The Eight

The Eight ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Susan Denake
Download 25:49

A dabbler in mathematics and chess, Catherine Velis is also a computer expert for a Big Eight accounting firm. Before heading off to a new assignment in Algeria, Cat has her palm read by a fortune-teller. The woman warns Cat of danger. Then an antiques dealer approaches Cat with a mysterious offer: He has an anonymous client who is trying to collect the pieces of an ancient chess service, purported to be in Algeria. If Cat can bring the pieces back, there will be a generous reward.

In the south of France of 1790, Mireille de Rémy and her cousin Valentine are young novices at the fortress-like Montglane Abbey. With France aflame in revolution, the two girls burn to rebel against constricted convent life – and their means of escape is at hand. Buried deep within the abbey are pieces of the Montglane Chess Service, once owned by Charlemagne. Whoever reassembles the pieces can play a game of unlimited power. But to keep the Game a secret from those who would abuse it, the two young women must scatter the pieces throughout the world.

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Sepulchre

Sepluchre  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Donada Peters
Download 20:17

The stories of two women separated by more than a century are brought together by a series of visions that are related to the tarot and a small church, known as a Sepulchre in the grounds of the Domaine de la Cade.

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Nefertiti

Nefertiti  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Cassandra Campbell
13 discs

Nefertiti and her younger sister, Mutnodjmet, have been raised in a powerful family that has provided wives to the rulers of Egypt for centuries. Ambitious, charismatic, and beautiful, Nefertiti is destined to marry Amunhotep, an unstable young pharaoh. It is hoped by all that her strong personality will temper the young Amunhotep’s heretical desire to forsake Egypt’s ancient gods, overthrow the priests of Amun, and introduce a new sun god for all to worship. From the moment of her arrival in Thebes, Nefertiti is beloved by the people. Her charisma is matched only by her husband’s perceived generosity: Amunhotep showers his subjects with lofty promises. The love of the commoners will not be enough, however, if the royal couple is not able to conceive an heir, and as Nefertiti turns her attention to producing a son, she fails to see that the powerful priests, along with the military, are plotting against her husband’s rule. The only person wise enough to recognize the shift in political winds—and brave enough to tell the queen—is her younger sister

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A Murderous Procession

A Murderous Procession  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Jill Tanner
10 discs

Medieval forensic pathologist Adelia Aguilar has been an enjoying a quiet life in the countryside with her daughter and friends. Then Henry II demands that she accompany his daughter, Joan, and her formal procession to Italy and offers to keep her daughter with Queen Eleanor until her safe return. But death stalks the procession, and Adelia and her loyal friends soon realize that the killer is someone from her past bent on revenge.  -Booklist

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Labyrinth

Labyrinth  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Donada Peters
19 hrs 38 mins

The lives of two women born centuries apart are linked by a common destiny, a labyrinth. In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth; between the skeletons, a stone ring, and a small leather bag. Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade to stamp out heresy that will rip apart southern France, Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father as he leaves to fight the crusaders. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. As crusading armies led by Church potentates and nobles of northern France gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take great sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe.

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The Tudors: the Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty

The Tudors ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Robins Sachs
Download (24 hrs and 34 mins)

“More than four centuries after the death of the last Tudor, there continues to be an immense gap between who the various members of the family actually were and what most people–including most people with some knowledge of English history–think they know about them. The real Henry VIII was both a greater and lesser man than the lusty Bluff King Hal of legend, the man who famously had six wives. Elizabeth was vastly more complicated, more pathetic and less noble than the glorious façade behind which she concealed herself. The now-obscure Henry VII, Edward VI, and Mary I were both more important as rulers and far more fascinating as human beings than is commonly understood.” (GJ Meyer) Amazon

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Tipperary

Tipperary  ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Frank Delany
14 discs

Set in Ireland just before the War for Independence and covering the trials of the Civil War Years,  Charles O’Brien, a healer meets the graceful yet cold April Burke, the only child of a noble Irish family. In an effort to woo her, Charles convinces April to petition for ownership of the castle as her birthright. Yet this castle, languishing in disrepair and abandonment causes an outrage in the community when the English lady comes to take her claim.   April rejects Charles more than once and it all is recorded for a History teacher to discover many years later and find more than their love story in the pages of Charles’s account.

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Gardens of Water

Gardens of Water ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Mark Bramhall
10 discs

When an earthquake hits Pakistan Sinan Basioglu, a devout Muslim and his family must depend on their American neighbors for survival. Sinan doesn’t like this because his daughter and the American teacher’s son are having a secret relationship and she is trying to escape Kurdish tradition.

Narrator Mark Barmhall, is extraordinary.

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The Wisdom of History

The Wisdom of History ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by J. Rufus Fears
18 discs

Professor J. Rufus Fears believes not only can we learn from history—we must. In this course, he draws on decades of experience as a world-renowned scholar and classical historian to examine the patterns of history. Ignoring them, by choice or because we’ve never learned to see them, is to risk becoming their prisoner, doomed to repeat the mistakes that have toppled leaders, nations, and empires throughout time.

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The Postmistress

The Postmistress ♥ ♥ ♥
Read by Orlagh Cassidy
9 discs

In 1940, on the eve of the United States’ entrance into World War II, Iris James, the postmistress of Franklin, a small town on Cape Cod, does the unthinkable: she doesn’t deliver a letter. In London, American radio gal Frankie Bard is working with Edward R. Murrow, reporting on the blitz. One night in a bomb shelter, she meets a doctor from Cape Cod with a letter in his pocket. She vows to deliver the letter when she returns from Germany and France where she is to report on war refugees desperately trying to escape. The residents of Franklin think the war can’t touch them; but as Frankie’s radio broadcasts air, some know that the war is indeed coming. And when Frankie arrives at their doorstep, the two stories collide in a way no one could have foreseen

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