Publisher: idb
Ralph Prescott, a lawyer with a New York City firm, is feeling the stress and strain of the demands placed on him by city and career. With a fellow club-member, E. Wesson Woodbury, he decides to travel west into the Canadian wilderness for a vacation of fishing and canoeing. After several misadventures in both canoeing and camping, they are openly hostile to one another ...
On the storm-swept coast of Scotland, where the sea claws at the land and the wind carries whispers of danger, a man seeks refuge in a lonely pavilion — and finds himself entangled in a web of love, betrayal, and survival. Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Pavilion on the Links is a masterwork of gothic adventure and romantic suspense — often hailed as one of the earliest modern thrillers. First published in 1880, this gripping tale follows a solitary wanderer who discovers two mysterious occupants hiding from assassins in a desolate seaside house. As the storm rages outside, secrets unfold within, revealing a past that refuses to stay buried. With its haunting atmosphere and emotional intensity, A Pavilion on the Links stands as one of Stevenson’s finest short works — a precursor to Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — where human passion and peril meet under the shadow of the Scottish sky. Narrated by John Riddle, this immersive performance brings every gust of wind, every secret glance, and every moment of dread to vivid life.Show book
Although now hidden in a company of East India soldiers, Bill ‘Smudger’ Smith still harbours an intention to escape. These plans are put on hold however when his former life as a wharf rat comes back to haunt him. Bill is a skilled thief with a sharp talent for deception. When the Company needs one of their men to infiltrate the fortress of Seringapatam, it falls to Smudger to gather the necessary intel to take down Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore. Will he succeed in his mission? And what will it mean for his ultimate plans for freedom? Finding himself increasingly tied to his fellow soldiers, the Devil’s Dozen, will Bill be able to part from his new-found family? Or are his adventures with the East India Company destined to continue?Show book
Captain Nathaniel Perry has survived the Battle of Waterloo with some slight distinction, and finds himself respected in his fashionable mess on the regiment's return to England. That is a problem, for he has no private income. He had managed well enough on his pay on campaign, but could not do so in the Peace. Simultaneously with his promotion to major in acknowledgement of his actions at the Battle, he is called to London at the behest of a dying grandfather, a merchant who had disowned him, disapproving of his mother's marriage. Perry discovers he is the sole surviving heir . . . and rich. Selling out of the Army and settling in London, he is soon noticed and his name remarked upon. He is then discovered by the paternal side, who do not dislike his money, but had disowned his father upon his unfortunate marriage. Belonging neither to one class or the other, Nathaniel has to make a new life for himself.Show book
This historical novel, told in two stories 20 twenty years apart, explores the relationships that unfold on the West Coast of Te Wai Pounamu New Zealand, in the mid-19th century, as isolated, difficult to access parts of the country are entered by European explorers guided by local Maori. Set in the 19th Century, it plaits together as a flax-root narrative prose and poetic imagery to tell a timeless love story. It links people with the natural environment, and blends languages, cultures, shared endeavour and compassion in a vivid multi-cultural epiphany of life in Aotearoa-New Zealand. - John Weir Kathleen Gallagher is a poet, playwright, filmmaker and novelist. She received the New Zealand Playwrights Award in 1993, and the Sonja Davies Peace Award in 2004 for the film Tau Te Mauri Breath Of Peace. She has authored three collections of poetry, 16 plays, six feature films, and two novels.Show book
The Englishman Richard Lamb is forced to flee to Montevideo, Uruguay after marrying an Argentinian girl without her father's permission. When he's unable to find work in the city, he curses the country and its inhabitants, wishing that it was still ruled by England. Looking for work in the countryside, he finds adventure and romance while reexamining his beliefs about freedom and civilization. The Purple Land is W. H. Hudson's first novel. Ill-received by both critics and the public when first published, it was reevaluated in later years, with Jorge Luis Borges saying that it was "perhaps unexcelled by any work of Gaucho literature." Hudson was raised in the Argentine pampas, where he spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna. In 1874 he moved to England, and was shocked by the ecological changes that industrialization had brought; this contrast helped inform the background of The Purple Land . W. H. Hudson (died 1922) was a major literary figure of the early 20th century. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. Adventure literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries captured the imagination of a reading public hungry for tales of exploration, danger, and heroism. The Purple Land belongs to this tradition of gripping narratives that transported readers beyond the boundaries of their everyday lives.Show book
The Lost Legion by Rudyard Kipling is a gripping tale of mystery, honor, and supernatural folklore set against the backdrop of the Indian frontier. Blending the stark realities of colonial military life with haunting legend, Kipling recounts the story of a rebel cavalry regiment that vanished into the Afghan hills—only to return as ghostly riders, eternally paying for their betrayal. When a daring night operation to capture a notorious tribal outlaw stirs echoes of the past, British soldiers confront the eerie presence of the lost regiment. This atmospheric story explores themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the inescapable weight of history.Show book
