February 1806 … The frigate carrying Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho drops anchor off the shores of southern Africa. It is only four months since the resounding victory over the combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, and the death of England's greatest naval hero. Bolitho's instructions are to assist in hastening the campaign in Africa, where an expeditionary force is attempting to recapture Cape Town from the Dutch. Outside Europe few have yet heard of the battle of Trafalgar, and Bolitho's news is met with both optimism and disappointment as he reminds the senior officers that, despite the victory, Napoleon's defeat is by no means assured. The men who follow Bolitho's flag into battle are to discover, not for the first time, that death is the only victor.
"You're not children anymore," a desperate Kit Snicket tells Violet, Klaus and Sunny in the opening pages of Lemony Snicket's THE PENULTIMATE PERIL. "You're volunteers, ready to face the challenges of a desperate and perplexing world." Indeed, in this adventure the profoundly unlucky Baudelaire orphans face dilemmas more perplexing and desperate than any they've faced in the previous eleven books in A Series of Unfortunate Events.Now that they've reached the Hotel Denouement, the hapless siblings must pose as concierges, heavily disguised to protect their identities, and discern the true motives and identities of the hotel's many mysterious ...
October 1991. It was “the perfect storm”—a tempest that may happen only once in a century—a nor’easter created by so rare a combination of factors that it could not possibly have been worse. Creating waves ten stories high and winds of 120 miles an hour, the storm whipped the sea to inconceivable levels few people on Earth have ever witnessed. Few, except the six-man crew of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing boat tragically headed towards its hellish center.
In the wake of The Guardship and The Blackbirder comes The Pirate Round, the exciting conclusion to the Brethren of the Coast trilogy and the swashbuckling adventures of former pirate Thomas Marlowe.In 1706, war still rages in Europe, and the tobacco planters of the Virginia colony's Tidewater struggle against shrinking markets and pirates lurking off the coast. But American seafarers have found a new source of wealth: the Indian Ocean and ships carrying fabulous treasure to the great mogul of India.Faced with ruin, Thomas Marlowe is determined to find a way to the riches of the East. Carrying ...
Ramage's Touch finds the ever-popular Lord Ramage in the Mediterranean with another daring mission to undertake. He soon makes a shocking discovery, which dramatically transforms the nature of the task at hand. With the nearest English vessel a thousand miles away, Ramage must embark upon a truly perilous and life-threatening course of action. With everything stacked against him, he has only one chance to succeed...
Captain Gilbert Anthony has a lot on his mind. He has just been decorated for extraordinary bravery under fire, been given command of the fourth-rate Drakkar, learned from his father's deathbed that he as a fully grown illegitimate brother, and will soon be dispatched on a special mission chasing pirates in the Caribbean. . .and that's just in the first fifteen pages! Honoring his dying father, the eponymous "Fighting James Anthony," Vice Admiral of the Blue, Gil takes his half-brother Gabriel into the ship's company as a senior midshipman. As Drakkar sails, Captain Anthony soon realizes having his brother aboard ...
Eleanor's adventure begins when she inadvertently mistakes the carriage waiting at the coach stop for one sent by her prospective employer, Mrs. Macclesfield. She finds herself carried to the estate of one Ned Carlyon, whom Eleanor mistakes for Mr. Macclesfield. Carlyon, meanwhile, believes Eleanor to be the young woman he hired to marry his dying cousin, Eustace Cheviot, in order to avoid inheriting Cheviot's estate himself. Somehow, Eleanor is talked into marrying Eustace on his deathbed and thus becomes a wealthy widow almost as soon as the ring is on her finger. What starts out as a simple business arrangement soon becomes much more complicated as housebreakers, uninvited guests, a shocking murder, missing government papers, and a dog named Bouncer all contribute to this lively, frequently hilarious tale of mistaken identities, foreign espionage, and unexpected love set during the Napoleonic Wars.
This story has a happy ending. No, wait, that was a different tape… Dear Customer, If you have picked up this sheet, you have probably not read the warning so clearly outlined in my prior message. This story may seem cheery at first, when the Baudelaire orphans spend time in the company of some interesting reptiles and a giddy uncle. But don't be fooled. The three siblings endure a car accident, a terrible odour, a deadly serpent, a long knife, a large brass reading lamp and the reappearance of a person they'd hoped never to see again. I have made a solemn vow to present this information to the public, but there is nothing stopping you from tearing up this paper and pretending you've never heard of this CD. Then you can sell something that is less unpleasant. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket
The year is 1793, the darkest days of the French revolution, and little Charles-L?on is ill. The delicate son of Louise and Bastien de Croissy is recommended country air, but travel permits are needed and impossible to come by. Louise's friend, Josette, believes she knows a way out. For Josette is convinced that her hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, will come to their rescue. She refuses to believe that he only exists in her imagination. 'I say that the Scarlet Pimpernel can do anything! And I mean to get in touch with him,' she vows, and sets forth into the Paris streets.
It is 1814 and Napoleon has abdicated as Emperor of the French. King Louis XVIII is brought out of his English exile and escorted back to France by an Allied squadron commanded by the Duke of Clarence. The 'Great War' is at an end and Europe prepares to celebrate the return of legitimate monarchy. But the victorious Allies are increasingly suspicious of one another. Alexander I, the capricious Tsar of Russia, believes he is the savior of the world, while Great Britain whose sea-power has guaranteed victory at sea and contributed to the military success of Russia, Austria and ...
