Showing results by narrator "Cat Gould" in All Categories

While her older sisters have sought out adventure, Lady Madeline Vivers is content to be the conventional one in the family. A respectable husband, spring and autumn in Town, a place in the country—these are Madeline's reasonable goals. And Mr. Harry Stern is not the man to help her reach them—no matter how much he causes her pulse to race. He is far too ambitious and determined to make his mark in Parliament. Yet, somehow he's convinced that Madeline is just the helpmate he needs . . .

A smart, provocative account of the erotic current running just beneath the surface of a stuffy and stifling Victorian London.

In 1860s London, two loosely overlapping groups of bohemians - the Cannibal Club and the Aesthetes - challenged the buttoned-up Victorian propriety to promote erotic freedom and expression. Sensually attuned and politically radical, they were among the most influential thinkers and artists of the day, from Richard Burton to Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris.

Sophia Westlake is an extraordinary seer, gifted with the ability to see past, present, and future in dreams and visions. Her talent led to the destruction of the Caribbean pirates plaguing England's shipping and gained her renown and the accolades of her peers. But when she accuses a prominent politician, Lord Endicott, of embezzling from the army, her dream is "proved" false, and she is disgraced, her reputation ruined and her career in the army's War Office over.

I am loyal, but I will betray you. I am strong, but I have scars. I am an angel, but the devil. I met her when I was 16 and she was a breath of fresh air. She swooped in, making me smile. But then she left, taking my next breath with her. Her smile could light up a room, making my black heart pitter patter. I found her again 10 years later, with a syringe in her arm. Blood coming from between her legs. She was broken and I was glad she was broken. She wouldn't think less of me and my damaged ways.

When an unexpected windfall brings together strangers Shauna and Frankie, one woman is popping champagne corks - but the other just wants to cry. For her part, Shauna is pouring celebratory drinks. Since her heart was broken and her dreams shattered, she’s been ready for a fresh start. Surely she deserves some good luck at last?

The Cancer Problem offers the first medical, cultural, and social history of cancer in 19th-century Britain. It argues that it was in the 19th century that cancer acquired the unique emotional, symbolic, and politicized status it maintains today. Through an interrogation of the construction, deployment, and emotional consequences of the disease's incurability, this book reframes our conceptualization of the relationship between medicine and modern life and reshapes our understanding of chronic and incurable maladies, both past and present.

I love you so much, Stella Hogan. You are the best part of my day. Vincent Booth's whole life has been one of responsibility, from his years in the military leading his men through battle to being president of the his club, the Wounded Souls. But with responsibility comes guilt. Death haunts him. To keep his family safe, he has to stay strong, but the club's beautiful cook could derail him. She has the power to bring him to his knees. He can't let her, can he? Will his deepest secret be his ultimate failure? Or can he trust Stella to be the light in his darkness?

At first glance, the small mountain settlement of Mount Big Town, or "Little Town" as the locals call it, seems to be a pleasant and peaceful rural haven. Senior Constable Tess Fuller and Sergeant Finn Maguire know better though, kept fully occupied trying to maintain some law and order in a town dominated by the huge feral Bycraft family. Can they recapture fugitive Red Bycraft before he makes good on his threat to hunt down Tess?

Dara is a normal woman living a normal life, as she approaches her 25th birthday. Though her vivid dreams and wild imagination often take her on adventures of her mind, she never expected that one day, she would be roped into a plot of madness and magic by four gorgeous, amazing, pain-in-the-arse guys who come stomping into her life and change everything....

Detective Sophie Allen is back to solve her toughest case. An undercover detective disappears. A retired prison guard is found dead. Drugs and contraband phones are out of control in the local prisons. How are they getting in? Can Detective Sophie Allen discover the links between these crimes? And will she find the missing detective before time runs out? A shadowy group with more influence than anyone suspected will stop at nothing to protect themselves.

A young man's body is spotted in the stormy sea off Dancing Ledge in Dorset. Did he lose his footing in the gale force winds and fall in? Or is there a more sinister cause of death? Detective Sophie Allen's team discover some curious links to a suicide that happened six months earlier. A strikingly attractive female student connects the cases. Alarming facts slowly come to light as the team probes more deeply.

At 28, Lady Arabella Niven is gentle, sickly, and firmly on the shelf. Having disobliged her father by refusing her last chance of marriage, she has been sent in disgrace to Blackhaven with two domineering aunts. Her one wish is to be left alone in a quiet cottage to write books on history. However, everything changes when she tries to rescue a naked man apparently drowning at sea. Thus begins an odd, fun friendship that quickly becomes passionate. For Captain Alban, the hero with a shady past, is rebellious and unconventional by nature.

Twelve-year-old Amy Birkbeck is checking her bat boxes late one cold January evening in the woods by her house. She witnesses something no child should ever see—a group of men rolling a body into the deep pool of the disused old clay pit. Meanwhile, DCI Sophie Allen's team is falling apart. One of the members of the unit goes missing. Surely he couldn't be the body in the pool? Or is something much darker going on? Then a second body is found in the disused clay pit. And it seems the dead man is connected to a suspected arms dealer....

Praxis Duveen is a survivor. At five years old, in 1920s England, she is still innocent, the product of an unstable mother and a flighty father who abandoned Praxis and her half-crazy sister, Hypatia. As the decades fly by, Praxis experiences many incarnations. Now, from her dingy basement apartment, where she's attempting to write a memoir, Praxis tells about the story of her remarkable journey - peppered with more than a few detours along the way.

Gian Crane, youngest of six, the family underachiever, started out with reasonable goals. But now at 32, the sum of her life is an uninspiring job and one major broken heart. If it wasn’t for her best friend Maddie, she’d have no joy in her life at all.

The Kellys are messy, loud, loving Australians. The Lees are sophisticated, aloof, buttoned-up Americans. They have nothing in common…except for the fact that their daughters are married. When a nearby volcano erupts during their short vacation to a remote tropical island off the coast of Queensland, the two families find themselves stranded together for six weeks. With only two island employees making up the rest of their party, everyone is forced to question what—or who—they really want.

Jackson Rafferty, second son of the 11th Earl of Devlin, held his dying brother in his arms and swore he'd avenge his murder. That pact made in blood led him to the back halls of Kingston Manor and the woman who would stand between him and pursuing the man Jack knew had killed his brother. Miss Jenevieve Kingston has a secret. Keeping it is the only thing keeping her father alive. When a rogue by the name of Jack Dawson comes dangerously close to spoiling everything, Jenna forces him from her home. But not before he has worked his way into her heart.

Milly has barely spoken to her sister Judith in years. They hardly exchanged a word at their mother's funeral. They could not be further apart. So when Milly gets an invitation to go on a hiking trip, she hopes it will be an opportunity for reconciliation. Inviting her school-friend Harper along with her for support, the small party head off together into the bush. What awaits Milly is far from just a bracing hike in the wilderness, but an unexpected encounter with the past. The form it takes is revenge. But who is enacting it against Milly, and why?

A man is found stabbed to death on the Southampton morning commuter train. But why can't Detective Sophie Allen's team find out anything about his history? And why was he staying in a house that seems to be owned by a government security unit? Then there is another stabbing, this time in a refuge for abused women. And again, Sophie can find very little about the victim's life.

A life-threatening incident had changed Mac Donovan’s life. Now restricted to desk duties, she was focusing on recovery and returning to her old job. She also knew she had to make the break from a dangerous secret relationship. On the positive side, she was seeing more of her friends and realizing how much she’d missed them. Her best friend, Dee, didn’t want Mac to move on alone and informed Mac she knew someone who would be just right for her. Mac wanted no such complications.