Showing results by narrator "Virginia Ferguson" in All Categories

A lush, romantic, and intense tale of first lust, first love, and the difference between the two.

Only a few months earlier, the young woman now known as Jane Smith had lived a life of luxury and privilege as the ruler of a small Balkan kingdom. She lived a life of glittering balls, the finest furnishings, the most handsome men, the most exquisite of foods. Her only friends were four bearded old men who served as her cabinet, and worshiped the ground she walked on. Then the Germans had marched in, and she and her four councilors barely escaped with their lives.

Mr. Alistair Price, heir to the elderly Viscount Melton, arrived in London with his eight younger siblings in tow. He is charged with keeping his family name above reproach until the season starts and his sister, Miss Adeline Price, is presented to society - though that proves far more difficult than Alistair ever expected when he discovers his rebellious sister climbing down the side of their townhouse and scurrying off to Whitechapel for an archery tournament.

The last thing the Duke of Greystone wants is a wife, until the Lady Jane Blackmore seeks out his quiet corner of Earl Braxton's ballroom. But there she stands, attempting to shut out the rest of the world by simply closing her eyes, but the duke understands better than most that life is never that simple.

When Princess Guendolen’s privileged existence is shattered by tribal war and the threat of rape impends, she is left with no choice but to surrender her virginity to a lowly commoner. The spoiled sovereign expects a night of torment and shame. Instead, her unlikely bedfellow introduces her to a world of carnal delights.

When Elizabeth’s best friend told her that she was in love, Elizabeth decided to do everything she could to forward the match between Caroline and Charlie’s friend Mr. Darcy. After all, Elizabeth and Caroline Bingley had always been the dearest of friends since they were tiny children, and whenever they were apart they wrote reams and reams of paper in correspondence.

At the age of 19, Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth of Hesse, stepped into the glittering court of the Romanovs, beginning a journey that would lead her from the shimmering ballrooms of St. Petersburg to the back streets of Moscow. Through intrigues, assassination, war and revolution, to the tragedy of her own horrific murder, she remained true to her calling to bring beauty into the world. Based on the true story of "the most beautiful princess in Europe", this novel is written in tribute to a remarkable and courageous woman.

February, 1603. In Richmond Palace, London, the last Queen of the Tudor dynasty, Elizabeth I, is dying. As Death hovers at her elbow, waiting for her to obey his call, the aged Queen looks back on her life, and on the trials, victories, and sorrows which brought her, eventually, to the throne of England.

Can a Duke's bastard win the heart of a lady? Plucked as an orphan from the slums of St. Giles' by his half-brother, the Duke of Blackmore, Sebastian Black soon rises to become one of the richest men in London, and a notorious rake to boot. His time at Eton has left him with a healthy disregard for the aristocracy - that is until he inadvertently becomes involved in the affairs of the prim, proper, and snooty Aurelia St Claire. Aurelia's brother, Lord Theodore Epsom, was reported missing after Waterloo, but she is convinced that she has sighted him alive and well in London.

Ever since she created a scandal at a Christmas ball, Charlotte Moore has dreaded the return of the holiday. This year, at a small Christmas party, Charlotte is tasked with proving to her family that she can behave within society's expectations or be permanently exiled to her aunt's rural manor. Charlotte is determined to stifle her unladylike urges and act the perfect debutante. But then the very cause of her past scandal comes knocking at the door, and it has, in tow, the daring, dashing, devil-may-care Henry Simmons.

Alenushka's Tales is a series of whimsical stories inspired by careful observation and great love of nature, written by Dmitrey Mamin-Sibiryak for his daughter Alena (Alenushka).

A year ago, Mr. Darcy suffered from an illness which robbed him of the use of his legs. However, he is determined to never become maudlin and behave as though his life is over and ruined just because part of it has become more difficult. Since he could not expect to recover any further, it was time to resume the ordinary course of his life.

Some might see the lessons in Odoyevsky's short and charming life manual for children old-fashioned and outdated. Some might even bristle at certain suggestions. However, we would like to urge our listeners to look beyond the somewhat antiquated rhetoric and consider these lessons as they were intended - guidelines for bringing up intelligent, well-educated, considerate, and industrious future spouses, parents, and, most importantly, engineers of the future world.

When both learn of the other’s lack of desire for love, they know the best chance to escape those seeking to wed them is to come to an agreement - one that will free them both from the pressures of matchmaking. But a marriage of convenience doesn’t imply a marriage without passion. As their feelings eventually warm toward one another, old enemies emerge and threaten everything they have worked for. Will they be able to draw strength from their blossoming love to defeat those who seek to destroy them, or will they deny their feelings and lose one another forever?

Abigail Sutton does not take kindly to being dumped. Desperation leads her to seek comfort in the arms of her surly horse trainer, Jack Johnson from America. A night of fleeting passion results in a life-altering “predicament”. Now, the baroness finds herself fighting for the attentions of an entirely different sort of man - a man who is much more than he seems - a man who might just offer her the family she’s never had. That is, if she can prove to him she is not just a pampered pain in the ass. Her pursuit of the handsome but stubborn drifter lands the baroness in Montana.

From a student to a workaholic journalist, Alyson hadn’t had a free day in years. That all changed when she bumped into a mysterious handsome stranger. Blown away by his charm, she broke the monotony in her life and started a fun and steamy relationship with him. She soon landed in the lap of luxury, living a life she could only imagine. Was this really prince charming or just a temporary fantasy?

Jeb Jackson, a once famous rodeo star, lives in isolation on his family’s storied ranch in Montana. Until the day a mysterious and complex young woman pays him a visit. Less of a visit and more like the surprise of his life - an unwelcome one at that. Or so it seems, when the beautiful stranger (who claims to know him) announces she needs “straightening out”. Now he’s got a drugged-up, freshly-divorced, sequin-encrusted beauty queen passed out in his bed and has no idea what to do with her or himself. Falling in love seems like the only option.

In the Metfield of the 1930s, you could do all of your shopping without leaving the village, have a choice of pubs and "spend happy evenings helping to dig potatoes and listening to the old boys". If this sounds too idyllic to be true, Evelyn Whiting's charming memoir of growing up in this Suffolk community is quick to remind us that making a living from the land was hard and tedious work in those days. There was no electricity and water came from the sky, or from the pond.

It wasn't all musketeers, mysterious ladies, poisoned gloves, and palace intrigue.... Sometimes, Alexandre Dumas stepped back from historic misadventures and wrote fairy tales - and a very good job he did of it, too.

Saskia watches the lives of others from her eyrie in Lavender Square with a lonely fascination. While the teacher, the recluse, the advertising whiz kid and the African woman and her young son run, rush, dart, and dash, she knows for sure that she will never have anything worth dashing to. But sometimes all it takes is a little magic to bring people together.