Showing results by narrator "Anne Flosnik" in All Categories

Fenella Thane is a desperate woman. Her absentee husband of eight years has served her with divorce papers, and she looks likely to lose her beloved home and be forced into a convent. There is just one slim chance to avoid this fate, one person of prominence at court who she knows has the ear of the King. Oswald Vawdrey, the man who cruelly jilted her when she was a starry-eyed 15-year-old with a head full of romantic dreams.

One of the world’s most acclaimed fantasists, New York Times best-selling author Robin Hobb returns to the world of her popular Tawny Man trilogy with Dragon Haven - the second book, following Dragon Keeper ("Imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last" (Booklist)) in an epic adventure about the resurgence of dragons in a world that both needs and fears them. Hobb, whose Soldier Son trilogy has won raves from critics, fans, and peers alike, returns to the Rain Wilds with Dragon Haven.

Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire.

Roland Vawdrey is used to the best. As the King's champion he sets all the maiden's hearts a-flutter. When it comes to picking out a wife, he knows exactly what he requires, perfection of face and form. Naturally, his choice falls on the fair Lenora. His dreams may be haunted by a stolen kiss with uptight Eden, but he's not about to throw himself away on some prim, paragon of virtue! Eden Montmayne prefers poets to knights, and would rather read a book than watch a joust. When a betrothal feast goes awry, there's a truly scandalous outcome for Eden and Roland.

When a crisis of faith prompts his departure from the Church of England, Margaret Hale’s father moves his family north to bleak, industrial Milton. At first, Margaret is put off by the town’s grit and poverty - a stark contrast to her rural southern hometown. But when she is awakened to the suffering of Milton’s hardworking citizens, she makes it her mission to improve their lives. However, Margaret soon finds herself at odds with the man she is falling in love with - the handsome, bullheaded industrialist John Thornton.

Princess Una harbors no illusions about her claims to Karadok's throne. The last of her ill-fated line, she is just grateful she emerged from the dark days of war with her head still on her shoulders. After three years under house arrest, she is keen to start her own life afresh, hopefully in relative obscurity. What she does not realize is the extraordinary scheme the king has devised to find her a suitable bridegroom.

Prince Rumon of France, descendant of Charlemagne and King Alfred, is a searcher. He has visions of the Islands of the Blessed, perhaps King Arthur's Avalon, "where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow". Merewyn grows up in savage Cornwall - a lonely girl, sustained by her stubborn courage and belief that she is descended from the great King Arthur. Chance - or fate - in the form of a shipwreck off the Cornish coast brings Rumon and Merewyn together, and from that hour their lives are intertwined.

Historians have only recently awakened to the importance of the family, the basic social unit throughout human history. This book traces the development of marriage and the family from the Middle Ages to the early modern era. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century, it follows the development—sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary—of significant elements in the history of the family.

When Amy and Effy Tribble, two charming but impoverished spinster sisters, lose out on a much needed inheritance, they place an advertisement in The Morning Post and hire themselves out as professional chaperones. Vowing to prepare even the most difficult misses for marriage, the Tribble sisters will spend a London season on each client in this delightful Regency series, The School for Manners. Felicity Baronsheath, their first assignment, turns out to be more of a challenge than they ever imagined.

When Garron of Kersey returns home from the king’s service to claim his title as Baron Wareham, he’s shocked to find Wareham Castle very nearly destroyed by a man called the Black Demon. According to the last starving servants inside the castle walls, the Black Demon was looking for silver belonging to Garron’s brother Arthur.

On a Viking fortress raid, the Lord of Hawkfell Island plans to take the beautiful Mirana hostage. But she has other plans for the lord.

Roland de Tournay is a handsome rogue with a subtle wit and quick tongue. But he meets his destiny when he must rescue Daria of Fortesque - as daring, as clever, as fascinating as he is himself.

Our capital city has always been a thriving and colorful place, full of diverse and determined individuals developing trade and finance, exchanging gossip and doing business. Abandoned by the Romans, rebuilt by the Saxons, occupied by the Vikings and reconstructed by the Normans, London would become the largest trade and financial center, dominating the world in later centuries. London has always been a brilliant, vibrant, and eclectic place.

At five and 20, Prudence Merryweather knew very well the risks a woman took by visiting a gentleman in the dead of night. But bearding the notorious Earl of Angelstone in his den was the only way to stop him from engaging her hot-headed brother in a duel. And that was why she found herself ushered into Sebastian's forbidding presence at three in the morning - and thoroughly kissed before dawn.

Lexy Culhane follows in stunned silence as her father bundles her younger brothers onto the train in a midnight flight away from the only life they have ever known. It seems impossible to her that her gentle, loving mother could have shot a man.

Sophia White knows she will never marry into polite society. The illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, she works at the Tantalus Club, a discreet establishment for gentlemen - and her only suitor is a pastor who wants to save her soul. So when Sophia is invited to spend the holidays at the estate of Adam Baswich, the devilishly handsome Duke of Greaves, she is delighted - and determined to enjoy her last nights of freedom before surrendering her hand.

Returning to Terre d'Ange, Moirin finds the royal family broken. Wracked by unrelenting grief at the loss of his wife, Queen Jehanne, King Daniel is unable to rule. Prince Thierry, leading an expedition to explore the deadly jungles of Terra Nova, is halfway across the world. And three-year-old Desiree is a vision of her mother: tempestuous, intelligent, and fiery, but desperately lonely and a vulnerable pawn in a game of shifting political allegiances. As tensions mount, King Daniel asks that Moirin become Desirée's oath-sworn protector.

Once there were great magicians born to the Maghuin Dhonn, the folk of the Brown Bear, the oldest tribe in Alba. But generations ago, the greatest of them all broke a sacred oath sworn in the name of all his people. Now, only small gifts remain to them. Through her lineage, Moirin possesses such gifts---the ability to summon the twilight and conceal herself, and the skill to coax plants to grow.

Severin of Langthorne returns to his family's estate to find his family and land in ruin. His father and brother dead, his mother demented, he is the new Baron Louges, an empty title due to the destruction of his world. Meanwhile the Earl of Oxborough, Fawke of Trent, has selected Severin to marry his daughter and only heir. While his new place in society seems enviable, his new wife detests him. The ill-matched marriage, coupled with "Rosehaven", the mysterious property in which they live, presents a challenge once again for Severin.

Years ago, the magnificent dragon queen Tintaglia forged a bargain with the inhabitants of the treacherous Rain Wilds. In exchange for her protection against enemy invaders, the humans promised to protect an unhatched brood of dragons. But when the dragons emerged as weak and misshapen hatchlings unable to fend for themselves, dragonkind seemed doomed to extinction. When even Tintaglia deserted the crippled young dragons, the Rain Wilders abandoned the burden of caring for the destructive and ravenous creatures.