Résultats lu par "Clare Wille" dans Toutes les catégories

Life in an English seaside town in the 1790s is harsh, and ‘captious, capricious’ Sylvia has a dilemma when the dashing harpooner to whom she is secretly engaged disappears, and her dull cousin Philip (who has more information about his rival than he lets on) offers her love and security.

The ruined manor promised her romance, but its master was maddeningly elusive. Prey to gothic sensibilities, Miss Lenora Breckinridge is smitten with the air of tragedy and romance surrounding an abandoned mansion. Convinced that she is fated to become its mistress, she sets out to find the master, secure in the belief that he will fall madly in love with her and they will use her fortune to restore the manor together.

Posie Parker, Private Detective, travels to the south coast to investigate the death of Elsie Moncreiff, a Housekeeper, who has fallen from the White Cliffs of Dover in a gale. But the question is, was it bad luck, or was it murder? Elsie’s place of work was the glamorous cliff-side party house, White Shaw, and her employers were England’s renowned fashion designers, Petronella Douglas and Tony Stone, whose weekly parties - packed full of celebrities - are almost as famous as their clothes.

In the lush Shropshire countryside, free-spirited Hazel Woodus is torn between two men: the gentle parson Edward Marston and the passionate, fox-hunting squire Jack Reddin. Her wild side, deep connection to nature, and love of animals–especially Foxy, her pet fox–make for clear internal conflict: she wants to find contentment in her chaste marriage to Edward, but the allure of Reddin is inescapable....

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.

As England swelters during the hottest summer on record, Posie Parker, Private Detective, is summoned to Worton Hall Film Studios, where she steps into the heart of a sinister new mystery. Silvia Hanro, the blonde movie star du jour, has received death threats and a severed human finger alongside her morning coffee, and it’s all got too, too much.

Posie Parker always dreamt of becoming a Private Detective. So with nothing to lose, and the tiniest scrap of an inheritance and her haughty cat, Mr Minks, in tow, she sets up her own Detective Agency in Bloomsbury. But clients are hard to come by, and all seems in vain, until Posie receives an urgent call from her childhood friend, Lord Rufus Cardigeon, who is up to his neck in bother. He’s been robbed of a family heirloom—the priceless Maharajah diamond—by his showgirl fiancée, Lucky Lucy Gibson.

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.

Posie Parker, Private Detective, 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. Who hated him enough to do such a thing? But Amyas Lyle, youngest ever King’s Counsel and soon-to-be Judge, turns out to have been more complicated than Posie could ever have imagined.

The first chapter of a manuscript arrives on Publisher Marina’s desk. She assumes it’s just another novel by another aspiring writer. As the chapters arrive one by one, Marina is convinced they are about her past. There’s only one person who can know everything about the scandal, the trial, and the trauma that nearly broke her. This is one story that should never be told, and Marina is so desperate she will do anything to stop it getting out.

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.

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.

From sickly child to pioneering Victorian explorer, Isabella Bird defied convention. After back surgery in 1850 and the recommendation of life in the open air, she finally looked her malaise and her pain in the eye and set off across the world completely alone. In Colorado she covered 800 miles on horseback, climbing mountains, wrangling cattle, sleeping in snow and finding herself drawn to a violent, one-eyed outlaw with a soft spot for poetry, known as ‘Mountain Jim’.

Posie Parker, now London’s premier female Private Detective, is getting married, and with her wedding dress carefully packed, she’s bubbling over with excitement to arrive in Venice, the most romantic city on earth! But very quickly Posie finds she is walking into an utter nightmare: her lodgings on the Grand Canal have been consumed by fire; the fascist police are in control of the city; her famous fiancé, Alaric Boynton-Dale is moody and preoccupied, and most bizarrely of all, her hostess, the Countess Romagnoli, confesses she has a stalker and fears for her life.

Only after his regiment is recalled to the Continent to fight the horrific battle of Waterloo does Captain Geoffrey Mantell at last see the truth: that Miss Emily Chandry, the unfortunate daughter of the miser next door, is more than his childhood playfellow. He comes back to England after the war to claim her hand, but he is too late—Emily is lost to him, the wife of a stranger who does not seem to care for more than her social connections. Reeling from this turn of events, Geoffrey must try to move on. But Emily's situation will continue to haunt him.

First appearing in 1782, Dangerous Liaisons is one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The plot unfolds through a series of letters as the two main protagonists, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, attempt to bring about the seduction of a young woman. The epistolary nature of the novel gives a multi-faceted perspective of the action, which places the book firmly in the tradition of libertine literature.

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.

As her reputation steadily grows, Posie Parker is asked to accompany the utterly charming Inspector Richard Lovelace of Scotland Yard on an undercover mission of entrapment. Their destination is a glittering New Year’s Eve party at the remote Maypole Manor in Kent, the cliff-top home of Lord Robin Glaysayer.

Prepare for tales of unexplained murders, long-concealed mysteries, strange visitors in the night, and a secret in Posie’s own past, about her parents, which haunts her to this very day. But something is afoot. Several of the guests are acting shiftily, and when a sparkling Christmas gift under the tree is revealed to be a ticking time bomb, designed to cause multiple murders and mayhem, Posie and Lovelace have to locate the perpetrator, fast. Who would want to cause such untold misery, and why?

Just when Tom Breckinridge has decided to propose marriage to Diana Marshall, a rival has come out of the woodwork: Reginald Popplewell, a childhood neighbor of Diana's, and now heir to a viscountcy. Diana's father much prefers Reginald, but Tom believes Reginald has something to hide.