Showing results by narrator "Davina Porter" in All Categories

Award-winning New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, creator of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of novels, delivers the fourth tale from his charming Isabel Dalhousie series, featuring the highly ethical and plucky protagonist. She's now a mother, but has an uncertain relationship with her son's father. She must also deal with academic politics and, of course, a mystery: did a Scottish painter drown, commit suicide or fall victim to a murder plot?

Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.

Wildly successful chick-lit mystery writer Kimberlee Kalder is the guest of honor at an exclusive writers' conference at Dalmorton Castle in Scotland. But the fun ends when Kimberlee is found dead at the bottom of the castle's bottle dungeon. Who didn't want to see prima donna Kimberlee brutally extinguished like one of her ill-fated characters? It's up to Detective Chief Inspector St. Just to track down the true killer in a castle full of cagey mystery connoisseurs who live and breathe malicious murder and artful alibis....

Ayleswick-on-Teme, 1813. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has come to this seemingly peaceful Shropshire village to honor a slain friend and on a quest to learn more about his own ancestry. But when the body of a lovely widow is found on the banks of the River Teme, a bottle of laudanum at her side, the village's inexperienced new magistrate turns to St. Cyr for help.

When young Alice follows a White Rabbit down a hole, she plunges into a fantasy land of bizarre adventures. Alice encounters such strange characters as the Cheshire Cat, the Duchess, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Mock Turtle, and the croquet-playing Queen of Hearts. As if that weren't enough, Alice often grows as tall as a house or shrinks to 3 inches. This classic story has delighted children and adults for generations.

Agatha has fallen head over heels in love - again. This time, she has her eye on the local gardener, George Marston, but so do other women in their little Cotswold village. Shamelessly determined, Agatha will do anything to get her man - including footing the bill for a charity ball just for the chance to dance with him. And then George doesn't even show up. Only partly deterred, Agatha goes looking for him, and finds his dead body in a compost heap. Murder is definitely afoot, but this killer chose no ordinary weapon: A poisonous snake delivered the fatal strike.

Revered mystery writer Josephine Tey is traveling from Scotland to London for the final week of her play Richard of Bordeaux, the surprise hit of the season, with pacifist themes that resonate in a world still haunted by war. But joy turns to horror when her arrival coincides with the murder of a young woman she had befriended on the train ride - and Tey is plunged into a mystery as puzzling as any in her own works.

This classic novel has been thrice adapted for the screen by the BBC. Mary Smith relates the story of her time with middle-aged spinster sisters Miss Matty and Miss Deborah. Witty, poignant, and often ironic, Cranford is the tale of what these two women will do to remain respectable, proper, and kind with only moderate means.

Now that Claire knows Jamie survived the slaughter at Culloden, she is faced with the most difficult decision of her life. She aches to travel back through time again to find the love of her life, but, in order to do that, she must leave their daughter behind. It has been 20 years since she and Jamie were forced to separate. Can she risk everything, maybe even her life, on a gamble that their love has withstood the long, rigorous test of time?

Lewis Carroll followed up his classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with the equally wondrous sequel Through the Looking Glass, a timeless tale that imaginatively blends laughter, mischief, and magic. The story begins on a cold, snowy day, when Alice must stay inside. She decides to play a game of make-believe, but the game becomes real when Alice steps through a mirror - and into another world! Desperate to return to her real life, Alice faces a series of bizarre adventures and unforgettable characters.

St. Michael's College, Cambridge, is prestigious, stately - and in frightful disrepair. To replenish its dwindling coffers, the College's Master holds a fundraising weekend for wealthy alums. But all goes awry when the glamorous - and despised - Lexy Laurant is found strangled on the grounds. There's a lengthy list of likely suspects: Lexy's debt-ridden Latino lover, her titled ex-husband who left her for another woman, and a garrulous oil-rich Texan with something to hide, among others.

It is June 1778, and the world seems to be turning upside down. The British Army is withdrawing from Philadelphia, with George Washington in pursuit, and for the first time, it looks as if the rebels might actually win. But for Claire Fraser and her family, there are even more tumultuous revolutions that have to be accommodated. Her former husband, Jamie, has returned from the dead, demanding to know why in his absence she married his best friend, Lord John Grey.

Reunited after their harrowing time spent apart during World War II, Allison and Logan have successfully patched their marriage and discovered a new level of commitment to one another. But when Lady Joanna dies in 1971, changes begin to reshape the lives of the Stonewycke descendants.

Generations of young readers continue to fall in love with Marguerite Henry’s “horse stories.” In one of her most famous, King of the Wind, the author traces the ancestry of the great Kentucky Derby winner, Man o’ War, whose mysterious pedigree is linked to the noble line leading from the Godolphin Arabian.

For Princess Gabrielle of St. Biel, Scotland is a land of stunning vistas, wild chieftains, treacherous glens, and steep shadows: skullduggery, betrayal, and now murder. Prized for her exquisite beauty, the daughter of one of England's most influential barons, Gabrielle is also a perfect bargaining chip for a king who needs peace in the Highlands: King John has arranged Gabrielle's marriage to a good and gentle laird. But this marriage will never take place.

Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned then neglected, young Gemma seemed destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands. But Gemma’s biggest trial is about to begin....

Captain Harry Cathcart and Lady Rose Summer got engaged so Rose can avoid being sent to India with all the other failed debutantes. Bored with endless parties, teas, and balls, Rose befriends Dolly Tremaine, a beautiful young girl newly arrived from the country. Rose is delighted to have a protégé, but their friendship is cut tragically short when Dolly is found floating in a river. Now Harry must solve the mystery of Dolly's death, and keep Rose from being the murderer's next victim.

The year is 1772, and the rift between Britain and its American colonies has put a frightening word into the minds of all concerned: revolution. In the backwoods of North Carolina, violence has already reared its ugly head, as cabins have been burned to the ground. To preserve the colony for King George III, the governor pleads with Jamie to bring the people together and restore peace. But Jamie has the privilege, although some might call it a burden, of knowing that war cannot be avoided.

Drawing upon her background in ancient history and her experiences on archaeological digs, author C.S. Harris crafts authentic, compelling novels that appear regularly on best-seller lists and have won numerous awards. In 1812, surgeon Paul Gibson discovers a stiletto wound in the base of a corpse’s skull and immediately contacts Sebastian St. Cyr. And when another body turns up with the same injury, the lives of St. Cyr’s family are threatened if he doesn’t back off. Now, the pressure’s on to find the culprit before anyone else gets killed.

In a London hospital, Prudence Barrymore, a talented nurse who had once been one of Florence Nightingale’s angels of mercy in the Crimean War, meets sudden death by strangulation. Private inquiry agent William Monk is engaged to investigate this horrific crime—which intuition tells him was no random stroke of violence by a madman.