Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley Crossley" in All Categories

Sebastian, the alchemist's son, must face a new evil. An old enemy, a magician whose power lies in stealing souls, has reappeared in a new and cunning disguise. He is using an ancient spell book to bring about a terror beyond imagining. Once again, Pip and Tim brave sorcery and danger to help Sebastian as he pursues his enemies through the centuries.

This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England. A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson---who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist - Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.

Acclaimed biographer Carolly Erickson brings history vibrantly to life with her powerful flesh-and-blood portrait of Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender to the British throne. Courageously attempting to conquer England, this significant figure in Scottish history divides the troubled British kingdom and disturbs decadent monarchies throughout the entire European continent.

Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them just fine. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather forecasts, and tins of pineapple chunks---not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency.

St Michael’s Church may be derelict but it’s not deserted. Someone still comes here to worship on nights when the moon is full. Arnold Landon should know. He’s seen the grisly evidence for himself. Blood among the roses. The butchered remains of a man, tangled in the undergrowth. The victim was a traveler. How did he come to be in the churchyard? Arnold has a theory that leads back centuries, all the way to the cult of the Raging Wolf. Everyone tells him it’s impossible, that the cultists are dead and buried. But the devil wears many faces.

Ridmark Arban is the Gray Knight, outcast and exiled from the High King's realm. Yet he alone sees the danger of the terrible Frostborn, the creatures that will sheathe the world in ice and quench all life. But none of the lords of the realm believe his warnings. And his enemies want him dead...and the secret allies of the Frostborn wish to silence him forever. As old foes and new enemies close around him, Ridmark must fight for his life. Or else the Frostborn will return, bringing eternal ice and darkness with them.

In this blistering polemic, veteran journalist Mick Hume presents an uncompromising defence of freedom of expression, which he argues is threatened in the West not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism and you-can't-say-that. The cold-blooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January 2015 brought a deadly focus to the issue of free speech. Leaders of the free-thinking world united in condemning the killings, proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie'.

A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.

The magnificent civilization created by the ancient Greeks and Romans is the greatest legacy of the classical world. However, narratives about the "civilized" Greek and Roman empires resisting the barbarians at the gate are far from accurate. Tony Spawforth, an esteemed scholar, author, and media contributor, follows the thread of civilization through more than six millennia of history. His story reveals that Greek and Roman civilization, to varying degrees, was supremely and surprisingly receptive to external influences, particularly from the East.

British soldier Peter Lennox, a POW in an Italian prison camp, is still fighting his own war. An artist in civilian life, his hands bear the scars of wounds received during his capture at the fall of Tobruk, and he suspects he will never paint again. The only thing that sustains him is plotting his escapes, no matter how many times he is recaptured. But in September 1943 the Italians surrender to the Allies, and Lennox is free.

Rasselas and his companions escape the pleasures of the "happy valley" in order to make their "choice of life". By witnessing the misfortunes and miseries of others they come to understand the nature of happiness and value it more highly. Their travels and enquiries raise important practical and philosophical questions concerning many aspects of the human condition, including the business of a poet, the stability of reason, the immortality of the soul, and how to find contentment.

Andrews is found dead in his own living room. His head blown to bloody smithereens. Who will finish what the dead man started? The publisher turns to Arnold Landon. And why wouldn’t he pick up the mantle? Everyone tells him it’s safe. The police have their man for Andrews’ killing. But the closer Landon gets to Andrews’ checkered past, the less certain he becomes. Could the true killer be out there still? Watching, waiting for his chance to strike again …

A haughty professor comes calling on Arnold Landon for research assistance. But he’s overlooked an important fact. Landon already has a job at the council—along with a raft of superiors who’d rather he focused on the dispute at hand. Namely, who is the rightful owner of the Kilgour Estates? And the opulent manor house in the grounds? Dashing rake Patrick Yates insists it’s all his. But a black sheep in the family returns to claim otherwise. Who is telling the truth?

From the great biographer of the Romantics, This Long Pursuit is a sweeping exploration of a career devoted to the art of life-writing. Thirty years ago Richard Holmes published Footsteps - a revolutionary novel that would become a best seller and influence profoundly a whole generation of younger writers. The Long Pursuit is a companion audiobook in that it ranges widely over the arts, science, poetry and inspiration to reflect upon the practice and importance of biographical writing.

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction - the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas - has long been the symbol of Cortés' bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere.

On a fine summer's day in June, 1914, Ian Rutledge pays little notice to the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo. An Inspector at Scotland Yard, he is planning to propose to the woman whom he deeply loves, despite intimations from friends and family that she may not be the wisest choice.

Has something indeed happened to evangelical theology and to evangelical churches? According to David Wells, the evidence indicates that evangelical pastors have abandoned their traditional role as ministers of the Word to become therapists and "managers of the small enterprises we call churches". Along with their parishioners, they have abandoned genuine Christianity and biblical truth in favor of the sort of inner-directed experiential religion that now pervades Western society.

Late one night, Lynne Anderson reveals to her lover that she has something to tell him. And it’s not just pillow talk. But before she can spill her shocking secrets, a shooter silences her and her lover for ever. Meanwhile, her husband Kevin Anderson has disappeared, leaving behind only a partial report on the ancient tower houses he and Arnold Landon are reviewing. Arnold is left trying to puzzle out Kevin’s skimpy notes. But the deeper he gets the more he fears for his missing coworker.

Reggie and Midge, genteel husband and wife who live in what was the family's more or less stately home, are now the reluctant managers of Chortlesby Manor Hotel, an English country inn of no particular distinction. But even this transformation will not solve their financial problems. The possibility of succor comes instead in a transatlantic phone call from Midge's old classmate, Victoria, who is arranging "mystery tours" of the English countryside for American visitors and wants to use Chortlesby Manor as one of the locales of her staged murders.

The story of Catholic Emancipation begins with the Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in 1780, fuelled by a reduction in Penal Laws against Catholics harking back to the 16th century. Fifty years later, the passing of the Emancipation Bill was hailed as a 'bloodless revolution'. Yet, had the Irish Catholics been a 'millstone', or were they the prime movers?