Showing results by narrator "Cindy Kay" in All Categories

Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just the chosen ones – those who are lost – will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets. Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop's new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike other customers. For he offers help, instead of seeking it.

A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: It’s close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and, ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig - watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods - turns out to be inconvenient. Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all but something altogether more meaningful.

Five years ago, he broke her heart. Now, he'll do anything to win her back. Farrah: When Farrah walked into her lunch meeting, she didn't expect to see him. Blake Ryan. Her first love. Her first heartbreak. And now, her first client as a freelance interior designer. It's been five years, but she'll never forget the way he shattered her. He whispers pretty words, but she'll never believe him. Her body craves his, but she'll never give him her heart. Not again. Not ever.

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: To escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four.

It's autumn in Harrow, but something is changing in the town besides the season. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard grows a new sort of apple: strange and beautiful, with skin so red it's nearly black. Take a bite of one of these apples and you will you will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But soon your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing - and become darker.

In 1955, an American farming couple saw a film about the thousands of Korean children orphaned by the Korean War. Through a special act of Congress, they were authorized to adopt eight of these children - which marked the advent of international adoption. Since that time, there have been over 170,000 children adopted out of Korea to more than 30 countries. Korean adoptee Glenn Morey and his wife, Julie Morey, spent six years interviewing 100 Korean adoptees from around the world. This stunning Audible Original is comprised of 15 first-person accounts....

Two exes, one house. What could go wrong? Olivia had a plan: MBA, Wall Street VP by thirty-two, marriage and two children (preferably twins because #efficiency). Not in her plan? Losing half her belongings in an apartment flood and being forced to turn to her ex for help. Definitely not in her plan? Moving into said ex's house and watching him walk around shirtless, bake her cupcakes, and look at her with those smoldering-Wait, what was she talking about again?

Noelle Tom really shouldn’t have eaten those dumplings at the night market. But the old woman at the stall said they’d give her what she needed most, and what Noelle desperately needed after another long workweek was food. Except now she’s reliving the same Friday. Every morning her alarm goes off at 6:45, and the Wordle answer is always “happy.” Worst of all, any work she does at her job as an engineer? It’s erased when she wakes up. Monday might never come in this workaholic’s nightmare.

Every action has a consequence, and Claire Ward knows it. And yet, even knowing that her decision to swap places with her identical twin sister, Lia, for a night could be disastrous, she still does it. Why? Because it will give her an evening with the man she’s been crushing on for years, Lia’s best friend, Finn. Miss Straight-A Student has thought through all the angles. And everything would have been fine if Finn had been the one to show up at her door. But it wasn’t. Bauer Davis - Finn’s half brother and his exact opposite...is the one waiting for her instead.

A striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To listen to these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish.

Ying Yue believed in love . . . once. Yet when she's chosen to wed the Crown Prince, Ying's dreams of a fairy tale marriage fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won't explain. And whispers swirl: of seven other brides who mysteriously disappeared after their own weddings.

A vow. A contract. A marriage of fire and ice. But just when Eric de Vries and I found our forever, the entire world conspired to keep us apart. A kidnapping. A trial. A madman bent on revenge. Now caught in a web of our own passion and a father's obsession, the harder we struggle, the tighter we're caught. They say love conquers all, but it feels like we're the conquest. As the walls close in, I have to wonder...are we really meant to be? Or is this love just a trap?

At turns nonchalantly hip and charmingly deranged, Suzuki's singular slant on speculative fiction would be echoed in countless later works, from Margaret Atwood and Harumi Murakami, to Black Mirror and Ex Machina. In these darkly playful and punky stories, the fantastical elements are always earthed by the universal pettiness of strife between the sexes, and the gritty reality of life on the lower rungs, whatever planet that ladder might be on.

Whale, set in a remote village in South Korea, follows the lives of many linked characters, including Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in international literature.

Published to challenge the historic narrative of music and music writing being written by men, for men, This Woman's Work seeks to confront the male dominance and sexism that have been hard-coded in the canons of music, literature and film and has forced women to fight pigeon-holing or being side-lined by carving out their own space.

In the aftermath of the expeditions against the Bloody Sovereign's Tomb and the demonic enclave, Yoshika begins to rebuild the academy as a new power, independent from the other nations. Amidst their efforts, Kaede must investigate the unrest in her homeland of Yamato, as well as her new role as an aspect of Yoshika. Meanwhile, Eui returns to Goryeo to confront her own past as a former bandit and establish a treaty between her former and current homes.

I fell in love with my best friend's dad when I was seventeen. He seemed like some kind of heathen god, big enough to kill a man with his bare hands, tattooed with bright, bold images, and weathered by time and a short stint in prison. Blind to the consequences, I made a mistake that ran him out of town and ruined his life. Now, he's back after all these years––hating me more than the day he left.

A Chinese woman moves from Beijing to London for a doctoral program - and to begin a new life - just as the Brexit campaign reaches a fever pitch. Isolated and lonely in a Britain increasingly hostile to foreigners, she meets a landscape architect and the two begin to build a life together.

The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to the aging ruler of a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. The bride's party is welcomed with elaborate courtesies and extravagant banquets, but between the frightened servants and the cryptic warnings of the lord's mad son, they quickly realize that something is haunting the shadowed halls.

Here’s the deal. My baby sister’s off living her fairytale honeymoon, and one of my best friends ditched his responsibilities to chase after true love. So now, the reins of a multi-billion-dollar company are in my hands. Believe me, the last thing shareholders want is a guy at the helm who’s had a run-in with the law for indecent exposure. Meanwhile, I've made Manhattan's Top 10 most eligible bachelor list. And despite my talent for juggling women like I’m the main act at Cirque de Soleil, even I have my limits.