Showing results by narrator "Barbara Barnes" in All Categories

Award-winning novelist Vikram Seth is renowned worldwide for his magnum opus A Suitable Boy. But his dazzling debut, though less well-known, is equally innovative, masterly and ambitious. First published in 1986 and inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, it is written entirely in verse, comprising almost 600 stanzas of rhyming sonnets. This epic poem focusses on the interconnected stories of five young professionals, as they make their way in the 'unfettered city' of San Francisco in the '80s.

Felicia, Lizbeth Rose's younger half-sister and student at the Grigori school within the capital of the New Holy Russian Empire in San Diego, is caught between secrets and powerful family struggles. As a distant relative to the Tsar, she provides an essential service to him by providing blood transfusions for his hemophilia, and she is thus given rare access and dismissed as if cattle. At the Grigori school she is seen as a charity case, a poor orphan with no prospects and no sign of magical prowess—the latter which Felicia keeps purposefully hidden.

My brother was 13 the first time he tried to kill me. These days, Della is a loving wife, a dedicated teacher, a woman trying to do her best. She has put her past far behind her. But she hasn’t forgotten the lessons she learned. It’s just a regular morning when Della welcomes Zoey to her English class. She treats her like any other new student: assigns her a desk, hands out the work. But then she meets Zoey’s cold, calculating eyes and freezes as terrifying memories threaten to overwhelm her.

It’s a normal afternoon when I walk out the patio doors of our kitchen to check on Mia, my stepdaughter, who is swimming in our backyard pool. But she’s gone. My heart stops when I see the back gate is open, her pink, fluffy towel lying folded on a chair. I was just feet away. Why didn’t I hear her scream? Who took our little girl?

Boy: Novak turns 20 and takes a bus from New York to the end of the line, Flax Hill, Massachusetts. Here she finds Snow, a mild-mannered and deeply cherished girl. Snow displays a certain inscrutability that's simply harmless, until Boy gives birth to Snow's sister, Bird. When Bird is born Boy is forced to re-evaluate the image Snow's family have presented to her, and Boy, Snow, and Bird are broken apart.

After 10 years in the Huntsville State Penitentiary, Jasper Curtis returns home to live with his sister and her two daughters. Lizzie does not know who she's letting into her home: the brother she grew up loving or the monster he became. Teenage Katie distrusts this strange man in their home, but 11-year-old Joanne is just intrigued by her new uncle. Jasper says he's all done with trouble, but in a forgotten prairie town that knows no forgiveness it does not take long for trouble to arrive at their door....

In this spellbinding collection, Sara Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with 14 short stories, including one new V.I. story and seven other classics featuring the indomitable detective. In 'Miss Bianca' a young girl becomes involved in espionage when she befriends a mouse in a laboratory that is conducting dark experiments. Ten-year-old V.I. Warshawski appears in 'Wildcat', embarking on her very first investigation to save her father.

One month since she lost her husband, Dr Leah Wright knows it’s time to return to her family home. Though the crime scene tape and blood stains are gone, she will never feel safe with her daughter there again. Receiving a call from Detective Luka Jericho to assist with a police investigation is a welcome distraction, until she sees the scene: a wife dead, another family ripped apart. As Leah is the new head of the Crisis Intervention Center, Luka knows she can help him speak to the victim’s traumatized husband, who he suspects might have had something to do with his wife’s death.

Yvette and Yvonne Crawford are twin sisters, born on a humble patch of East Texas prairie but bound for far more dramatic and tragic fates. Just as an untold fortune of oil lies beneath their daddy’s land, both girls harbour their own secrets and dreams - ones that will carry them far from Texas and from each other. As the decades unfold, Yvonne will ascend the highest ranks of Parisian society as Yvette gives herself to a lifetime of worship and service in the streets of Jericó, Colombia.

Dr. Leah Wright returned to her childhood home in rural Pennsylvania with her husband to find peace and quiet, start afresh, and raise her six-year-old daughter Emily. But when she gets home one dark winter night, clutching roses in her hand, she finds her daughter huddled under her bed and her husband’s blood all over the floor.... When Detective Luka Jericho is called to investigate, he’s shocked to learn that the killer left a witness behind - the victim’s young daughter.

Tess has been determined to get revenge for her father ever since he was falsely accused of misusing company funds and unceremoniously let go from Diamond Enterprises. Applying to be executive assistant to the elusive, elderly head of the company, Mr King, seems the ideal way to get inside the firm and clear her father's name. But the job interview is not what she expects. Arriving at the company HQ, she is escorted to a helicopter, blindfolded and flown to a secret location.

In the summer heat at the Craven County Fair in rural Pennsylvania, Dr. Leah Wright is shocked to find a pregnant woman hiding from view and in labor. Leah manages to deliver the baby safely, but the woman won’t reveal her name. She's terrified, running from someone, and days later both she and her newborn son go missing....

Before: Olivia knows she is lucky. She has a loving husband, Frank, an adorable son, Jake, and a beautiful new home. It couldn’t be more different from her childhood on the outskirts of Whitaker, dirt poor and dreaming of getting out. But at the end of long days with no one to talk to, always feeling like she’s not quite good enough, she starts to wonder if there’s a better life waiting.... After: Everyone in Whitaker knows who Olivia is. She’s the woman who left her family for no-good Dane Miller - and the one who most likely shot him.

Modern and diverse, these women of different classes and ages struggle with sexuality, fate, motherhood, infidelity, desperation and an overriding will to survive. We meet Greta, a cookbook editor who is chosen by Tavi, the hottest writer of his generation, to edit his new book. The book becomes a best seller, and Greta is propelled out of her marriage by her own ambition and success.

Celia is the struggling single mother of an exceptionally, angelically beautiful child: nine-year-old Rachel. All too aware of the precarious balance of the life she has built for the two of them, she worries about her daughter's longing for the father she has never met. When Rachel disappears one summer night during a blackout, Celia is stricken with guilt and terror about what her choices might now mean for her daughter's fate.The media coverage of the abduction is tremendous, running nationwide. Closely monitoring events is Ron, an appliance repairman who lives in the neighbourhood.

In Twice upon a Time, the third volume in The L.M. Montgomery Library, Benjamin Lefebvre collects and discusses over two dozen stories from across Montgomery’s career as a short fiction writer, many of them available in book form for the first time.

The world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), the author of Walden, “Civil Disobedience,” and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, 27 of today’s leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them.

Prudence Rutledge is terrified. She sits in her isolated New England farmhouse, fearing that her husband is stepping out on her. Seems like Saul has been seen down at the pond, meeting up with a young woman named Ora Brand. Trouble is, Ora Brand has been dead for over a year.

Tess has been determined to get revenge for her father ever since he was falsely accused of misusing company funds and unceremoniously let go from Diamond Enterprises. Applying to be executive assistant to the elusive, elderly head of the company, Mr King, seems the ideal way to get inside the firm and clear her father's name. But the job interview is not what she expects. Arriving at the company HQ, she is escorted to a helicopter, blindfolded and flown to a secret location.

Tess has been determined to get revenge for her father ever since he was falsely accused of misusing company funds and unceremoniously let go from Diamond Enterprises. Applying to be executive assistant to the elusive, elderly head of the company, Mr King, seems the ideal way to get inside the firm and clear her father's name. But the job interview is not what she expects. Arriving at the company HQ, she is escorted to a helicopter, blindfolded and flown to a secret location.