Showing results by narrator "Nicola Barber" in All Categories

Wren is in the last place she ever wanted to be: backinside the dome. Held as a prisoner of her father, the Master General Enforcer,she is completely cut off from the outside. After a harrowing escape attempt,and finding Levi trapped in a cell, Wren's world is further turned upside downby what could be Pace's ultimate betrayal. Only Pace's whispered words keepher from losing all hope. "Things are not always what they seem." Those words,along with the sight of yellow-feathered Pip keep Wren fighting for what sheknows in her heart is right for everyone. She must break the glass.

When Wren's father realizes that his rebellious daughterand her friends are not falling into his plan of complacency, he turns themover to an even darker enemy. While Levi is certain his uncle will save them,the Quest and all their friends outside the dome seem to have disappeared.

The outside world is a brutal place, but Wren will not bebeaten. She holds strong to her belief that outside the glass there is thepromise of freedom and the hope for love. Wren must battle the forces that wantto enslave her, and the foolish whims of her own heart to free her world andfinally find where she belongs.

Wren MacAvoy works as a coal miner for a domed city that was constructed in the mid-19th century to protect the royal blood line of England when astronomers spotted a comet on a collision course with Earth. Humanity would be saved by the most groundbreaking technology of the time. But after nearly 200 years of life beneath the dome, society has become complacent and the coal is running out. Plus, there are those who wonder: Is there life outside the dome? Or is the world still consumed by fire?

A manuscript of a brief lecture Lewis Carroll once gave, Feeding the Mind discusses the importance of not only feeding one's body, but one's mind, as well. He wittily puts forth connections between the diet of the body and mind, and gives helpful tips on how to best digest knowledge in the brain. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) was an English author, best known for his works Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. He is prized for his ability to deal with word play, logic, and fantasy.

On a rainy afternoon on Killiney Hill, a young man walking, without his overcoat, happens upon a woman gazing out over Dublin bay, standing perilously close to the edge. From their testy encounter develops a remarkable friendship which will enable each to face afresh their very different, damaged pasts, and to look, however tentatively, toward the future.

Short novels may well be the perfect length for science-fiction stories. They are movie-length tales that resonate with moxie while fully exploring characters, new worlds, and ideas. The stories in this unabridged audio collection are the best-of-the-best short science-fiction novels published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of this form.

Seventeen-year-old Vanessa Sands is afraid of everything - the dark, heights, the ocean - but her fearless older sister, Justine, has always been there to coach her through every challenge. That is, until Justine goes cliff diving one night near the family's vacation house in Winter Harbor, Maine, and her lifeless body washes up on shore the next day.

Amid the sumptuous backdrop of the London season in 1905, headstrong Katherine Sinclair must join the ranks of debutantes vying for suitors. Unfortunately for Katherine, she cannot imagine anything more loathsome - or dangerous. To help ease her entrance into society, Katherine’s family has elicited the assistance of the Earl of Thornewood, a friend and London’s most eligible bachelor, to be her constant companion at the endless fetes and balls.

As a journalist for the Independent, Emma Bamford is swept along with the London rat race, lost amongst the egos of Fleet Street. Surrounded by budget cuts and bullies, the thrill of a breaking news story is no longer enough. And at 31, still struggling to get to a fourth date and surrounded by friends settling down to married life and babies, Emma decides to grasp her life by the roots and reclaim her freedom...by running away to sea and joining a complete stranger (and his cat) on a yacht in Borneo.

Nothing has been normal since Vanessa Sands learned that her sister was murdered by siren femme fatales of the watery depths and that everything she believed about her family was a lie. Her boyfriend, Simon, has been the only person Vanessa feels she can really trust. But now there are some secrets she can't tell even him. And when Vanessa finds herself in the sights of Parker, Hawthorne Prep's resident charmer, she needs someone to confide in more than ever.

When her father, Robert the Bruce, becomes King of Scotland, Marjorie Bruce becomes a princess. But Edward Longshanks, the ruthless King of England, has set his sights on Robert and his family. Marjorie is captured and imprisoned in a wooden cage in the center of a town square, exposed to wind, rain, the taunts of the townspeople, and the scorn of Longshanks himself. Marjorie knows that despite her suffering and pain, she is the daughter of noble Robert the Bruce and she will make her father, and her country, proud. For a true princess is a princess, whether in a castle or in a cage.

An unabridged audio collection of the "best of the best" science fiction stories published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of the genre as narrated by top voice talents. Stories in this year's collection include "Under the Moons of Venus" by Damien Broderick; "The Shipmaker," winner of the 2011 British Science Ficiton Association Award for short fiction, by Aliette de Bodard; Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee, "Re-Crossing the Styx" by Ian R. MacLeod; "Eight Miles" by Sean McMullen; and more.

Former witch hunter Elizabeth Grey is hiding within the magically protected village of Harrow, evading the price put on her head by Lord Blackwell, the usurper king of Anglia. Their last encounter left Blackwell ruined, but his thirst for power grows stronger every day. He's readying for a war against those who would resist his rule - namely Elizabeth and the witches, wizards, pirates, and healers she now calls her friends.

Madeleine Karno is an ambitious young woman eager to shatter the confines of her provincial French town. Driven and strong headed, Madeleine is set apart by her unusual occupation: assisting her father, Dr. Albert Karno, in his job as a forensic doctor.

There once was a princess lost in a forest, terribly distraught, who stumbled upon a talking iron stove in the middle of the forest. The stove told the princess he could direct her back to her father's kingdom if she promised one thing - that she would return and marry him. She was scared, but agreed, and made her way back to her father. Her father did not want his only daughter to marry an iron stove, so they tried to trick the stove by sending first the miller's daughter, and then the swineherd's daughter. He was not tricked, so soon the king relented and sent his daughter.

Malin has always been different, and when her father dies, leaving her alone, her choice is clear: stay and remain an outsider forever or leave in search of the mythical inheritance she is certain awaits her. Apprenticed to a series of strange and wonderful characters, Malin embarks on a grueling journey that crosses oceans and continents - from the high seas to desert plains - and leads to a discovery that she could never have expected.

Against the backdrop of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, recent Oxford graduate Claire is a mess. She's trapped in a disastrous relationship with a young academic, working a dead-end job, stunned by the emergence of secrets from her mother's past, and seemingly addicted to self-destructive behavior. But like the ceasefire that has brought renewed hope to Belfast, Claire too is afforded an opportunity to reflect, gradually learning to accept herself and to discover her sense of self-esteem and self-worth.

The Resistance still fights the invaders, but they are nothing more than an annoyance to the Illyri, an alien race of superior technology and military strength. When caught, the young rebels are conscripted. Part soldiers, part hostages, they join the Brigades, sent to fight at the edges of the growing Illyri Empire.

A scientifically minded noblemanLord Alan Gresham is the sixth son of the Duke of Langford and, as such, has been allowed to remain at Oxford to pursue his scientific studies. When the prince regent asks him to debunk the "ghost" of a dead actress haunting Carlton House, he cannot refuse, and is forced back to the Society he deplores. But upon meeting the daughter of the alleged ghost, his calm, logical investigation is disrupted. Learns the breathless chemistry of desire.

A year after the events that killed her sister and turned her into a siren, Vanessa is desperately trying to put her family back together and reclaim a “normal” life. But no matter how many times she swims, or how much salt water she drinks, she can feel herself getting weaker and weaker. She has no idea how to survive as a siren and she doesn’t want to know the truth about her newly discovered identity. It’s just too horrifying.

Nothing is ever quite at peace on Scotland's Black Isle - the Traveling people are forever at odds with the locals, the fishermen have nothing in common with the farmers, and the villages have no connection with the town. But when two deaths occur on the same day, involving the same families from the same estate, the Black Isle seems as forbidding as its name.