Lucy Rayner has narrated 72 audiobooks on Listento.it by 41 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 242 ratings. The most-rated is The Phantom Prince.
Sheer Folly
Summary
In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple. At the home, they find themselves faced with a curious assortment of people, including the abominable, tactless Lord Rydal, who is rumored to be having an affair with one of the guests while in ardent and artless pursuit of the hand in marriage of another. When the grotto explodes with Lord Rydal in it, it's not a question of who would do it?as most who've met him would be sorely tempted?but who actually did do it.
©2009 Carola Dunn (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Gone West
Summary
In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions. But before Daisy can even get decently underway, Humphrey Birtwhistle dies under suspicious circumstances and Daisy now faces a death to untangle, a house full of suspects, and a Scotland Yard detective husband who is less than pleased at this turn of events.
©2013 Carola Dunn (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Lost Child
Summary
The first new book from beloved therapist and writer Torey Hayden in almost 15 years - an inspiring, uplifting tale of a troubled child and the remarkable woman who made a difference. In a forgotten corner of Wales, a young girl languishes in a home for troubled children. Abandoned by her parents because of her violent streak, Jessie - at the age of 10 - is at risk of becoming just another lost soul in the foster system. Precocious and bold, Jessie is convinced she is possessed by the devil and utterly unprepared for the arrival of therapist Torey Hayden. Armed with patience, compassion, and unconditional love, Hayden begins working with Jessie once a week. But when Jessie makes a stunning accusation against one of Hayden’s colleagues - a man Hayden implicitly trusts - Hayden’s work doubles: Now she must not only get to the root of Jessie’s troubles, but also find out if what the girl alleges is true. A moving, compelling, and inspiring account, Lost Child is a powerful testament once again of Torey Hayden’s extraordinary ability to reach children who many have given up on - and a reminder of how patience and love can ultimately prevail.
©2019 Torey Hayden (P)2019 HarperAudio
Die Laughing
Summary
One morning in April 1924, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher finds herself in a most unenviable position. Despite her best attempts to elude the inevitable, she must face her darkest fears and with all the strength and courage she can muster, must confront the one person she has tried hardest to avoid - the dentist. But upon arriving for her appointment, she finds the waiting room deserted and adjoining examination room locked, with no hint of either Dr. Talmadge or his nurse. Thinking to leave quietly, Daisy's retreat is halted by the return of the nurse and, with the help of Mrs. Talmadge, the two begin searching for the inexplicably absent doctor. Exhausting all other possibilities, they resort to looking once again in the surgery where they find him stilling in his dentist's chair with the nitrous mask strapped to his face, the tank of nitrous turned on full, a smile on his face and stone-cold dead. While the circumstances of his death are out of the ordinary, there's no reason to suspect that it was anything other than a tragic, if inevitable, accident of a careless dope fiend. Certain that there is something more than happenstance and an accident involved in the dentist's untimely death, Daisy is determined to uncover the truth behind a case of what she is certain is murder most foul.
©2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc. (P)2016 Carola Dunn
Caught in Time
Summary
Still stranded in 1815, FBI agent Kendra Donovan finds herself on the trail of a vicious murderer with a shocking secret. October 1815: There is only one place Kendra Donovan wants to travel - back to her own time period in the 21st century. But since that's not happening, she agrees instead to travel with her new guardian, the Duke of Aldridge, to one of his smaller estates in Lancashire. Their journey takes them through Yorkshire, a region whose breathtaking beauty masks a simmering violence brought on by the Industrial Revolution, which pits mill owner against worker. When Kendra and the Duke encounter a band of Luddites on a lonely, fog-shrouded road, the Duke informs the authorities in the nearby village of East Dingleford that mischief may have been done at the local mill. However, it isn't just mischief but murder that is discovered, when the body of the mill manager, Mr. Stone, is found brutally bludgeoned to death in his office.
©2018 Julie McElwain (P)2018 Tantor
Rattle His Bones
Summary
The eighth installment in this cozy mystery series features Daisy Dalrymple at the Museum of Natural History, a place of fascination - and murder. In the summer of 1923, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple makes what should be an uneventful research trip to the Museum of Natural History quite an eventful day - with her nephew, Derek, and her soon-to-be stepdaughter, Belinda, in tow. But as she interviews the various curators for her article on the museums of London, she soon discovers that the Museum of Natural History is a hothouse of professional rivalry and jealousy. Much resentment exists, particularly between Dr. Smith Woodward, the keeper of geology, responsible for the fossil collection, and Dr. Pettigrew, the keeper of mineralogy, responsible for the museum's fabulous gem collection. On a later trip, as closing time nears, Daisy hears two voices followed by a tremendous crash and rushes into the next hall to discover Dr. Pettigrew dead - murdered amid a pile of dinosaur bones. Daisy's fiancé, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, is assigned to investigate, and together they must unravel a most baffling case of missing gems, dispossessed European royalty, professional rivalry, and a murder most foul.
©2000 Carola Dunn (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Gunpowder Plot
Summary
In the winter of 1924, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher travels to a school friend's house to witness the estate's famous Guy Fawkes celebration. But she gets more than the quiet weekend at the quaint family manse that she was originally hoping for. The home is the site of some severe family tension. The Viscount and head of the family is a strict and unyielding sort, insisting that everyone - especially his children - meet his own unreasonable expectations. On the evening of the Guy Fawkes celebration, the Viscount is found dead on the floor of his study, killed by his own hand. What's more, he apparently first killed a guest - a married woman visiting England from Australia - before turning the gun on himself. Now it's up to Alec Fletcher, Daisy's husband and a DCI of Scotland Yard, to unravel the mystery and the long-held family secrets that led to this state of affairs. But a solution will require, perhaps, more than a little help from Daisy herself.
©2007 Carola Dunn; 2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Red Rope of Fate
Summary
In a land where humans and elves find it difficult to communicate, Tari - an elf - is bound to Captain Arion - a human military officer - in a ceremony designed to promote friendship between the two races. When the ceremony is over, the pair discover that the impossible has happened: They can understand each other in spite of the language barrier. Thrown into a storm of politics, Tari and Arion are put in danger by those who want humans and elves to remain separate. To make matters worse, Tari realizes that she has fallen in love with Arion, who has the emotional capabilities of a rock. As both societies dictate that an elf and a human can never be together, Tari must conceal her feelings. Unfortunately, the taciturn Arion is watchful and attentive to Tari's well-being, constantly pushing her to her limits with his loyalty, friendship, and dreadfully informal habit of touching her. If Tari and Arion survive, their tumultuous relationship will either strengthen their countries' alliance or cripple the human courts of nobility. The deciding factor will be Arion and his indecipherable feelings for Tari.
©2016 K. M. Shea (P)2016 Tantor
Shadows in Time
Summary
In 1816 London, Kendra Donovan tries to track down a missing man but also finds trouble brewing closer to home in the fifth book in Julie McElwain's riveting time-travel mystery series. When Kendra Donovan is approached by Mrs. Gavenston with an unusual request - to find her business manager, Jeremy Pascoe, who recently vanished - the FBI agent is eager to accept the challenge. To Kendra's way of thinking, spending her time locating a missing person suits her more than perfecting her embroidery, painting watercolors, practicing on the pianoforte, or any of the other activities that are socially acceptable for young ladies in the early 19th century. Unfortunately, the missing person's case turns into a murder investigation after Kendra finds the man stabbed to death in a remote cottage that he'd been using as a writer's retreat. Everyone who knew him says that Pascoe was a fine fellow. So who hated him enough to kill him? Seeking the answer to that question plunges Kendra into the world of big business, as Mrs. Gavenston happens to run one of the largest breweries in England. And if there is one thing Kendra knows hasn't changed, it's that big business means big money...and money is always a motive for murder.
©2020 Julie McElwain (P)2021 Tantor
The Wrong Girl
Summary
It's customary for Gothic romance novels to include a mysterious girl locked in the attic. Hannah Smith just wishes she wasn't that girl. As a narcoleptic and the companion to an earl's daughter with a strange affliction of her own, Hannah knows she's lucky to have a roof over her head and food in her belly when so many orphans starve on the streets. Yet freedom is something Hannah longs for. She did not, however, want her freedom to arrive in the form of kidnapping. Taken by handsome Jack Langley to a place known as Freak House, she finds herself under the same roof as a mad scientist, his niece, a mute servant, and Jack, a fire starter with a mysterious past. They assure Hannah she is not a prisoner and that they want to help her. The problem is, they think she's the earl's daughter. What will they do when they discover they took the wrong girl?
©2013 C. J. Archer (P)2017 Tantor
Dancing at Midnight
Summary
Lady Arabella Blydon has beauty and a brain, and she's tired of men who can see only one without the other. When a suitor tells Arabella he's willing to overlook her appalling bluestocking tendencies on account of her looks and fortune, she decides to take a break from the Marriage Mart. During an extended stay in the country, she never expects to meet Lord John Blackwood, a wounded war hero who intrigues her like no other man. Lord John has lived through the worst horrors of war, but nothing could have been as terrifying to his tormented heart as Lady Arabella. She is intoxicating, infuriating, and she makes him want to live again. Suddenly he's writing bad poetry and climbing trees in the pitch-dark night just so he can dance with her as the clock strikes midnight. And even though he knows he can never be the sort of man she deserves, he can't help wanting her. But when the harsh light of day replaces the magic of midnight, can this tormented soul learn to love again?
©1995 Julie Cotler (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers
Maleficent
Summary
Maleficent was a different sort of faerie. For one thing she was raised by all the Fair Folk after her parents were killed. For another she believed there had to be some good in everyone, even humans. Happy and spirited, Maleficent was beloved by all who knew her. That is until she experienced the ultimate betrayal by a trusted friend. Enraged and embarking on a quest for vengeance, Maleficent must forge her own path in the world to make sense of it all. And while she learns to harness her great powers, the forces against her only grow stronger. The question is, who really is the evil one in this fairy tale?
©2014 Disney Enterprises, Inc. (P)2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Sweet Harmony
Summary
From the best-selling and award-winning author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and 84K, a darkly inventive novella about the dangers of pursuing perfection. Harmony is tired. Tired of working so hard, tired of the way she looks, tired of being average. But all that changes when she decides to splash out and upgrade her nanos. And why not? Everyone's doing it now. With a simple in-app purchase, you can update the tech in your bloodstream to transform yourself - get enhanced brain power, the perfect body, or a dazzling smile. Suddenly, everything starts going right for her. She's finally becoming the person she always wanted to be. But as Harmony will find out, there's a limit to how many upgrades a body can take.... Previous books by Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August Touch The Sudden Appearance of Hope The End of the Day 84K By the same author, writing as Kate Griffin: A Madness of Angels The Midnight Mayor The Neon Court The Minority Council The Glass God Stray Souls
©2020 Claire North (P)2020 Orbit
Playing with Fire
Summary
Hannah Smith thinks she's safe now that Reuben Tate is set to face trial. But when an unusual creature is let loose on the Freak House estate, everybody is in danger, including Jack. To hunt it down, the household must take risks, but the greatest risk is to Hannah's heart. She's in danger of falling deeply in love with Jack, a man whose very touch can kill her.
©2013 C. J. Archer (P)2017 Tantor
The Irishman's Daughter
Summary
From the acclaimed author of The Magdalen Girls comes a powerful, unforgettable novel of strength and resilience, set against the backdrop of the Irish famine. Ireland, 1845. To Briana Walsh, no place on earth is more beautiful than Carrowteige, County Mayo, with its sloping fields and rocky cliffs perched above the wild Atlantic. The small farms that surround the centuries-old Lear House are managed by her father, agent to the wealthy, reckless Sir Thomas Blakely. Tenant farmers sell the oats and rye they grow to pay rent to Sir Thomas, surviving on the potatoes that flourish in the remaining scraps of land. But when the potato crop falls prey to a devastating blight, families Briana has known all her life are left with no food, no resources, and no mercy from the English landowner, who seems indifferent to everything except profit. Rory Caulfield, the hard-working young farmer Briana hopes to marry, shares the locals' despair - and their anger. There's talk of violent reprisals against the callous gentry and their agents. Briana's studious older sister, Lucinda, dreams of a future far beyond Mayo. But even as hunger and disease settle over the country, killing and displacing millions, Briana knows she must find a way to guide her family through one of Ireland's darkest hours - toward hope, love, and a new beginning.
©2019 Michael Meeske (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Seumas
Summary
Sasha just got her dream job at a dig in the highlands of Scotland. Where her friends ply her with celebratory champagne, throw a plaid cloak over her business suit, and take her to the 13th century to do original research on the dig site. She meets gorgeous Highlander Seumas there, and - wait, is this a good idea?
©2017 Jane Stain (Cherise Kelley) (P)2017 Tantor
Tomas
Summary
A call from an old friend stirred up feelings Amber thought she had buried years ago. Kelsey wanted help at a dig under an old Scottish castle - with Tomas's twin brother. She couldn't believe it. If his brother was back in their lives, wouldn't Tomas be, too? She didn't jinx it by asking Kelsey that. Nope, but she was on the next flight.
©2017 Jane Stain (Cherise Kelley) (P)2017 Tantor
Tavish
Summary
Tavish was the best boyfriend Kelsey ever had, but seven years ago he disappeared. She coped with her heartbreak by finishing her doctorate in Celtic Artwork, and now her career is taking off. Except Tavish keeps showing up at her job sites and butting into her business - all the while wearing that stupid sexy kilt. But she's here to see the ruins, not Tavish. So she'll just have to show him who's boss at this site. Because under these cliffs at Dunskey Castle, it is rumored, lies the ancient palace of the kings of Alba. Grrr. Why does he seem to know more about it than she does?
©2016 Jane Stain (Cherise Kelley) (P)2017 Tantor
Heart Burn
Summary
Time is running out for Hannah. With her life hanging by a thread and Tate trying to kidnap her, she finds help in an unusual quarter - the man who put the narcoleptic memory block on her as a child. Yet the powerful hypnotist may not be all that he seems. It's difficult to trust a man who regularly hypnotizes his wife against her wishes, and who is much too interested in Jack's unnatural abilities. With so much at stake, the last thing Hannah and Jack need is to be apart. Yet they cannot touch each other if they want to stay alive.
©2013 C. J. Archer (P)2017 Tantor
The Marquise and Her Cat
Summary
Finding your happily-ever-after is complicated when your matchmaker is a cat.... Etta's happy with her simple life in the mill, but when her aunt passes and leaves her a very peculiar cat, everything goes awry. Now, determined to find her place in the world, Etta's learning to hunt, having audiences with a king, and falling for a man who's keeping something from her. Beau's happy at sea until his father passes and leaves him with an odd last request. Now he's setting up shop in a small town, searching for ogres, and, inconveniently, falling for the miller's sister - who just happens to be taken with someone else. It soon becomes clear that if Etta and Beau want to get anywhere, they'll need not only each other's help, but the cat's as well. But putting your trust in a feline is difficult, especially when you're not exactly sure what it is he has planned.... Contains mature themes.
©2017 Shari L. Tapscott (P)2019 Tantor