Showing results by narrator "Liza Ross" in All Categories

This century is crammed full of talents that showcase an enviable array of stories and genres. Across a hundred years the short story develops, becomes yet more emboldened, more accessible to a wider audience as these female authors challenge the literary bastions.

Loyalties are tested when worlds collide.... Every 2,000 years the dark star Oma appears in the sky, bringing with it a tide of death and destruction. And those who survive must contend with friends and enemies newly imbued with violent powers. The kingdom of Saiduan already lies in ruin, decimated by invaders from another world who share the faces of those they seek to destroy. Now the nation of Dhai is under siege by the same force.

San Francisco in the 1890s is a town of contradictions. Lizzie Hayes, a docile, middle-aged spinster, is praised for her volunteer work with the Ladies' Relief and Protection Society Home. When the wealthy but ill-reputed Mary Ellen Pleasant shows up with an orphan in tow, Lizzie is drawn to them both. For it is the beautiful Mrs. Pleasant, object of suspicion because of her rumoured voodoo practise, who holds the key to freeing Lizzie's rebellious nature.

The Dhai nation has broken apart under the onslaught of the Tai Kao, invaders from a parallel world. With the Dhai in retreat, Kirana, leader of the Tai Kao, establishes a base in Oma's temple and instructs her astrologers to discover how they can use the ancient holy place to close the way between worlds. With all the connected worlds ravaged by war and Oma failing, only one world can survive. Who will be sacrificed, and what will the desperate people of these worlds do to protect themselves?

Eleven-year old orphan Anne Shirley has red hair, a vivid imagination and cannot stop talking. Quite a shock for old Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert who wanted a boy to help them on the farm... Anne is soon the talk of the town with her funny ways and endless adventures, but it is not long before she has won the hearts of everyone. This classic story is set in Canada at the beginning of the 20th century and is one of the most enduring favorites of children's literature.

As far as Carol Spencer is concerned, the war has spoiled everything. She and Don had been engaged for years and were on the verge of marriage when he was shot down in the South Pacific, leaving Carol on the verge of spinsterhood at 24. She wants to take some kind of job in the war effort, but her invalid mother demands that Carol accompany her to the family's summer home in Maine. But when they arrive at the faded mansion, they find it completely locked up. The servants are gone, the lights are dark - and there is a body in the closet.

In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's summer house on a remote Minnesota lake. Her mother and two sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later, Lucy, the middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she leaves the house to her grandniece, Justine. For Justine, the lake house offers freedom and stability - a way to give her daughters the home she never had. But the long Minnesota winter is just beginning....

Disfigured by the blow of an abusive husband, the widow Mary McAllister has spent almost 60 years secluded in a white marble mansion overlooking the town of Mill River, Vermont. Most longtime residents of consider the marble house and its occupant peculiar, and few have ever seen Mary. But three newcomers - a police officer, his daughter, and a new schoolteacher - are curious about the reclusive old woman. Only the town priest truly knows the Mill River recluse, and the secret she keeps... a secret that, once revealed, will change the town, and the lives of its residents, forever.

JT Maroney, veteran river guide, is ready to take his 125th trip deep into the heart of the Grand Canyon, one of the most beautiful natural chasms in the world. JT think he’s seen it all before, but this trip will change him forever. For the next two weeks, his 12 passengers - mostly strangers to one another, and certainly to him - will paddle, swim, ride the rapids, sleep under the stars, and breathe in the drama of the landscape. They’ll also learn all about each other; more, perhaps, than they wanted to know.

This intensely dramatic and moving novel has remained a best-selling classic since it was first published in 1852. The slaves Eliza and George make a desperate bid to escape to Canada, while Uncle Tom is sold to two successive and very different owners. Abraham Lincoln himself acknowledged the role played by this seminal text in the Civil War, the aim of which was (in part) to emancipate the slaves of the southern states.

The March sisters are among the most beloved characters in children's literature, and Good Wives - the second volume of Little Women - picks up where its predecessor left off. As Meg marries John, Jo is faced with a romantic dilemma of her own, Amy travels to Europe, and Beth becomes increasingly ill. In this sensitive and lively novel, Alcott - "the Thackeray, the Trollope, of the nursery and the schoolroom", as Henry James called her - is on sparkling form.

>Little Women, closely based on Louisa M. Alcott’s own experience of family life, was first published in 1869 and has never lost its extraordinary power to move and delight - from the heartrending story of gentle Beth to the humorous adventures of tomboyish Jo, and Meg’s vain attempts to cut a fashionable figure in "society".

This great children's classic, written in 1900 and immortalised in the Judy Garland film The Wizard of Oz, retains its charm in this reading by Liza Ross. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion are all here in L. Frank Baum's literary technicolor - along with some of the music that made the film unforgettable.

Darkness falls. The undead rise to feast on the succulent blood of the living. For years vampires have fascinated great writers of the occult such as De Maupassant, Count Stenbock, E Nesbit and EF Benson. This is The Story Circle's collection of some of their spine-chilling tales told by award-winning actors.

Here are eight stories from master American writers of the 19th century. They vary from sinister tales by Ambrose Bierce - why is that window boarded up? - and a reflective moment in the life of a woman without children, but forced to look after children, to classic short stories by O. Henry and Stephen Crane. There is even an elegiac description of an eclipse by James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans.

Some people do not know that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was actually the first of a 13-story series. The Marvelous Land of Oz, the second story, brings the Scarecrow and the Tin Man into new adventures in the Land of Oz. In this story, which is as equally entertaining as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man and Scarecrow are persuaded to help out a young boy who finds himself in difficulty. There is also flying furniture among the oddities.

The March sisters are among the most beloved characters in children's literature, and Little Men picks up the story of fiery, headstrong Jo where Good Wives left off. Intelligent, funny, perceptive, and genuinely touching, the novel is set at a rather unusual boarding school run by Jo and her husband, where the pupils are encouraged to pillow fight and keep pets. When the penniless but talented orphan Nat Blake shows up on her doorstep, Jo takes him in, and his arrival sets in motion a chain of events that will affect all their lives.

Women's Short Stories - Volume 4. The art of writing a short story can be barely noticed by a reader such is the quality with which they are usually written. It is a difficult trade, an unforgiving discipline but for those who master it the rewards is many.

RCMP Constable Danutia Dranchuk is investigating a mysterious death at Sitting Lady Falls. The evidence she gathers points to three separate stories, leaving her with more questions than answers. Is this murder connected to two earlier killings of Aboriginal women? Are all three the work of the same killer? Some of the details are hitting a little too close to home, and Danutia is forced to examine her friendship with forensics head Corporal Surinder Sharma and his family.

Cleo Duvall is a middle-aged baker who runs the Clamshell Bay Bakery and Cafe in the pretty tourist town on the Washington State coast, and her cinnamon buns are Instagram-famous. The coffee shop is the heart of the village—neighbors gossip over coffee and pastries, and if you want to know anything about anyone, the cafe is the place to ask. As a way to share her love for the art and craft of baking, Cleo teaches a weekend class.