Download or read book Miss Blaine s Prefect and the Gondola of Doom written by Olga Wojtas and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never underestimate a librarian. Fifty-something Edinburgh librarian Shona is a proud former pupil of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, but has a deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which she thinks gives her alma mater a bad name. Impeccably educated and an accomplished linguist, mathematician, martial artist, and musician, Shona is selected by Marcia Blaine herself to travel back in time for a crucial mission in Venice. Finding the city afflicted by what appears to be a new outbreak of the plague, Shona soon encounters the Cornetto family of gondoliers. Lately, a number of their passengers have met a watery fate. Coincidence? Unlikely. She dons a mask, goes undercover and seeks inspiration in the library. But the mystery only deepens. Why do the Cornettos seem so flaky and their explanations wafer-thin, even as they proclaim their innocence? What is going on at the printworks? Shona’s powers of deduction, dissection and prowess as a swimmer are put to the test as she realises that a bitter feud is at play. Can Shona unravel the tapestry of lies and get to the truth? It’s a race against time, but it would be a mistake to underestimate a librarian.

Download or read book Miss Blaine s Prefect and the Weird Sisters written by Olga Wojtas and published by FelonyandMayhem+ORM. This book was released on 2023-03-28 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A resourceful middle-aged Scottish librarian travels back in time to stop Macbeth and his wife from killing Duncan while avoiding three dangerous witches. Shona McMonagle is your ordinary, garden-variety librarian: comfortably padded, in her middle years, expert in various arcane martial arts. She also has an impressive knack for time travel (“impressive” may be overstating things: her first two forays—revolutionary Russia, 19th-century France—went less than smoothly). Her latest mission? Head to 11th-century Scotland, cozy up to Macbeth and Lady M, prevent them from murdering Duncan. In the ordinary course of things, this would be a doddle. But then there are the witches, who prove remarkably quick to take offense. And the business of being turned into a mouse. And the fact that the mission is in truth threefold. One, keep Duncan alive and kicking; two, correct the historical record and lay bare the ludicrous lies introduced by that silly Shakespeare play; and three, burnish the honor of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, the finest institution of pedagogy in the greater Edinburgh area. Can she do it? Of course, she can! NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A LIBRARIAN! Praise for Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Vampire Menace “Excellent…. The zany plot is a whirling dervish of unexpected events, all narrated with aplomb and wry wit by the eruditeand intrepid librarian,who often hilariouslymisconstrues the clues she ferrets out. Readers will have a rollicking good time.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Effortlessly blends together a number of genres.... Smart, funny and all-round good company, wherever Shona goes, readers will eagerly follow.” —The Scotsman

Download or read book Miss Blaine s Prefect and the Golden Samovar written by Olga Wojtas and published by Felony & Mayhem Press. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A librarian with deceptively dangerous skills is sent back in time to Tzarist Russia in this “laugh-out-loud farce” and homage to Muriel Spark (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Never underestimate a librarian. Comfortable padded and in her middle years, Shona McMonagle may look bookish and harmless, but her education at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls has left her with a deadly expertise in everything from martial arts to quantum physics. It has also left her with a bone-deep loathing for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, that scurrilous novel that spread scandalous untruths about the finest educational institution in Edinburgh. Shona’s skills, her deceptively mild appearance, and her passionate loyalty make her the perfect recruit for an interesting new project: time travel to Tzarist Russia, prevent a gross miscarriage of romance, and—in any spare time—see to it that only the right people get murdered. It’s a big job, but no task is too daunting for a prefect from Miss Blaine’s. “A delightful addition to the ranks of comic crime.” —The Guardian, UK

Download or read book Miss Blaine s Prefect and the Vampire Menace written by Olga Wojtas and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never underestimate a librarian. "Audacious, witty and fun." Herald Intelligent cosy crime series with razor-sharp wit and an unlikely hero, for fans of P.G. Wodehouse and Muriel Spark Intrepid, fifty-something librarian Shona McMonagle, erstwhile Marcia Blaine Academy prefect, finds herself in an isolated French mountain village, where she must solve a mystery involving the mayor, the cheesemonger, the soprano Mary Garden, and even Count Dracula himself. Shona has been personally selected by school founder Marcia Blaine to travel back in time for this important mission in fin-de-siècle France – a curiously Gothic setting. But she finds it all very confusing. Why, for example, have so many people been torn to death by wild animals, what are Maman and the mayor up to, and is the reclusive aristocrat really suffering from toothache? It’s a race against time to solve the mystery. It is also a very tall order – but as Shona is wont to remind herself: Never underestimate a librarian!

Download or read book How to Survive Everything written by Ewan Morrison and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editor’s Pick. Shortlisted for the Bookmark Festival Book of the Year and the McIlvanney Prize "I wasn’t sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is." Ian Rankin My name is Haley Cooper Crowe and I am in lockdown in a remote location I can’t tell you about. It’s five years after the pandemic, and for most people life has returned to normal—but not for Haley Cooper Crowe and her brother Ben. Children of divorce, they live with their mother, but their dad believes there’s a new, much deadlier virus spreading out of control, and that he can only save his kids by kidnapping them and hiding them in his remote prepper hideaway. Once confined to their off-grid “safe house”, Haley and Ben are completely cut off from civilisation. Will they make it out alive? How can they save their mother? How can they discover what’s happening on the outside? Propulsive, electrifying, tense, and often visceral and funny, How to Survive Everything is one teenage girl’s guide to navigating the imminent collapse of her world, family and sanity.

Download or read book Different Class written by Joanne Harris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: Great Britain: Doubleday, 2016.

Download or read book The Green Lady written by Sue Lawrence and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2022-11-08 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the leading lady of Scottish historical mysteries comes her US debut novel: a shocking tale of betrayal and murder in the court of Mary, Queen of Scots. 1567, Scotland: no place for a woman. Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son. She can rely only on the loyalty of her ladies-in-waiting, chiefly Marie Seton. Meanwhile the political turmoil in the country is mirrored behind the walls of beautiful Fyvie Castle. Lilias’s marriage to Marie’s nephew, the ruthlessly ambitious Alexander Seton, goes awry after the birth of yet another daughter. He blames her—and contemplates drastic action. To what lengths will a man go to secure a son and heir? The Green Lady is a shocking tale of intrigue, secrets, treachery, and murder, based on true events, but seen from a different perspective than is found in most history books. Casting a fascinating light on the ruthless nature of power, the story highlights the precarious position of sixteenth-century women, even those in the most privileged of circumstances.

Download or read book The Mark of the Beast written by Rudyard Kipling and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen of the author's best tales, compiled for the first time in one volume, range from comic ghost stories ("Haunted Subalterns") to grim tales of psychological terror ("The Wandering Jew").

Download or read book The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains written by Neil Gaiman and published by . This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautifully illustrated by renowned artist Eddie Campbell, this is a four-colour limited edition of Neil Gaiman's award-winning novelette 'The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains'- signed by the author and artist, with extra material, audio CD read by Neil Gaiman and presentation box. The text of The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains was first published in the collection Stories: All New Tales. This gorgeous full-color illustrated book version was born of a unique collaboration between writer Neil Gaiman and artist Eddie Campbell, who brought to vivid life the characters and landscape of Gaiman's story. In August 2010, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains was performed in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House to a sell-out crowd-Gaiman read his tale live as Campbell's magnificent artwork was presented, scene by scene, on large screens. Narrative and art were accompanied by live music composed and performed especially for the story by the FourPlay String Quartet. Full specification: 200 x 200mm, 4x4colour throughout 88pp - includes 8pp of additional material Signed by author and artist, and numbered limited editions of 250. Presentation box Audio CD - music and reading by Neil Gaiman Mailer carton

Download or read book The Spanish Civil War written by Stanley G. Payne and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-06 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a new history of the most important conflict in European affairs during the 1930s, the Spanish Civil War. It describes the complex origins of the conflict, the collapse of the Spanish Republic and the outbreak of the only mass worker revolution in the history of Western Europe. Stanley Payne explains the character of the Spanish revolution and the complex web of republican politics, while also examining the development of Franco's counter-revolutionary dictatorship. Payne gives attention to the multiple meanings and interpretations of war and examines why the conflict provoked such strong reactions at the time, and long after. The book also explains the military history of the war and its place in the history of military development, the non-intervention policy of the democracies and the role of German, Italian and Soviet intervention, concluding with an analysis of the place of the war in European affairs, in the context of twentieth-century revolutionary civil wars.

Download or read book An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful written by J. David Simons and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2023-03-16 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The personal collides with the political in this literary tour-de-force. In the 1950s, an eminent British writer pens a novel questioning the ethics of the nuclear destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki—but soon he’s trying to outrun his own past. Hakone, Japan, 2003. An eminent British writer in his 70s, Sir Edward Strathairn, returns to a resort in the Japanese mountains where, in his youth, he spent a beautiful, snowed-in winter. It was there he wrote his best-selling novel, The Waterwheel, accusing America of being in denial about the horrific aftermath of the Tokyo firebombings and the nuclear destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. London, England, 1952. A young Edward falls in love with an avant-garde American artist, Macy. After their tumultuous relationship and breakup, he heads for Japan, where he is smitten again as he writes the novel that makes him famous. This is as much a thrilling romance as it is a sensitive exploration of blame, power and guilt in postwar America and Japan. With a narrator whose behavior strikes the national conscience as much as his own, An Exquisite Sense of What is Beautiful will stay with readers long after the final page is turned.

Download or read book The Dancing Partner written by Jerome K. Jerome and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This early work by Jerome K. Jerome was originally published in 1893 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Dancing Partner' is a short story about the scarcity of young men as dancing dancing partners and a creepy solution offered by a mechanical toy maker. Jerome Klapka Jerome was born in Walsall, England in 1859. Both his parents died while he was in his early teens, and he was forced to quit school to support himself. In 1889, Jerome published his most successful and best-remembered work, 'Three Men in a Boat'. Featuring himself and two of his friends encountering humorous situations while floating down the Thames in a small boat, the book was an instant success, and has never been out of print. In fact, its popularity was such that the number of registered Thames boats went up fifty percent in the year following its publication.

Download or read book Morse s Greatest Mystery and Other Stories written by Colin Dexter and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morse had solved so many mysteries in his life. Was he now, he wondered, beginning to glimpse the solution to the greatest mystery of them all . . . ? How can the discovery of a short story by a beautiful Oxford graduate lead Chief Inspector Morse to her murderer? What awaits Morse and Lewis in Room 231 of the Randolph Hotel? Why does a theft at Christmas lead the detective to look upon the festive season with uncharacteristic goodwill? And what happens when Morse himself falls victim to a brilliantly executed crime? Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories is a dazzling collection of short stories from Inspector Morse's creator, Colin Dexter. It includes six ingenious cases for the world's most popular fictional detective – plus five other tantalizingly original tales to delight all lovers of classic crime fiction.

Download or read book The Abbot s Tale written by Conn Iggulden and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the year 937, the new king of England, a grandson of Alfred the Great, readies himself to go to war in the north. His dream of a united kingdom of all England will stand or fall on one field—on the passage of a single day. At his side is the priest Dunstan of Glastonbury, full of ambition and wit (perhaps enough to damn his soul). His talents will take him from the villages of Wessex to the royal court, to the hills of Rome—from exile to exaltation. Through Dunstan’s vision, by his guiding hand, England will either come together as one great country or fall back into anarchy and misrule . . . From one of our finest historical writers, The Abbott’s Tale is an intimate portrait of a priest and performer, a visionary, a traitor and confessor to kings—the man who can change the fate of England.

Download or read book The Guillotine Choice written by Michael J. Malone and published by . This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1920's French-controlled Algeria, Kaci is in the frame for the brutal murder of his French boss. Kaci is faced with a stark choice: name his cousin as the killer and win his freedom, or keep quiet and face 25 years' hard labor in the infamous Devil's Island penal colony. Either way, one of them is destined for the world's worst prison--a hell on earth that few men survive. The Guillotine Choice is a novel based on the true story of an Algerian man's years in one of history's most notorious prisons. A real-life Shawshank Redemption, it is an inspirational story of endurance and the triumph of dignity over despair in almost unimaginably horrific conditions.

Download or read book Exit Lines written by Reginald Hill and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linking the dying words of three slain strangers proves risky for Dalziel and Pascoe in this “shrewd . . . and deft” mystery (The New York Times). Reginald Hill “raised the classical British mystery to new heights” when he introduced pugnacious Yorkshire Det. Inspector Andrew Dalziel and his partner, the callow Sgt. Peter Pascoe (The New York Times Book Review). Their chafing differences in education, manners, technique, and temperament made them “the most remarkable duo in the annals of crime fiction” (Toronto Star). Adapted into a long-running hit show for the BBC, the Gold Dagger Award–winning series is now available as ebooks. On the same night, three old men are offed: One is found in the icy rain sputtering the name “Polly” before expiring; another mumbles “Charley” after being beaten in his bathtub; and most alarmingly, the final words of the third, a cyclist knocked off the road by a drunk driver, implicate Superintendent Andrew Dalziel in the fatal hit and run. Bearing the brunt of three seemingly disparate investigations while proving his partner’s innocence, Peter Pascoe follows a confounding trail that leads to one victim’s family secrets, a shady retirement community, and corruption within the CID’s ranks that’s putting more than Dalziel’s already dicey reputation in peril. Exit Lines is the 8th book in the Dalziel and Pascoe Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Download or read book Flemington written by Violet Jacob and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: