Ergebnis gesprochen von "Jilly Bond" in Alle Kategorien

These 25 new stories mark Graham Swift's return to the short form after seven acclaimed novels and confirm him as a master storyteller. They unite into a richly peopled vision of a country that is both a crucible of history and a maze of contemporary confusions.

Wrongly accused of theft, innocent Celina Shelley is cast out of the brothel she calls home and flees to Quinn Ashley, Lord Dreycott, for safety. But the heat in the daredevil adventurer’s eyes tells Lina that the danger is just beginning.... Lina dresses like a nun, but flirts like a professional - and Quinn hardly suspects she’s a virgin! Now he knows the truth, will he wed her before he beds her?

Russia, 1910. Young Valentina Ivanova charms St Petersburg's aristocracy with her classic Russian beauty and her talent as a pianist. But she scandalises society when she begins a romance with Jens Friis, a Danish engineer. He brings to her life a passion and an intimacy she has never known. Unbending in their opposition, her parents push her into a loveless engagement with a Russian count.

Violet Hetherington has taken the rash step of joining a transatlantic cruise ship to New York to visit Edwin, an old friend. As she makes the six day crossing, she relives the traumatic events that led to her losing Edwin's friendship, and abandoning her career as a poet, for the safety of marriage and domesticity.

When a body washes up on the rocks below, everyone assumes it must be brutish Edward Parker. Weeks ago, he slipped over the cliff’s edge, never to be seen again. But on closer inspection, it’s not him. The dead man is Pat Duggan, son of a wealthy nightclub owner, and it’s not the sea that killed him—it’s a gunshot wound.

On the morning of 20 June 1837, an 18-year-old girl is called from her bed to be told that she is Queen of England. The young queen’s first few years are beset with court scandal and malicious gossip: There is the unsavoury Flora Hastings affair, a source of extreme embarrassment to the queen; the eternal conflict between Victoria and her mother; and the young queen’s hatred for Sir John Conroy, her mother’s close friend. Then there is the Prime Minster, Lord Melbourne - "Lord M" - worldly cynic and constant companion to the queen, himself a veteran of many a latter-day scandal.

Nash, the “dangerous” Duke of Malvern, has always bristled against the rules of English society. Hot tempered and fearful of becoming like his brutish late father, he lives a life of too much responsibility and too little joy. And although he’s vowed to never marry, a duke has a duty—and there’s only one way to get himself an heir and a spare. So Nash reluctantly takes a look around at society’s available young ladies to see who might be willing to put up with his one-word answers and frequent glowers.

Victoria and Albert have been destined for one another since birth. However, the passive Albert is well aware that marriage to a quick-tempered, demonstrative woman like Victoria could result in unnecessary scenes and stormy court feuds. And he is right. The young queen, as well as having to endure her constant pregnancies, is in perpetual revolt against anyone encroaching on her position – and Albert is doing just that. Despite attempts on her life and political crises

Anna Elliot is stuck in the past. No one can compare to Rick Wentworth, the man she was persuaded to give up. Meanwhile, Rick's moved on - and up. He's got a successful career and a carefully controlled love life where his heart doesn't get a look in. When they meet again, can she persuade him that their lost love is worth a second chance?

Scotland has been torn apart by civil war, and the young and passionate Catholic Mary Queen of Scots is in the hands of her enemies. Under duress, Mary abdicates in favour of her son, James VI, and flees to England for safety, boldly seeking refuge with her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. But Elizabeth has never trusted the ambitious Catholic queen and has Mary imprisoned.

In 1913 an orphan girl is delivered to The Hall of Eternal Splendour, seemingly destined to live out her life as a prostitute in its smoky backrooms. Yet one day hope appears in the unlikely form of a customs inspector, a modest man who will take Pan Yuliang as his concubine and introduce her to a glamorous life in 1920's Shanghai: a life of love and of art. But as Pan begins to realize her talent as a painter she also sees that she may lose something even more precious: a life in safety.

The summers spent at Roseland, the sprawling ancestral home of her best friend, Eloise, were among the happiest of Cathy's life. Tucked away on the Cornish coastline and brimming with history, Roseland seemed to belong to another century. Cathy has barely been back since Eloise's death a decade ago. So she is shocked when Jack, the love of Eloise's life and father of her children, announces that he is getting married, and that the wedding will take place at Roseland.

A high society Christmas Eve wedding at a secluded Scottish castle sounds like the perfect winter getaway for the three Dahlias - until a dead body wearing a wedding dress and a stolen diamond necklace turns up in the snow outside the family chapel, and the bride and groom are suddenly the prime suspects in a murder case...

In the shadow of Lewes castle lies buried an ancient tablet. Hours after discovering it, dashing local archaeologist Gideon Rivers is dead. Writer Virginia Woolf and her artist sister, Vanessa, both know firsthand that it doesn't take much to cause a stir in town. And when Gideon returned home from a dig in Syria with a glamourous Parisian heiress on his arm, all eyes were on him. But who would have conspired to murder such a charming young man? There are more suspects in his circle than it first seems: an ambitious fiancée, a jealous best friend, and a string of scorned former lovers.

Rosie lived peacefully in Moscow, and her mother told her fairy tales. One summer night, all that came abruptly to an end when her father and sister were gunned down. Now, Rosie’s only inheritance from her reclusive mother is a notebook full of eerie, handwritten tales, but there is another story lurking between the lines. 

This collection includes two of the most notable titles from author Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd.  

A World of Beauty: Tales from Pavlysh contains 19 charming little tales about the beauty of the natural world, and how nature supports all living creatures. A chicken hatches some duck eggs. A rowan tree welcomes some beautiful crested birds to feed on its berries. A blade of grass slumbers through the winter and awakens to joyfully greet the spring. In some of the stories, people engage with this beauty. A child admires the magic beauty of a snowflake, “a six-pointed star, so beautiful and shiny, that a fairy-tale master might have cut it from a plate of silver”. 

Emily Soldene's life spanned the entire Victorian era. As both leading lady and a formidable impresario with her own opera company, she was a darling of London’s music halls and theatre land, later reinventing herself as a journalist and writer. From humble working-class beginnings, Emily's fiery ambition would see her counting the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Charles Dickens as friends and mingling with the Rothschilds, Oscar Wilde and aristocrats. She even alleged that she had a close encounter with Jack the Ripper.

Christian Lamb is one of the last surviving Wren officers to have served throughout the Second World War, from Blitz ravaged London, to the important radar and operations rooms and undertaking a vital role in D Day. Escaping both the Spanish Flu pandemic when she was born and the pandemic we are emerging from today, she has reached the impressive age of 101. Now she leads us through the story of her extraordinary life and the wartime experiences of her fellow Wrens.

Cliff's End Cottage is a local landmark. Perched on the South Devon coast, its garden has begun slowly toppling into the sea, yet the elderly and infamously stubborn owner, Stella, refuses to leave her home. When Holly, a young journalist and single mum struggling to make ends meet, decides to interview Stella about her life, at first she's given short shrift. However, helped by a slice or two of cake and a couple of friendly cats, a tentative friendship begins to develop between the two lonely women.