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  Seafarer's Secret The: A Cozy...

  Hoang Nguyen

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  The Seafarer's Secret: A Cozy Mystery of Coastal Towns and Sunken Treasures 🏖️🗝️ 
  When marine biologist Maya stumbles upon a body washed ashore with a cryptic, ancient ship's log, her peaceful life in a sleepy coastal town is turned upside down. Suddenly, she's entangled in a dangerous mystery that dates back to the golden age of pirates. 
  Teaming up with a handsome and skeptical local ship captain, Maya must use her knowledge of the sea and its secrets to piece together the clues. But they aren't the only ones interested in the past. As modern-day treasure hunters descend on the town, willing to do anything to claim the sunken prize, Maya finds herself navigating perilous waters where the real treasure is the truth—and staying alive to uncover it. 
  Perfect for fans of: 
  🔍 Cozy Mysteries & Small-Town Settings 
  🏴‍☠️ Pirate History & Sunken Treasure 
  🦈 Marine Life & Coastal Charm 
  💕 A Touch of Sweet Romance 
  Dive into this captivating series starter, perfect for a relaxing listen by the sea. Narrated by the wonderful Anabella.

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  A Perplexing Case - From their...

  H D Everett

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  Henrietta Dorothy Huskisson was born in January 1851 in Gillingham, Kent. 
  Little reliable information on her life is available and almost nothing on her early life.   
  The first concrete information concerns her marriage at age 18 to the solicitor Isaac Edward Everett. 
  It was only at the age of 44 that she began her literary career under the pseudonym of Theo Douglas, a popular device in a society that still frowned upon women writing for income. 
  During her lifetime she was a popular author and wrote 22 books and those were published by 17 different publishers. 
  Although she wrote some historical novels her main output was centered on fantasy and supernatural themes. 
  Henrietta Dorothy Everett died in Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire in September 1923.

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  Hearts and Hands

  O. Henry

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  "Hearts and Hands" is a short story by O. Henry, published in 1910, which focuses on a train journey in which a pretty young woman makes the acquaintance of a former suitor who is handcuffed to another man.
   
  William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 - June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer born in Greensboro, NC, known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. O. Henry's stories are known for their naturalist observations, witty narration, and surprise endings.

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  Old Fashioned Landowners -...

  Nikolai Gogol

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  Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore.   
   
  His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre.  This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the age of 12.  Here he participated in school theatre productions and refined his mastery of his native Ukrainian and also the Russian of his Imperial masters. 
   
  In 1828 he went to St Petersburg and unsuccessfully tried to begin a career as an actor after finding that with no money and no connections the civil service was barred to him. 
   
  Embezzling money from his mother he embarked on a trip to Germany. When the money ran out, he returned to St Petersburg but the experiences were used in a series of stories he contributed to periodicals.  These tales were steeped in his childhood memories of the Ukrainian landscape and peasantry enlivened with the supernatural of its folklore woven with realistic events of the day.  He wrote in Russian in a whimsical, colloquial style with a smattering of Ukrainian words and phrases that provided an authenticity.  Eight stories were published as ‘Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka’.  Seemingly all at once fame and fortune arrived. Gogol was hailed by his contemporaries, including Pushkin, as a pre-eminent writer of Russian literature.   
   
  His success continued with his brilliant plays ‘The Inspector General’ and the comedy ‘The Marriage for the Theatre’, both being highly acclaimed.   
   
  In 1834 he became Professor of Medieval History at the University of St. Petersburg but with little academic or teacher training, failed to adequately fulfil many of his duties and soon resigned this post.  With no obligations and using his earnings from his writing, which now included the impressionistic and immortal ‘Dead Souls’, Gogol travelled around Europe, spending the most time in Rome where he studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera.  
   
  In the 1840s Gogol became preoccupied with a need to purify his soul and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In tandem he fell under the influence of a strict and austere spiritual ascetic who persuaded him to observe strict fasts that, allied with his depression and deteriorating health, contributed to his death on 21st April 1852 at the age of only 43. 
   
  In ‘Old Fashioned Land Owners’ Gogol describes a peaceful setting and a peaceful couple who have grown old together.  But foreboding makes an entrance and life is now a series of cruel twists that breaks everything.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Herman Melville, George Eliot,...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  In this decade life on both sides of the Atlantic relied on territorial expansion and the gathering of industrial muscle.  The people who live there merely cogs in a vast machine.  Our authors illuminate these times with words that bring humanity and life to these literary gems.  
   
  01 - The Top Ten - The 1850's - An Introduction 
  02 - The Lifted Veil - Part 1 by George Eliot 
  03 - The Lifted Veil - Part 2 by George Eliot 
  04 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 1 by Herman Melville 
  05 - Bartleby the Scrivener - Part 2 by Herman Melville 
  06 - The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell 
  07 - Master Zacharius - Part 1 by Jules Verne 
  08 - Master Zacharius - Part 2 by Jules Verne 
  09 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev 
  10 - A Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins 
  11 - Psyche's Art by Louisa May Alcott 
  12 -The Lake Gun by James Fenimore Cooper 
  13 - Two Offers by Frances Watkins Harper 
  14 - Gods in Exile by Heinrich Heine

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  A Saga of the Seas - From their...

  Kenneth Grahame

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  Kenneth Grahame was born on 8th March 1859 in Edinburgh. 
  At age 5 his mother succumbed to puerperal fever.  His father, who had a drinking problem, now sent his 4 children to live with their grandmother at her large house in Cookham, Berkshire. Here the children lived in large open grounds next to the river.  These early experiences would in later years, be retold in his writing through a myriad of characters. 
  Grahame loved being a pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford and wanted to enroll at the university there but his guardian demurred on account of the cost. 
  Instead, a banking career was chosen for him, starting in 1879 at the Bank of England, where he rose steadily to the rank of its Secretary until retiring, with a pension, in 1908 due to ill health. 
  Alongside his commercial career Grahame had written and published various stories and essays in several periodicals. Some were anthologized as ‘Pagan Papers’ in 1893, and two years later ‘The Golden Age’ and later still ‘Dream Days’ and its masterpiece ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ became part of many home libraries.  His ability to view life through the lens of a young and curious child was superb, enabling the reader to easily identify with the character.   
  Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899 and they had one child; Alastair, born semi-blind and plagued by health problems.  In a heart-rending tragedy he would later take his own life whilst attending Oxford University in 1920.   
  In 1908 Grahame reworked many of the bedtime stories he had fashioned for his son into the enduring favourite; ‘The Wind in the Willows’, describing the heart-warming adventures of Mr Toad and his friends.   
  Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on 6th July 1932.

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