Showing results by narrator "Sarah-Jane Scott" in All Categories

Jane Austen commenced writing in her adolescence and continued right up to her untimely death in 1817. Her novels are reflections of the socially constricted world in which she lived, and the plots are built around the search of one or more young women for a suitable spouse. Austen’s works are noted for the perceptive elegance of her prose and for vigor and detail of characterization. Celebrated critic F. R. Leavis considered Austen as one of the four great English novelists, along with George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad.

This full cast presentation includes Part 1 and Part 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

There’s been another unfortunate death in Riddler’s Edge. And just like last time, this one definitely wasn’t a murder. Or was it? When Heather Flynn is found hanging from the church bell, it seems clear that she killed herself. But Aisling Smith is convinced otherwise - and not just because it appears that Heather’s death was a resurrection spell gone wrong. There are mysterious symbols painted below Heather’s body - symbols emitting a green glow that only Aisling can see.

Aisling Smith is about to try out for a new job - a job writing for a paper she's never heard of. But seeing as she's currently writing classified ads and obituaries, it would be foolish not to give it a shot. Riddler's Edge might be a small town, but it's definitely not boring. Her train hasn't even pulled into the station, and already a woman has been murdered. According to the grumpy but gorgeous Detective Quinn, the passenger's death wasn't a murder at all. He insists that Bathsheba Brookes died of a nut allergy.

Suzy lives in a dysfunctional household. She can't stand her mother; her father is keeping secrets; and her brother seems only to egg on their parents' erratic and unpredictable behaviour. Alongside her friends, Suzy finds herself drawn into the downward spiral of her parents' relationship, and as a result is drawn into the centre of a mystery surrounding a murder.

Just because Detective Quinn is on holiday does not mean that the rest of Riddler’s Edge gets to take a break. And it definitely doesn’t mean that Aisling misses him. But even if she did miss him - ever so slightly, mind you - she has far more urgent things to worry about. Like the fact that every single person the detective asked to look after his lighthouse has met with an unfortunate accident. Or the fact that a mysterious casino has appeared overnight - and instead of winning money, the gamblers are winning wishes....

Persuasion was the last novel completed by Jane Austen and was first published posthumously in December, 1817. The story represents an interesting configuration of Austen’s characteristic narrative patterns. The heroine, Anne Eliot, is something of an old maid—she is twenty-seven years old, still single and is considered by family and friends to have lost her youthful beauty. Several years earlier, her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth had been broken off, due to the insistence of her family that the Captain lacked the wealth and status needed for a suitable husband.

The story concerns the young and vivacious Emma Watson, one of six children of a widowed clergyman. Emma has spent most of her life under the care of a wealthy aunt of liberal views, and has received a good education. However, when her aunt enters into a second marriage, Emma is forced to return to the family home, where she is affronted by the crass hunting for husbands undertaken her sisters, Penelope and Margaret.

The unlikely heroine of this novel is the bashful and unadventurous Fanny Price, who occupies a Cinderella-like position in the residence of her wealthy cousins, the Bertrams, at Mansfield Park. Fanny is the butt of ridicule for the young Bertram sisters (Maria and Julia), and is relentlessly bullied by her manipulative and penny-pinching aunt, the widowed Mrs Norris.

The novel opens with Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s visit to Sanditon, a village on the coast of Sussex. Sanditon is being developed into a bathing-place under the patronage of the two principal proprietors of the parish, Mr. Parker and Lady Denham. Mr. Parker suffers an injury and receives assistance from a local farmer, Mr. Heywood. The latter’s daughter, Charlotte, is of marriageable age and has three eligible suitors: Lady Denham’s foppish son, Sir Edward; Mr. Parker’s devil-may care brother, Sydney; and Arthur, who is an unemployed hypochondriac.