Showing results by narrator "Deborah Balm" in All Categories

Velina has escaped the workhouse on the hunt for one thing: the witch who can grant her wish to live a normal life. Born with silver hair and noticeably pointy ears, she's passed from workhouse to workhouse since she can remember—shunned for her mysterious heritage. But the witch’s cottage she finds at the edge of the wood is abandoned, and as soon as she starts making herself at home, someone else comes calling: a noble with a wish of his own. With the promise of his coin, she agrees to help him when she starts noticing something strange about the cottage.

Determined to avoid the strife-filled marriage of his parents, Marcus, the Duke of Ulvercombe, wants an amenable, biddable wife, and has set his cap for a certain pretty miss. Unfortunately, her vastly opinionated, frustrating, and lamentably beautiful guardian, Lady Clara Tinniswood, keeps distracting him, tempting him to consider a far more tempestuous—and passionate—union. Recently widowed Lady Clara Tinniswood wants only to organize a quiet new life for herself, beyond the control of any man. But one shockingly unguarded moment catapults her headlong into a forbidden passion.

Things are heating up in Pigsend, starting with mysterious magical events around the summer solstice and continuing through the annual Pigsend Harvest Festival. Get the final four books in the Weary Dragon Inn Series, including Zealots and Zeniths, Campaigns and Curses, Perils and Potions, and Royals and Ruses in a convenient bundle.

Welcome to Ambleside. A quaint village of houses built from local stone in an ancient part of Cumbria. A place where everyone is welcome…until an elderly recluse artist is found dead in her remote stone cottage. Detective Inspector Fenella Sallow and her team are brought in to investigate. The manner of death is so abhorrent it is clear at once that murder is at play.

As one of the Hundred, Yvonne cannot ignore a plea for help, even if all she wants is a quiet life, somewhere safe for her adopted children to grow into adulthood. Safety is in short supply. Young people, some of them children, are going missing in large numbers, leaving bewildered and grieving families behind. It's not something she can ignore.

Stripped of her rank and her calling by some of her most trusted friends, Yvonne is left shocked and bleeding. Worse is to come. Not only are children still going missing, but she learns that the death of an old friend might not have been natural. With old friendships torn apart, Yvonne must work out who she can trust if she is to find the truth.

When the high priestess Vyvian du Lac dies, Morgen le Fay—acolyte to the priestess, midwife to queens, apprentice to Merlin—is left mysteriously bereft of magic. She finds herself transported to the wild, ancient forest of Brocéliande, which she must cross—and survive—to save Carelon from disaster. And death itself, it seems, is close on her heels.

Librarian Cillian Harahel and Wizard Alise Phel have fled Convocation Academy in the dark of night and grip of winter, taking with them the hidden archives they liberated from hiding. The effort of magically holding onto the massive archives—everything to do with House Phel and the conspiracy against it—is draining Cillian nearly to death. Alise wants only to get him to the house of his birth, and hopefully save his life.

Fenella thought she'd seen it all—until a routine call at a local beauty spot uncovers a gruesome find that digs up dark memories from her past. With the public baying for blood, politicians up in arms and police superiors circling, Fenella faces the toughest case of her career. One in which she will have to battle psychological demons from her past and face down her fears about the future.

Only in an insane world would a young wizard find herself battling monsters and automatons one day and returning to Convocation Academy to cram for finals the next. But this is the world Alise Phel lives in. Like it or not, Alise must face the consequences of ditching out a second time and dealing with the crushing workload assigned to her as a punishment. Worse yet, succeeding at the Academy means Alise must learn to master her powerful and unusual magic—the same magic that caused her to accidentally murder her own mother.

Warm beds, quaint mysteries, and the best rosemary bread this side of Pigsend Creek. Welcome to the Weary Dragon Inn. Bev may not know who she was before she showed up in the quaint village of Pigsend five years ago, but that doesn’t bother her much. She’s made a tidy little life for herself as the proprietor of the Weary Dragon Inn, where the most notable event is when she makes her famous rosemary bread.

It's election time in Pigsend, and Pigsend's mayor Jo Hendry is up for re-election, but she's not the only candidate in the race. Pip Norris, the farrier, Wilda Murtagh, the cousin of the perfidious mayor from Middleburg, Gore Dewey, the blacksmith, and Hans Silver, a local farmer, have thrown their hats into the ring, too. And if Earl Dollman's polling is to be believed, it's going to be a tight race. But when every candidate except Hendry receives a letter threatening to expose their "secret," Bev's once again called to investigate.

Nicholas Montford is tired of the London Season, tired of the marriage mart, and most of all, he is tired of encountering a certain duchess from his past. The Hatton viscountcy has an estate in Ireland, a place his father wrote fondly of in his journal. By journeying to Ireland, Nicholas could escape the duchess he once loved as well as see to a property that a Montford has not visited since he was a boy.

The Witzel Solstice Party is the highlight of an otherwise quiet winter season in Pigsend. But when Vellora and Ida Witzel start receiving mysterious, threatening letters, the party—and their own safety—may be in jeopardy. Across the street, Bev's got an inn full of suspects—and a freak winter storm to keep them all in one place. They all have their secrets, and it's a race against time and melting snow to figure out who's blackmailing the butchers—and which secret they're threatening to expose.

Detective Inspector Fenella Sallow is obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons. When the body of a retired artist is discovered atop the blackened embers of the town bonfire, the community is rocked to the core. It falls to DI Fenella Sallow and her team to find out how she came to be there. In her 50s, the veteran detective inspector thought she had seen it all. But behind the curtained windows and closed doors of the idyllic Cumbria coastal setting lurks pure evil.

As the granddaughter of the Earl of Richmond, Lady Amelia Montford is never in want of dance partners. Even though she finds the gentlemen tedious, she is always guaranteed good company for one set—her dance with the agreeable and handsome Sir Anthony Greene. Despite falling madly in love with the dashing baronet during her first season, Sir Anthony has become a devoted friend and confidante. Yet of late, he has behaved oddly and has even declared he is attached to a lady! Amelia is dumbfounded. Sir Anthony claims he is in love with her?

Haunted by sorrow and regret, Margaret Hale stands at the precipice of an uncertain destiny. Fiercely determined but not knowing how to find her way, she risks the little she has left on the heart she once shattered - hoping somehow to win back his respect, if not his love...Since he was a boy, John Thornton has fought the consequences of his father’s mistakes. Crushed on all sides, all he has left to offer the one who needs him most is a home, and a heart that aches for her.

When a body is discovered in remote allotments on the edge of town, DI Fenella Sallow's quiet Saturday is shattered. Her first thoughts are that it was a terrible accident. But the bludgeoned corpse tells a different story....

The Harvest Festival is the most-anticipated event in the quaint village of Pigsend, and Bev and the Weary Dragon Inn are ready to welcome visitors from near and far. But when strange occurrences begin happening, including the destruction of Bev's beloved herb garden, Bev's got to put her sleuthing hat back on to uncover the truth.

young life full of promise. She bore three strong sons and delivered the kingdom of Orkney to her brother by way of her marriage. She did as she was asked, invisible and useful—for her name, her dowry, and her womb. Now, twenty years after she left her home, Anna is summoned back to Carelon with the crown of her now-dead husband, to face the demons of her childhood: her sisters Morgen, Elaine, and Morgause; Merlin and his scheming priests; and Bedevere, the man she once loved.