Classic Love

A most unusual request for insurance was made to Lloyds of London. It was outre enough to bring on what can best be described as something of “improbable dimensions.” The request was made by a young Brirtish Lord. He was engaged to an American heiress and was worried she might back out. An added part of the story is a guarantee there would be a sizeable payout if the ceremony stalls. The story of same can easily be called a delightful romantic comedy and it wouldn’t be surprising if you laugh out loud, or at least chuckle frequently.

There are so many kinds of love: romantic, filial, spiritual. The following stories by Mary Roberts Rinehart present all sorts of love. Many of the stories take place in hospitals, and two involve trans-Atlantic steam travel. Many have a light heart at their core, while some may induce the wonderment of social issues of their time and of ours. All end with an element of hope and happiness.

The world of young Mr. Lewisham is one day turned upside down when he meets and falls in love with Ethel Henderson, a young woman from London who is visiting relatives in Sussex. Their brief and innocent rendezvous has significant implications when Lewisham’s job is threatened. Some time later, Lewisham moves to London, where he decides to go search of Ethel, but finding her proves to be more complicated than expected.

An overlooked middle daughter destined to be a spinster. A handsome rejected naval officer. A family on the brink of financial ruin. Anne Elliot has never forgotten about the man to whom she was persuaded out of an engagement by her family. When he returns to Anne's life eight years later, will she be able to secure a second chance? Reinvigorated by the incredible narration of Prunella Scales, Persuasion is a story of missed opportunities, of family and class systems, love and heartache.

In best-selling author Katie MacAlister’s Love in the Time of Dragons, suburban mom Tully Sullivan wakes up in a far-off place surrounded by strangers—many of them muscular, sexy ones—claiming to be dragons. They insist Tully is a dragon, too, and that she’s committed crimes deserving of death. Now Tully must disprove the allegations before time runs out.

We all yearn for greater contentment. We try new planners, new apps, new jobs, new diets, and new relationships hoping that one more change will finally make our lives feel right. But no matter what we do, the peace we seek feels out of reach. How can we find the meaning and purpose we long...

A collection of seven of Shakespeare's best-loved plays adapted for children in plain English with additional commentary. Performed in plain English by a full cast.

Pip is a poor orphaned boy who lives together with his sister and her husband. Pip is not educated but has great dreams of the future. He is determined to get out of the low class and seek progress in the higher class. One day a lawyer appears. Pip has suddenly received a large fortune from a secret benefactor and he has to get to London to start his education. Pip’s life changes in a second. But he is ready to embark on his next journey.

Clara and Robert Hatrell lead an ideal life with their young daughter Daisy in a beautiful old fashioned cottage on the banks of the Thames. When his son Cyril goes away to school their friend and neighbor Ambrose Arden who is a notable scholar offers to tutor Daisy. Some time later Robert carrying a large amount in banknotes is found stabbed to death in a London rooming house supposedly lured there by the mention of someone called Toinette. The murderer is not found and the money trail implicates a Frenchwoman exchanging the notes in Cannes, Nice and Paris.

Years before his marriage to Olga Knipper and his self-imposed medical exile to Yalta, years before he even began writing the seminal works of dramatic literature for which he is renowned, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, to support his financially and physically struggling family, wrote stories...many, many stories. Starting in his early 20s, living in Moscow, he made a name for himself by capturing the peculiarities of Russian life through satire, humor, pathos, and passion. Myriad influences inspired his eventual words for the stage.

Jake escapes his horrific captivity as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Cassie is a caregiver at the military hospital and nurses Jake back to health. Their love begins over a bowl of Jell-O and carries them back home to the Kansas farm. Everywhere life takes them, there are others with the same haunting dreams of war. Some have only one leg and some have none. Some have just lost their way home. Cassie and Jake begin with one person at a time and over 27 years, hundreds of vets find a little peace on the bank of the farm pond, and they learn to reach back and help another buddy up the hill. The best and the worst of us live in these words and the depth of Jake and Cassie's love can be understood only in the context of the world they dared to change.

Maggie O'Shea knows that because of her dark past, there's no place for love in her life. She owns a successful store in Philadelphia, where she uses her special gifts to help the people she meets. Though this doesn't fulfill her, she is content. Most of the time.

Jonathan Lethem's new collection of stories is a feast for his fans and the perfect introduction for new listeners-- a smorgasbord of fantastic, amusing, poignant tales written in a dizzying variety of styles. Lethem is a trailblazer fo a new kind of literary fiction, sampling high and low...

Christmas should be a joyous time. But this year the celebration is overshadowed in sickness, sorrow, and disappointment. Seeing her grandmother struggle with pain and sadness, Emily decided to share a story that she's never told anyone. As old memories live again through her words, two broken...

About 50% of marriages in the United States will end in divorce. Many couples that don't get divorced end up unhappy. You know what I mean, because you've seen it. People with every intention of having a happy marriage and staying together for better , for worse - they just weren't able to make it happen and walked away defeated. Mary Emily and Ben Goodwin have dedicated their lives to helping couples have better relationships. This is an updated version of their classic marriage manual.

When Quentin Collins invited Lara Balfour to Collinwood, they knew each other only from the correspondence that had grown out of Quentin’s admiration for the haunting waltz her father had composed. Soon Quentin professes to love Lara - but is his love really a threat? His first wife’s throat was torn out by a wolflike creature who escaped capture. Since then, other young women have died in the same grisly fashion…in the full of the moon, when Quentin’s mysterious “attacks” occur. Lara faces the terrifying possibility that her brooding, sensitive host is a werewolf.

A collection of eight short stories from American author, journalist, and social activist Jack London. Written during his 'Klondike' period, the title story 'Love of Life' follows the trek of a prospector across the Canadian tundra.

Perfect for fans of the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn. Jacqueline Vaizey receives an invitation to the island of Sansegovia, where her recently passed father worked as a doctor. Her hostess Senora Cortina happens to have a charming, imposing grandson Dominic Errol, who clearly takes a liking to Jacqueline.

Eternal optimist Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge conceives another foolproof scheme to make himself - and his adoring new wife, Millie - rich: chicken farming! "No expenses, large profits, quick returns. Chickens, eggs, and the money streaming in faster than you can bank it." Dragging along his long-suffering old friend, novelist Jeremy Garnet, Ukridge begins his enterprise on a borrowed farm, with "borrowed" hens and a total lack of knowledge. Things soon prove a little trickier than expected on the farm....

John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. This collection includes "Love of Life", "A Day's Lodging", "The White Man's Way", "The Story of Keesh", "The Unexpected", "Brown Wolf", "The Sun-Dog Trail", and "Negore, the Coward".