our best-loved writers in all its diversity - revealing her characteristic directness, laugh-out-loud humor, and unswerving gaze into the true heart of a matter.

What is your mother tongue? Sometimes the simplest questions take a book to answer. Such is the case with Tania Romanov's story of exile, emigration, and immigration and how native language can be a powerful touchstone for the sense of home. The unrelenting consequences of 100 years of Balkan wars force three generations of Croatian women to flee their homelands multiple times. Eventually, Tania, a successfully integrated American immigrant from Eastern Europe, journeys back to her fractured homeland with her mother to unravel the secrets of their shared past.

Marina and Lee is one of the best and truest audiobooks about the Kennedy assassination. Priscilla Johnson McMillan came to the story with a unique knowledge of the two main characters. In the 1950s she knew Kennedy well for a time when he was hospitalized with Addison's disease. She talked to him frequently, brought him books, knew his wife, and formed a strong opinion of the sort of man he was. What is astonishing is that she also knew Lee Harvey Oswald.

This is a love story of great beauty and great tenderness, the kind of love story that entangles the listener in the lives of the characters, so that after the story is over, one continues to live with those characters. And fortunately, the listener will not have to say farewell to these characters, since it is the first in a series that will tell the story of three Californian families over the course of the 20th century.

The first short-story collection in English by the acclaimed Chilean author Roberto Bolano. Winner of a 2005 PEN Translation Fund Award. "The melancholy folklore of exile", as Roberto Bolano once put it, pervades these 14 haunting stories. Bolano's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime.

Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.