Other books that might interest you

• 

  Gold Rings (short story) (Twelve...

  Stuart MacBride

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Fifth story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season 
  There is never a good time to look upon the face of a dead loved one. But Mr Unwin has dedicated his life to helping the bereaved. While helping himself at the same time… 
  Stuart MacBride, the Sunday Times bestselling author, weaves a web of mystery and thrillers in GOLD RINGS. His unique blend of dark humour and hard-boiled detective stories makes this a top pick for fiction lovers. 
  For fans of Jd Kirk (A Killer of Influence), Ed James (Where the Bodies Lie), David J. Gatward (Grimm Up North), Tg Reid (The Killing Parade), and J M Dalgliesh (When Death Calls).

  Show book

• 

  A Lodging for the Night - A...

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice.  "A Lodging for the Night: A Story of Francis Villon" is a gripping tale set in 15th-century Paris. Francis Villon, a poet and a poor master of arts, finds himself entangled in a web of crime and desperation on a snowy November night. After witnessing a murder committed by his companions, Villon grapples with fear and moral dilemmas as he navigates the treacherous streets of Paris in search of shelter. This riveting story explores themes of honor, the consequences of one's actions, and the struggles of those caught in a life of poverty and crime.

  Show book

• 

  Dickon the Devil - From their...

  Sheridan Le Fanu

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born on 28th August 1814 in Dublin into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots.   
  For a time he and his siblings were tutored but Le Fanu would often immerse himself in the books of his father’s library. 
  In 1833 Le Fanu began his Law studies at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in 1839. Although called to the bar he instead began a career in journalism.   
  He was also writing. His first fiction story ‘The Ghost and the Bonesetter’ was published in 1838.  In 1843 came the novella ‘Spalatro: From the Notes of Fra Giacomo’, a hero with a particular necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, a forerunner to his later female vampire ‘Carmilla’.  
  In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett with whom he had 4 children. The following year his first novel ‘The C'ock and Anchor’ was published. Works now flowed from his pen and with a rapid increase in family finances they moved, in 1851, to Merrion Square, Dublin, where he remained until his death.  
  In 1858 Susanna died and Le Fanu became reclusive. It was during this period that he produced some of his best work.  Working only by candlelight he wrote through the night, burnishing his reputation as a major figure of 19th Century supernaturalism with many classics including; ‘Green Tea’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, and ‘In a Glass Darkly’.  
  Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu died in Merrion Square in his native Dublin on February 7th, 1873, at the age of 58.

  Show book

• 

  Love Through the Seasons - 4...

  Tracie Peterson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Four short contemporary romances from bestselling author Tracie Peterson take listeners to the author’s native state of Kansas. A single mother is braced for spring tornadoes and Stormy Weather when she encounters her son’s scout troop leader. A student finds her King of Hearts while participating in a summer Renaissance festival, but she may lack queenly confidence. Autumn isn’t just about the changing of the trees for a widow living with her mother and aunts on the family farm, it’s all about Falling for Love. A wife faces Silent Nights during winter as her marriage begins to crumble at Christmastime.

  Show book

• 

  The Ghost in the Cupboard Room -...

  Wilkie Collins

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London.  
  The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him. 
  He resumed his education at Mr Cole’s private boarding school in Highbury, Islington.  Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story.  This ‘little brute’ helped create one of England’s greatest writers.  
  On leaving school, in 1841, he became a clerk at a tea merchant before, 2 years later, publishing his first short story.  However, his first novel was rejected and remained so during his lifetime.  
  A brief stint at Lincoln’s Inn to please his father and to acquire a steady income was halted by his father’s death.  Collins then wrote and published his fathers’ memoirs.  He then completed his legal education though he would never practice.  
  In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens and there now started a period of sustained literary output and a remarkable lifelong friendship.  His stories were published in Dicken’s magazines, and he toured with Dicken’s theatrical before the two of them travelled to the Continent. 
  By the early 1860’s worrying signs of ill-health appeared with rheumatic gout.  As it worsened, he sought respite and cures in German spa towns and gave up writing to help his recuperation. 
  His personal life had become very complicated.  He was living with the widowed Caroline Graves and conducting an affair with a much younger Martha Rudd.  With the serialised release of ‘The Moonstone’ and vicious attacks of gout Caroline left him and married another.  Collins was now prescribed opium and was soon its lifelong dependent.  Martha bore him two children and with the return of a now divorced Caroline Graves he now divided his time between the two women. 
  In 1874 he set aside writing to tour North America on a reading tour. 
  Throughout his later years he continued to write and publish.  In all 30 novels, 14 plays, 60 short stories and over a 100 non-fiction essays as well as many more collaborations with Dickens. 
  In 1884 the Society of Authors elected him as it’s Vice-President. 
  Wilkie Collins died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, in London. He was 65.

  Show book

• 

  Sonnets on Anglo-Saxon History

  Ann Hawkshaw

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The history of Britain up to the Norman Conquest in the form of 100 prose commentaries, each followed by a sonnet. The commentaries set the historical scene, quoting from Bede, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and noted historians of the times, Hawkshaws sonnets are both imaginative and reflective, often casting new light on historical figures and events. Born in Yorkshire, Ann Hawkshaw spent much of her creative life in Manchester, where her husband John Hawkshaw was elected to Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and, as a friend of Elizabeth Gaskell, she was drawn into the intellectual and literary circle of the city. - Summary by Phil Benson

  Show book