Showing results by narrator "Clare Wille" in All Categories

Like your mysteries cozy and set during the Golden Age of Crime? This is the first audiobook in the Posie Parker mysteries, although this novel can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story in its own right. Set in London in 1921, Murder Offstage is full of intrigue and red herrings. When Posie Parker’s childhood friend is robbed of a priceless jewel and becomes a suspect in a cold-blooded murder case, budding detective Posie vows she will clear his name.

A vivid love story and adventure tale, Oroonoko is a heroic slave narrative about a royal prince and his fight for freedom. The eponymous hero, Oroonoko, deemed royalty in one world and slave in another, is torn from his noble status and betrayed into slavery in Surinam, where he is reduced to chains, fetters, and shackles. But his high spirit and admirable character will not be suppressed.

Twenty-five years ago, on a campus paralyzed by a snowstorm, beautiful 19-year-old Vinca Rockwell ran away with her philosophy teacher after they began a secret affair. For Vinca, "love is everything or nothing". She is never seen again. The once inseparable Manon, Thomas and Maxime - Vinca's best friends - have not spoken since graduation. Twenty-five years earlier, under terrible circumstances, the three of them committed a murder and buried the body in the gymnasium wall, the same wall that is about to be demolished to make way for an ultramodern new building.

In the quiet world of rural English clergy, lives are full of challenges, conflicts, desires and expectations. George Eliot’s first published work of fiction (1857) comprises three separate stories and has the hallmarks of her famous later works–her gentle wit and clever satire, her psychological insight, and her keen observation of human nature and frailty. These are beautifully written and poignant tales, set in and around the fictional Midlands town of Milby.

Sir Joshua Stiles wants nothing more than to fill the hole in his heart left by his wife's death, but it seems that women are more interested in his fortune than in himself. Cynical and ready to renounce all females, he is none too pleased when his sister invites her dear friend to visit for the Season.

A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.

When Margaret Hale moves with her father from the comfort of the south of England to the industrial north, she is at first repulsed by what she sees; and then when she discovers the conditions under which the workers are forced to live, she is outraged. But this throws her into direct conflict with the powerful young mill-owner, John Thornton. Using personal passions to explore deep social divisions, North and South is a great romance and one of Elizabeth Gaskell's finest works.

When Posie Parker, London’s premier female Detective, accidentally runs into an old family acquaintance, she is persuaded to leave town immediately and return to the place of her childhood roots - the beautiful and bleak Norfolk coast - to investigate a closed-room murder mystery which local police believe has a foregone conclusion. But have the police got it right? Posie must race against the clock as the Murder Trial is scheduled to begin in just two days’ time.

When famous explorer Alaric Boynton-Dale disappears, Posie uncovers many dark secrets: an aristocratic family torn apart by hatred, a bizarre murder at an English country house, and a cryptic clue left behind by Alaric which is sweet as honey, but deadlier than poison. In an action-packed case where simply everyone has a motive for wanting Alaric dead, Posie's investigation starts off in the English Cotswolds, takes her through the glamorous South of France, on to the mysterious island of Ortigia in Italy, and then into the Tombs of the Pharaohs in Egypt.

Posie Parker has been summoned to Chelsea, to the House of Sinne, the fashionable London perfume house. Anouk Sinne, the most brilliant perfumier of her age, has been receiving blackmail demands, and asks Posie to investigate. But is blackmail just the tip of the iceberg? A launch party for the House of Sinne’s highly anticipated new fragrance is just about to take place, and Posie finds herself rubbing shoulders with some very famous people, but after the "reveal" of the strangest perfume Posie has ever experienced, things take a chilling turn for the worse…

December, 1925. A dark, smog-filled London doesn’t seem very Christmassy or exciting, but then Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, receives an urgent call from one of her oldest friends: Rufus, Earl of Cardigeon. Summoned to The Mermaid, an ancient hotel in Rye on the Sussex Coast, in the heart of smuggling country, Posie, together with her husband Richard, finds her friend in a real state. As the snow falls and Christmas lights go up, secrets are revealed, and Posie becomes involved in perhaps her most personal case so far.

Lies, spies, film stars, and murder. New Year’s Eve, 1921 Posie has been asked to accompany Inspector Richard Lovelace of Scotland Yard on an undercover mission. Their destination is a glittering New Year’s Eve party at Maypole Manor, the clifftop home of Lord Robin Glaysayer. With a blizzard raging outside, when a killer strikes, the Inspector and Posie’s skills are tested to breaking point as they try to find the murderer before he attacks again.

London glitters during a snowstorm, and a mysterious famous guest has been invited to switch on the Christmas lights at Piccadilly. But when he asks Posie Parker for help, she finds herself thrown into a dazzling world of American movie stars, high-octane glamour at the Café de Paris, Death Threats, and very, very complicated private lives.

Posie Parker has been called to her most baffling case yet. Amyas Lyle, London’s top young lawyer, has been found with his head in a box of poisoned saltwater. It’s the perfect murder. But who hated him enough to do such a thing? Following a trail of strange notes, all of which speak of the sea and saltwater, Posie travels from London to the seaside resort of Whitley Bay, looking for answers. But nothing can prepare her for what she finds there.

Join Posie Parker, London’s premier female Private Detective, and Chief Inspector Lovelace of New Scotland Yard as they spend Christmas Eve at Rebburn Abbey, home of the Earl and Countess of Cardigeon. Each house guest is invited to share a personal mystery, but what unfolds turns out to be less a cozy cornucopia of fire-side Christmas cheer than a series of curiously interlinked and unsettling mysteries.

Silvia Hanro, the famously beautiful movie star, has received death threats alongside her morning coffee, and Posie is tasked with protecting her. Aided by her good friends Lady Dolly Cardigeon and Chief Inspector Richard Lovelace, Posie soon realises that behind the cheap canvas sets and the dreamy glamour of the Studios a dreadful secret lays buried, and traitors lurk everywhere.

The date is Saturday 6th December, 1924. It’s snowing heavily outside, but in the little white Swiss Church in London, packed to the rafters with beautifully-dressed guests, everything is just right. All going to plan. Or is it? Where is the normal vicar? Who has changed all the flowers? And where the blazes is Posie’s beloved groom? Don’t miss this short story. Goes perfectly with a glass of something sparkling!

A winter wedding. Venice, 1923. Posie Parker, London’s premier female private detective, is getting married. But on arrival in Venice, Posie finds she is walking into a nightmare. Her lodgings on the Grand Canal are consumed by fire, her famous fiancé is preoccupied, and most bizarrely of all, her hostess, the Countess Romagnoli, confesses she has a stalker and fears for her life.

Posie Parker once failed a client. And now that client is dead. Elsie Moncreiff, a housekeeper, has fallen from the White Cliffs of England in a howling storm. But the question is, was it bad luck, or was it murder?Armed with just her guilty conscience and a less-than-helpful Sergeant Rainbird for company, Posie vows to get to the bottom of things. But what she finds is not at all what she was expecting.

This charming piece of social observation throws a gentle spotlight on life in a small village in northern England of the 1850s. The middle-aged ladies, existing in rather impoverished circumstances, nevertheless maintain the rules of politeness which they feel they should live by.