Length: 8 hours, 12 minutes

Author: Linda Acaster

Narrator: Susan Anderson

$24.99

Excerpt:

Dena felt her heart turn to stone. Dear God, her instincts had been right. He’d come to kill her. Her leaden heart began to slip from its appointed place, dragging muscle and fibre, flesh and bone, deep into the wastes of her echoing belly, subduing terror and fight before either had gained a chance to be born inside her. Yet, from within the crushing desolation, an inner peace flickered. It grew at a rate beyond human understanding, gaining strength and power, filling her body, her limbs, the very tendrils of her loosened hair. It was the calming power the holy men spoke of, the power of angels, and of martyrs.

She looked at Rhodri anew, watched him swallow down his consternation, and rub his palms along his thighs. His lips quivered as they parted, and when he spoke, the sound was nothing more than a hoarse whisper. ‘I called you,’ he said, ‘but you didn’t hear me above the noise of the water.’

‘There’s no need to lie, Rhodri. I understand your position, the loyalties that bind you. I’d hoped that leaving me here would be enough, but a warrior’s conscience guides a warrior’s hand, and I have—’

‘Wait! Wait!’ He flashed his open palm across her eyes as one would across a blind man’s face. ‘What words are these? They can’t be from the Dena I held so tightly in my arms, the Dena who offered her lips to mine in the darkness of the night.’

Where his incredulous tone could not touch her, his choice of words punctured her inner tranquillity. How could he speak of what they’d given and shared, when all he wanted was to deny its truth?

He rocked back a pace as the full implication of what she’d said came to him. ‘You think I am going to kill you.’

Dena’s inner strength was ebbing fast now, pouring from the chink he’d created. Her hands began to tremble. She clasped them together, willing herself to remain in control of her resurgent emotions.

‘Can you deny that I am the cause of bad blood between you and Gwylan, that your esteem has diminished in the eyes of your men because of me?’

Rhodri raised his arms in a gesture of hopeless assent. ‘No, I cannot deny that.’

‘And can you deny that if I were dead, all would return to the way it was?’

She hardly saw his hand reach for his sword. The movement was so swift, so fluid, as to be almost invisible. One moment his dark eyes were staring into hers, the next the singing blade was slicing the air between them. It arched high above her head to be plunged, blade first, into the soft ground at her feet. He withdrew his grip with a flourish, leaving the hilt to rock back and forth under its own momentum. Dena gasped, releasing the breath caught in her lungs, but before she could drag her widened eyes from the swinging hilt, Rhodri reached for it again, not as a man would a sword, but as a priest would a blessed crucifix. His voice was full of fury.

‘As the Lord God is my witness, I have not come to kill you, Dena!’ His tone and stance eased a little. ‘Though Hell, alone, knows what torments you are putting me through.’

He unlocked his fingers from the cross-guards and retreated a pace, looking this way and that in agitation before he stared at her.

‘If I didn’t not know better, I’d swear you had bound a charm round me!’

He turned away from her, lowering his head and lifting his hands to push his fingers through his damp raven hair.

‘Of all the maids who crave my heart, I allow it to be stolen by a Saxon! It’s unthinkable.’

An excitement began to bubble inside Dena, lifting her own heart, filling it afresh with all the surging emotions she’d experienced in Rhodri’s arms during the long, rain-soaked night. She edged towards him, cautiously at first, then with a determination born of truly held beliefs.

‘Is it so unthinkable?’ she asked.

Share

When Jake's past shows up on the doorstep in the form of the wife he thought was dead, Grace has had enough. Can Jake save his marriage to the wife he loves before the other one puts him in his grave?

↓ Listen For Free ↓

Length: 9 hours, 41 minutes

Author: Catherine Snodgrass

Narrator: C.D. Brooks

$24.99

Excerpt:

"Then I would expect you to continue to do the honorable thing." Ma pulled in a breath. "Mr. Tanner, the only way my daughter is leaving here with you is if you marry her."

The silence in the house was complete. Not even the crickets dared make a sound. Grace's mouth dropped open. All she could do was stare at her mother.

What was she thinking? She'd only met Jake Tanner hours before. But that wouldn't matter to Ma. She and Pa had never met until they stood before the preacher. That's just how things were done back then. Obviously, it looked like that's how Ma intended things to be done now too.

Grace dared a look Jake's way. His gaze shifted between her and Ma then finally settled on her. She was surprised he still sat there. Only his manners kept him from grabbing that cow and heading for home.

She watched him watch her and wondered what he was thinking and why he didn't tell her parents they could go to blue blazes.

He scratched at the stubble on his face, looked at her mother, then her father, and back to her. Then again. Then to every face at that table.

"All right...I'll marry her."

Share

When pretty, passionate Eve Burnett meets the darkly intriguing Julio Falcone, she is torn. As a man, Julio is powerfully attractive. As a policeman, he is bound to be a Fascist. Her brother, David, who is missing, is connected to the Greek Partisans who wish to liberate Rhodes from their Italian overlords.

Now, as David appears at their parents' house soon after Julio makes Eve's acquaintance, Eve is compelled to hide her brother and a mysterious gold statuette. The Fascists are looking for him and this secret treasure. Soon, Eve realizes that she may be forced to choose between the man she loves and the ultimate safety of her family.

Length: 3 hours, 10 minutes

Author: Lindsay Townsend

Narrator: Melissa Malone

$7.99

Excerpt:

Infuriated by his obvious lie, Eve stayed where she was. `Admit it. You were following me.'

`So? Perhaps it is my job to follow you.'

`I thought you said you were on holiday.'

`And also to help Signor Grassi with the case of your missing brother.'

`So what about David? Why are you not looking for him?'

He shook his dark head. `Do you not think I can do more than one thing at once?'

`Why are you following me?'

`Because you interest me.' He looked her up and down and smiled. `Why do you think?'

His frank admission made her forget altogether that he was a stranger, or a threat. At that moment all she wanted to do was beat him at his own game.

`Fine!' she snapped. `Then see if you can keep up with me!'

She spun round, catching him off-guard and walking so swiftly that she was almost running. Ignoring his warning, `Wait!' she moved even faster, clutching her basket tightly and chanting in her mind, think!

Think!

Then she saw a way out. Darting into a nearby shuttered alley, full of musty shops and strutting pigeons, she saw a gaggle of boys crouching over a game of marbles. She called to them softly.

`Have you got a ball?' she asked the eldest urchin in the sing-song Rhodian dialect.

`For sure!' came the reply.

Careful that the coins did not catch the by now glaring light, she showed the boys a handful of change. `Yours—if you play ball along by the mosque steps.'

`For sure!' The eldest boy snatched the coins and roared off in the direction of the washing fountain of the Ibrahim Pasha mosque, his gang in rapid pursuit. Moments later, kicking a ball about the paved street, their yelling, boisterous figures soon surrounded the tall, light-suited foreigner, who could not move or see past them for several vital seconds.

Seconds were all she needed. Eve pelted down the dingy street where the boys had been playing. Soon she was hidden amongst the bustle of crowds, motorbikes and donkeys moving along Socrates Street, home of the long bazaar and, more importantly to her, one of the roads leading out of the Old City.

I've done it, she thought. I've beaten him. She grinned and swung her basket, telling herself she was glad, while part of her wondered when she would see him again.

Share

Duty to king and country shaped her life since birth. To protect them, she must betray all she holds sacred. For if she takes the newborn prince to the queen's homeland for a ritual blessing in the Old Ways, who--or what--will she bring back?

"The Last Vhalgenn is an exciting and engrossing story of love, betrayal, and doing what must be done, despite the consequences. It captures the ideals of duty, honor and love and embraces them, turning them into a beautifully knit sequence of events that you are unable to stop following."

Long and Short Reviews

"I was very intrigued by the overall story by Kayelle Allen and the narrator did a fine job of pulling the listener into the lies, betrayal, and honor that are the backbone to The Last Vhalegenn."

Joyfully Reviewed

Author: Kayelle Allen

$7.99

Excerpt:

In the private receiving chamber, I knelt before the king I had not seen in over two years, an ache in my knees and groin and back that four hours ahorse had burned into my muscle; and delivered the news of victorious battle I’d been dispatched to bring. When I finished, the sovereign master of Qarth and Kellindahr leaned back his tawny, lion-maned head to regard me with heavy lidded eyes.

I couldn’t believe the luck of having caught Orix awake so late. He’d always been one to turn in early. Soft, his father used to say. I knew it for his love of play. My throat tightened with pleasure at the thought and I had to swallow, hard, to force it away. That we were alone amazed me even more. But war has a way of loosening rules, even in Qarth.

A wartime’s ransom of jewels glittered on his hands as he reached for a bowl of golden Kellindahrii apples beside him. He bit into one and chewed.

I waited until his smiling mouth bit into the apple again and then I rose, moved to kneel between his outstretched legs and closed my callused hand around his be-ringed one to bring the fruit to my own lips. Meeting his gaze, I bit into the same place his teeth had torn and wiped my mouth with the back of a dusty hand.

“Ah, Raik,” Orix laughed. “You’ve not changed a whit.” He ran his eyes over me, then frowned and moved the candle stand closer to peer at me. “Your leathers are ripped.” He bent forward, fingers tracing the slash a scrim saber had made the night before. The blue eyes bored into mine. “Were you hurt?”

Despite my protest to the contrary, he insisted on making sure of my health with his own hands and untied the bindings of my doublet. Beneath the black leather lay a now sweat-soaked blouse of emerald Qarthian silk, the same color as his standard, which my youngest brother had borne into battle the night before. The silk had been the king’s gift the year before on my birthday: green that exactly matched my eyes. His color marked me as Orix’s as much as my clan’s cheek tattoo. The overlapping petals of the flowering Ddhumach ivy tangled itself around a diadem, the symbol for Hellesbor, clan name of my sovereign.

“The leather’s ruined, Lord. So’s the silk.”

“No matter,” he said, voice low, his eyes still holding mine. He jerked loose the ties at my throat as if he meant to strip me naked and I shivered despite the summer’s heat.

He was close enough for me to feel the moist heat of his breath, inhale the clean maleness of his scent. He’d bathed, his blond hair still dark with water. It curled at the edges as it dried.

“So,” he said, releasing me. “You weren’t hurt.”

“No, sire.” I sat and folded my legs, leaning back against his throne as I re-laced my shirt. “Disappointed?”

“Immensely.” He laid a hand in my hair. “I’d thought to decorate you.”

“For what? Foolishness?” I looked at him over my shoulder. “I got that slice chasing down what turned out to be one of our own men.” I bit into the fruit again and held it up for him.

His eyes twinkled. “I’ve missed you, you rogue. The palace isn’t the same without you. It feels empty, all the time.” He took a second bite and spoke around a mouthful. “No matter how much I involve myself in my work. Or my wife.”

I turned my head to hide my smile. Not proper to gloat, at least in front of him.

“Hungry, Vhalgenn?”

My heart warmed at the childhood title: Vhalgenn--the Chosen One. It was the custom in Qarth to give a child of the opposite sex to the sovereign’s firstborn to be playmate, companion and bed warmer. To prevent the sowing of seed in the wrong field, the Vhalgenn was made incapable of bearing or fathering a babe early on. We Vhalgenns weren’t meant to fall in love with the ones we served, though our history bursts with tales of…

“I said,” he leaned closer, “are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

Share