Showing results by narrator "Emily Rankin" in All Categories

When Laura Costello arrives in downtown Los Angeles, her life has somewhat fallen apart. Her apartment building has caught fire, her engagement to her high school sweetheart has been broken off and she's just been caught in a rare LA downpour and has no dry clothes. But when she seeks shelter in Nina Hill's local neighbourhood bookshop, she finds herself introduced to the people who will become her new family. And as Laura becomes friends with Nina, Polly and Impossibly Handsome Bob, things start to look up.

Nora, the owner of a diner, is happy serving up apple cider donuts. But her life is soon shaken when she discovers she and her younger sister Kit stand to inherit the home and land of the town's beloved cake lady, Peggy Johnson. Kit, an aspiring - and broke - filmmaker thinks her problems are solved when she and Nora find out Peggy was in the process of selling the land to a big-box developer.

In 2008, 13-year-old Jon Bronson disappears on his morning walk to school. After even his parents give him up for dead, only his best friend, Chloe, remains certain that he would come back. Four years later, Jon returns with no memory of anything after the day he disappeared. But something’s different about him. His presence seems to cause spontaneous nosebleeds in those around him. When he hugs his father, the older man passes out. The family dog disappears. Jon’s only clue to his missing four years is the battered book left behind by the man he believes abducted him.

Emelina Flores has nothing. Her home in Ruina has been ravaged by war; her parents were killed, and her sister was kidnapped. Even though Em is only a useless Ruined - completely lacking any magic - she is determined to get revenge.

The witch who doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Amber is under orders to spend a relaxing Christmas with her house and family in Denver. No chance. A fleeing Athanate House with rebel Adepts and a dying human kin throw themselves at Amber's mercy and her decisions unleash a terrifying journey into the world of the most secretive of paranormal races - the Adepts. Amber has to unmask her enemies, persuade uncertain allies to support her, and risk her own soul in a battle to protect the power of the dragon and the outcome of emergence.

The tide is turning against the colonists in the Revolutionary War, and 18-year-old Elizabeth Morris cannot sit by idly. Quietly disdainful of her Tory parents, who drag her along to society events and welcome a British soldier into their home during their occupation of New York City, Elizabeth decides to take matters into her own hands. She realizes that, as a young woman, no one around her believes that she can comprehend the profound implications of being a nation at war - she is, effectively, invisible. And she can use this invisibility to her advantage.

Full of friendship and revenge, each story and setting is more strange and wonderful than the last, brimming with new technologies and beings. And yet, in these futuristic lands, the people must still confront deeply human emotions and dilemmas. Veronica Roth reaches into the unknown and immerses listeners into six short stories that feel startlingly familiar and profoundly beautiful. With two new stories from the Carve the Mark universe, this collection has something for everyone.

A wild ride of Special Ops attacks, unwinnable werewolf challenges, terrifying magical powers, insane Athanate politics, and the discovery of a fanatic anti-paranormal cult. Amber has to race from the Mexican desert to the swamps of Louisiana to battle past mutant shifters and make ill-considered alliances with old enemies to take on an evil witch queen.

It's been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, the same man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later she wakes up in a clearing just outside her hometown - alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the crime erased. Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he's not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, too, though he does his best to hide the signs.

Heartbroken Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming, cash-strapped bookshop and finds herself the carer for her ailing grandfather Andrew. She thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted-living home to ensure his care, but to pay for it, Natalie will have to sell up the bookshop. However, Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to budge. Moving into the studio apartment above the shop, Natalie hires a contractor, Peach Gallagher, to do some repairs. His young daughter becomes a regular at the shop, and she and Natalie begin reading together while Peach works.

Into the darkness within; or else the light.... When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry in the Dystopia Triptych, more than a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

Ray Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science-fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.

Selah has waited her whole life for a happily ever after. As the only daughter of the leader of Potomac, she knows her duty is to find the perfect match. But after an excruciatingly public rejection, Selah’s stepmother suggests an unthinkable solution: Selah must set sail across the Atlantic to visit a series of potential suitors - and if she doesn’t come home engaged, she shouldn’t come home at all. From the gardens of England to the fjords of Norge, Selah’s quest will be the journey of a lifetime. But her stepmother’s schemes aren’t the only secrets hiding belowdecks.

All seems lost as a giant comet hurtles toward Earth, while Robbi’s Laddertop is thrown into chaos by the unleashing of Energy Spiders that now prowl the Power Web. As Robbi races against time to save the Laddertop and reveal its final secret, Azure and the rest of her research team discover the horrible truth about the comet and the existence of a different, malevolent group of aliens: The Takers.

In this entertaining and eye-opening book, Eleanor Herman revisits some of the sex scandals that have rocked the nation's capital and shocked the public, while asking the provocative questions: does rampant adultery show a lack of character or the stamina needed to run the country? Or perhaps both? While Americans have judged their leaders' affairs harshly compared to other nations, did they mostly just hate being lied to? And do they now clearly care more about issues other than a politician’s sex life?

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there. At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life. When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war.

After a treacherous journey and a life-shattering introduction to a twin neither knew she had, sisters Haidee and Odessa expected to emerge from the Great Abyss to a world set right. But though the planet is turning once again, the creatures of the abyss refuse to rest without another goddess’s sacrifice. To break the cycle, Haidee and Odessa need answers that lie beyond the seven gates of the underworld, within the Cruel Kingdom itself.

A strange man discovers our nameless narrator selling popcorn at a decrepit small-town movie theater and offers her an odd and lucrative position: She will forget her job, her acquaintances, even her name, and move to Los Angeles, where she will become the body double of the famous and troubled celebrity Rosanna Feld. A nervous breakdown has forced Rosanna out of the public eye, and she needs a look-alike to take her place in the tabloid media circus of Hollywood.

Generations of twin goddesses have long ruled Aeon - until one sister’s betrayal split their world in two. A Great Abyss now divides two realms: one cloaked in eternal night, the other scorched beneath an ever-burning sun. While one sister rules the frozen fortress of Aranth, her twin rules the sand-locked Golden City - each with a daughter by their side. Now those young goddesses must set out on separate, equally dangerous journeys in hopes of healing their broken world. No matter the sacrifice it demands.

When Juneau's clan disappeared, she lost more than her friends and family; she lost her entire world. She discovered her life was a lie - her people weren't living in the wilderness because they were the sole survivors of a nuclear war. They were in hiding, hoping no one would find them and learn their secret: They never get sick, they hardly age, and they have the power to communicate with nature.