Showing results for "Orchid" in Literature & Fiction

No Orchids for Miss Blandish was crime author James Hadley Chase’s first novel, and an experiment in adapting American hard-boiled crime fiction by a British author. Inspired by James Cain and The Postman Always Rings Twice, it worked so well that it launched the former salesman’s writing career. He went on to write over eighty novels sold worldwide with a huge American, Asian and European following.

In the cemetery of Drake’s Bend, a most unusual flower unfurls its bloom. The spectral orchid signals that a restless soul has returned—and it has unfinished business. Fern must piece together clues to settle a soul who lived an unremarkable life, before villagers are gathered in spectral arms to join it in death. But as Fern unravels the spirit’s final days, she discovers that person’s fate was bound to a far greater secret—one tied to her father’s murder. When another orchid flowers, the truth she has tried to discover for five years might finally be within her grasp…

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods delivers a riveting thriller that introduces his first female protagonist, Deputy Chief of Police Holly Barker. Forced into early retirement at thirty-seven, smart, attractive, and fiercely independent Major Holly Barker trades in her bars as a...

"Pride and Prejudice lives on" (USA Today) in Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series, which has been hailed for its addictive blend of history, romance, and adventure. In The Orchid Affair, Willig introduces her strongest heroine yet. Laura Grey, a veteran governess, joins the Selwick Spy School...

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods delivers a riveting thriller that introduces his first female protagonist, Deputy Chief of Police Holly Barker. Forced into early retirement at thirty-seven, smart, attractive, and fiercely independent Major Holly Barker trades in her bars as a...

The people you love are taken from you. That’s what Maddie DiMarco learned when she survived the plane crash that killed her parents. Fifteen years later, the scars remain. And the ones no can see are hardest to heal. Since the accident, Maddie’s avoided the unpredictable and uncaring outside world, including any relationships - except for the one with her devoted older sister, Kat, who has always been there for her.

They called them the Orchid Girls. Grace. Molly. Charlotte. One of them is in love. One of them is a liar. One of them is dead. On a jagged Dorset cliff, wind whipping their hair, waves crashing on the rocks below, three friends became two when Charlotte’s body was pulled out of the sea. Fifteen years later Grace and Molly are worlds apart. Grace has a glittering career and a loving husband. Molly is a lonely, unemployed alcoholic. Grace has everything to lose. Molly has nothing.

Daphne Mayfield sought a moment of quiet in a park - a break from city life, a tense relationship, and chronic overwork - but then an elderly woman makes a desperate plea. Daphne is reluctant to get involved when she's not sure what's happening, but she wants to help the stranger. Is the rambling old lady the victim of a crime or a victim of dementia?

In this enchanted family saga, Kate is a neuroscientist who reveres logic and order, unless she’s sleeping with her married lab director and then logic goes out the window. So does Kate’s orderly life in Manhattan after she takes the fall for their affair and Kate’s mother presses her to accept responsibility for her nephew, Teague, an orchid child who hears voices and talks to trees but rarely people. To salvage her career, Kate agrees to conduct a study in West Ireland.

Stuart Woods brings back small-town police chief Holly Barker—and her extraordinary Doberman, Daisy—for another exhilarating adventure in this New York Times bestseller. When Holly Barker’s wedding festivities are shattered by a brutal robbery, she vows to find the culprits. With nothing...

Blood Orchid is the third adventure of one of Stuart Woods's most engaging characters, Chief of Police Holly Barker. This time out, Holly is trying to get her life back together after the shattering loss of her fiancé. With the help of her wily Doberman, Daisy, and her father, Ham, she throws...

Anthony Blake is in love with his best friend's sister, Sophia Elliot. But his plans to court her are put on hold when he is forced to resume his role as an undercover spy for the Crown. A secret document listing the names of the entire network of British spies - including his own - has been stolen. To protect Sophia, Anthony cuts off all ties to her and exchanges his life as an honorable earl for the facade of a flirtatious playboy.

A desperate letter from her best friend sends Lady Jane rushing from her cozy Cornwall home to the remote reaches of Northumberland. Alison's frantic plea for help hints that something sinister is going on in the gloomy halls of Winton Park, so Jane braves the misty moors in the dead of winter to get to her pregnant and bedridden friend.

When Sean O’Brien stops near the Florida Everglades to buy flowers for a woman, he doesn’t know that the purchase will lead to a trail of deceit, greed and murder. Chester Miller’s life goal is to restore rare ghost orchids in the Everglades. Entering the glades, he sees something that is very much out of place. The elder botanist becomes a target. O’Brien, in a race with the clock, follows a near invisible path that takes him across Florida in a web of dark political corruption.

1887, the Cornwall coast. For years, rumors have flown through the village of Suttonsbury about Ashthorne Hall—that its occupants hoard pirate treasure, that a ghost walks its halls—but botanist Hyacinth Bell only cares about the estate’s extensive one-of-a-kind orchid collection. As an independent woman, she is eager to focus on her career, even if it means waiting to pursue a romantic relationship. After all, love—like an orchid—must be nurtured and tended before it can bloom. What she doesn’t expect is to be swept away by Lucas Harding, the manor’s caretaker, upon their first meeting.

In 1912, John Wade and his brother, William - children of the American consul - were kidnapped off the street in Chungking, China, and raised in the house of Eunuch Chang, the city's master criminal. Twenty-five years later, John is the eunuch's most valuable ward, a trained assassin and swindler, and William has become a talented forger. On the brink of World War II, China is in chaos. When William betrays Eunuch Chang and escapes to central China, a place of ferocious warlords and bandits, John begins a desperate search to save his brother.

An exciting first novel set in pre-independence Singapore. Scorpion Orchid follows the lives of four young men—a Malay, an Eurasian, a Chinese and a Tamil—against a backdrop of racial violence and political factions struggling for dominance. Excerpts from classical Malay and colonial English sources appear throughout the narrative, illuminating the roots and significance of this period in history.

Somewhere in the tropics, yet another beach resort is being built. As they bulldoze a road through a valley the locals consider sacred (the dwelling of a Nature Spirit), the jungle begins to spring up everywhere else. At Maria's Cafe', chairs are sprouting leaves, vines are creeping over the counter, and orchids are growing from the walls. Meanwhile, Jack, Mojo and Claudine are attempting to prove the Nature Spirit not only exists, she may have just begun to "even the score".

When confronted with surprising evidence of her lover's life apart from her, a copywriter in NYC wakes up to her role in his deceit. Set against a desolate winter urban landscape - "New York City would be her lover now" - the story is about the way we protect what's most fragile inside us, often finding consolation in a museum, a rare plant, or solitude.

The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. You have before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just a respectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps-for the thing has happened again and again - there slowly unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel richness, a strange twist of the labellum.