Showing results by narrator "Hannah Curtis" in All Categories

In an innovative and engaging narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare’s England, Ramie Targoff carries us from the sumptuous coronation of Queen Elizabeth in the mid-sixteenth century into the private lives of four women writers working at a time when women were legally the property of men.

In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith bring a fresh perspective to questions that have long been contentious. Speaking from a growing global sex worker rights movement, and situating their argument firmly within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy, they make it clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement.

The period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history’s greatest philosophers. There were four women, in particular, whose parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century—at once in necessary dialogue and in striking contrast with one another.

Lucy Duff Gordon knows she is talented. She sees color, light, and texture in ways few people can begin to imagine. But is the male dominated world of haute couture, who would use her art for their own gain, ready for her? When she is deserted by her wealthy husband, Lucy is left penniless with an aging mother and her five-year-old daughter to support. Desperate to survive, Lucy turns to her one true talent to make a living. A

When you think about Christmas, you likely picture mangers, glowing fireplaces, sweet carolers, and snow-blanketed hills. But behind all this bright magic, there’s something much darker lurking in the shadows. In The Dead of Winter, Cambridge-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folklore of the Christmas season in Europe, detailing the way its terrifying and often debaucherous past continues to haunt and entertain us now in the twenty-first century.

She's ours, even if she doesn't know it. Even if she isn't a wolf-shifter. Even if her shifter hasn't surfaced yet. I've endured far too many years of torture and abuse with the only thought keeping me alive, the only thing that enabled me to endure the pain and agony being bestowed on me, was the hope of finding my divinely chosen true-mate. Our true-mate. And there's no way in hell we're losing her now that we've found her. She may not be a wolf but I'm still her alpha and once her shifter emerges there will be no denying that fact… or us.

Enlisted for a mission to retrieve the memory of a military satellite that’s been mistaken for an angel by in-bred locals, Ryan Cawdor and his companions head deep into the wild country of Kill Island, only to discover they are being pursued by an old foe harboring a deadly grudge. With enemies on all sides, Ryan and his allies rapidly run out of places to turn...and no way back. Meanwhile, Doc Tanner is offered a tantalizing possibility that could end his time with the companions forever.

Funny and doom-drenched, The Employees chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids.

On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived. In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since. She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny....

I know I’m lucky. I have a stunning Cheltenham apartment and a charming weekend cottage in Devon. Chris, my partner, is kind and supportive. He loves me in spite of my scars—the result of a childhood incident I don’t talk about. Most of all, I love my job, helping young women with eating disorders. But I can’t help everyone, as I tell Kyle Stannard. Kyle was once a top male model—before he was left horrifically scarred in a random attack. Kyle thinks we’re the same, but I can’t help him with his problems. It’s not my field. Then creepy things start to happen.

London, England, 1814. Lady Anna Clifton has arrived in London with a secret purpose. Her soldier brother has been reported wounded and missing in France, and if he is dead, his title and their family's estate will go to a horrible distant cousin, and Lady Anna will be homeless. Desperate to find her brother alive, Lady Anna blesses her good fortune when the Duke of Aylesham offers his yacht to carry her to France so she can look for her brother there herself.

When her father dies, Kay Wilkinson can’t cry. Over 10 years, Alzheimer’s had steadily eroded this erudite man into a paranoid lunatic. Surely one’s own father passing should never come as such a relief. Both medical professionals, Kay and her husband Cyril have seen too many elderly patients in similar states of decay. Although healthy and vital in their early 50s, the couple fears what may lie ahead. Determined to die with dignity, Cyril makes a modest proposal.

Nevin and Gloria both have successful careers, as well as two adorable kids and a picture-book cottage by the sea. But at forty, Nevin is experiencing some discontent. He’s a successful author, but his latest plot is not for a book. Conspiring with his old friend Felix, he sets a plan in motion that will allow him to escape his marriage—but put all the blame on Gloria. He should have thought it through a little more, though. Everyone has their own agenda, and everything is about to go very wrong. Because there’s no such thing as a perfect marriage—or a perfect crime…

Helen Grant is a mystery to her daughter. An extrovert with few friends who has sought intimacy in the wrong places, a twice-divorced mother of two now living alone surrounded by her memories, Helen (known to her acquaintances as “Hen”) has always haunted Bridget. Now, Bridget is an academic in her forties. She sees Helen once a year, and considers the problem to be contained. As she looks back on their tumultuous relationship—the performances and small deceptions—she tries to reckon with the cruelties inflicted on both sides.

When Lizzie’s car crashes with her two daughters inside, she faces a terrible choice. And when she recovers from her injuries, she must deal with the impact of that tragedy and the police investigation into it. As Lizzie and her family struggle to come to terms with the events of that night, things take an even darker turn. What exactly happened on that remote country road? Who is responsible? And can the family get through this together…or will the truth finally tear them apart?

When Thalia, Kalliope, and Charis set off to Regency London for their first Season, they each have clear goals―few of which include matrimony. Thalia means to make her mark among the intelligentsia and publish her poetry, Charis hopes to earn her place among the scientific elite, and Kalliope aims to take the fashionable ton by storm. But this Season, it doesn’t take long for things to fall apart. Can this roller-coaster Season find its happily ever after?

In the soft morning light, a man, a woman, and a child drive beyond the borders of a sleepy French post-industrial town into the forested mountains beyond. After several years of absence, the man has reappeared in the life of his wife and their young son, intent on being a family again. He takes them to Les Roches, a dilapidated house in the mountains where he grew up with his own ruthless father. There, while the mother watches the passing days with apprehension, the son discovers the bewitching enchantment of nature.

Rachel Holley has always dreamed of a wedding - the white dress, the fairy tale, and, of course, the happily-ever-after. But when her fiancé breaks it off the night before, claiming she doesn’t love him, Rachel’s fairy tale ends in ashes. Homeless, hopeless, and feeling like her life has been completely derailed, Rachel must start over in all sorts of ways - and hold her head up high in the fishbowl of her tiny village.

Commissioned by the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp was the first major Rembrandt work to catapult the young painter to international fame. Taking this painting as its inspiration, Nina Siegal’s novel The Anatomy Lesson opens on the morning of the medical dissection and follows several characters as they prepare for the evening’s big event:

My husband’s dead. They say my best friend did it. I can’t believe it. Not Lisa. There’s no way she could have done something so terrible. I look around at her shaken family, her two devastated children and her shocked husband, as they watch the most important woman in their lives being arrested for murder… I always thought Lisa was the perfect wife and mother. We’ve been best friends ever since I moved to Dragonfly Close. But then I remember the day I saw her at the coffee shop with Russell.