Fiction audiobooks page 20

Elizabeth Ann is a timid, sickly little girl who lives with her Aunt Frances and her Great-Aunt Harriet. When Great-Aunt Harriet becomes ill, poor little Elizabeth Ann is sent to live with the much-feared Putney cousins, whom, as Great-Aunt Harriet said “Such lack of sympathy, such perfect indifference to the sacred sensitiveness of child-life, such a starving of the child-heart … No, I shall never forget it! They had chores to do … as though they had been hired men!” But to the Putney cousins in Vermont Elizabeth Ann has to go. And there, with her Uncle Henry, Aunt Abigail and Cousin Ann, she grows strong and well and happy and, most importantly, learns to think for herself, and truly...

When tragedy hits his family, in the form of a sudden illness to his father, young Teddy Thornton is forced to leave school and find work to help support his family. Without his realization he is thrown into a world of crime and counterfeiting. Will he do the right thing, or will he unwittingly be drawn down the wrong path? And will the mystery of Heron Hall be solved?

Ben-Hur is a story of two very different heroes. Judah Ben-Hur, a prince of Jerusalem, is involved in an accident to the Roman procurator which is taken to be intentional. He is seized and sent to the fleet as a galley-slave, while his family is imprisoned and the family goods confiscated. When Ben-Hur saves the fleet captain from drowning after his ship is sunk in a fight with pirates, that officer adopts him as son and heir. With Roman training, Ben-Hur distinguishes himself in the arena and the palistrae and appears to be on the way to high military command.

With the help of a faithful family retainer and a generous Arab sheik, Ben-Hur is enabled to take part in a widely touted ch...

John Dene comes to England with a great invention, and the intention of gingering-up the Admiralty. His directness and unconventional methods bewilder and embarrass the officials at Whitehall, where, according to him, most of the jobs are held by those "whose great-grandfathers had a pleasant way of saying how-do-you-do to a prince." Suddenly John Dene disappears, and the whole civilised world is amazed at an offer of £20,000 for news of him. Scotland Yard is disorganised by tons of letters and thousands of callers. Questions are asked in the House, the Government becomes anxious, only Department Z. retains its equanimity.

By the way, what did happen to John Dene of Toront...

This speech was given March 23, 1775, at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, and is credited with having singlehandedly convinced the Virginia House of Burgesses to pass a resolution delivering the Virginia troops to the Revolutionary War. In attendance were Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Reportedly, the crowd, upon hearing the speech, jumped up and shouted, “To Arms! To Arms!”

The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley is the first work to feature the fictional character Zorro (zorro is the Spanish word for fox). The story was later republished under the name The Mark of Zorro. Senor Zorro is deemed an outlaw as he fights those in authority while seeking justice for the oppressed. He also woos and captures the heart of the lovely Senorita Lolita, but her father would see her married to the rich Don Diego Vega. Meanwhile, the ever persistent Sgt. Gonzales is closing in on our lovers and would means to see the end of Senor Zorro.

As contemporary today as it was over a century ago, this relatively unsentimental tale of labor relations still packs a punch.

The Country Beyond, subtitled A Romance In the Wilderness, is a story of “Jolly” Roger McKay, an outcast on the run from the law; Nada, the girl he falls in love with; and Peter, the devoted mixed-breed dog who links the two together as no human could, as action, adventure, and romance take them through the Northwest Canadian wilderness in search of The Country Beyond. (Summary by Roger Melin)

Chicago engineer Jack Howland is sent to the edge of the Canadian barren lands north of Prince Albert to establish a train route through some of the most treacherous terrain in North America. He would soon learn that it was not only the terrain that was forbidding, as he begins to understand why the previous engineers sent on the same mission had been forced to give up the task and flee back to the south. Mysterious visitors, suspicious characters, strange apparent coincidences, and one particularly mysterious girl meet Howland at every turn in this suspenseful tale of adventure, excitement, danger, and romance set in the northern Canadian wilderness.

Set in the days of the religious wars of Europe, St. Bartholomew’s Eve is the tale of the Huguenot’s desperate fight for freedom of worship in France. As the struggle intensifies the plot thickens, culminating in the dreadful Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. Henty, “The Boy’s Own Storyteller” weaves the life and adventures of Philip Fletcher and his cousin, Francois DeLaville, into the historical background with thrilling battles, sieges and escapes along the way (not to mention a fair damsel in distress!).