Showing results by narrator "Chelsea Stephens" in All Categories

It’s not in my nature to beg, but I’ll stay on my knees until I feel that flame sputter out. And then … I’ll rip the world to shreds. I’ve tumbled into a darkness so deep it’s hard to see the light, my petals curling inward as I tip my face from the sun. Hide from my monstrous actions. Traitor. Murderer. High Mistress. My mistakes hunt me down, and I’m pulled into a political tug-of-war, balancing Ocruth’s welfare on the edge of a bloody blade. The moon is swelling, the weight on my shoulders is compacting, and my unfailing curiosity keeps weaving its roots in the wrong direction.

In the beginning, there was darkness. Before he met Callie, before he became the Bargainer, there was Desmond Flynn, the bastard son of a scribe. A boy born to a weak mother, cursed with little magic, and destined to marry a slave. But fate had something else in mind. From the barren caves of Arestys to the palace of Somnia to the streets of earth, this is how Desmond Flynn, a fairy who began with nothing, became the Emperor of Evening Stars.

Formally trained pastry chef Chloe Barnes is opening a cannabis bakery. When her beloved grandmother falls ill, Chloe returns to quaint Azalea Bay, to start over in the most satisfying way possible—concocting delicious edibles with her quirky Aunt Dawn. Combining French luxury and THC, Baked by Chloe will take pot brownies to another level...until a creepy past acquaintance rehashes old drama and shockingly turns up dead—landing Aunt Dawn as the number one murder suspect.

With her brother-in-law imprisoned behind enemy lines, Kari must mount a daring rescue to rival her previous forays to Mehr'Durillia. The problem is, the battles she's fought in recent weeks have left her in no condition to go anywhere....

Kari and her allies have seen numerous miracles in recent months, from the glorious rebirth of a friend to the unprecedented alliance of many peoples from across Terrassia and beyond. Now, all the pieces are in place, the military campaign known as The Phoenix Ascension ready to be put into motion. All hope - not just on Terrassia or even Citaria as a whole, but on her sister worlds of Irrathmor and Mehr'Durillia as well - now rests on the execution of this plan. Failure will mean the end of the last chance of liberating Mehr'Durillia and the deaths of the final defenders of Citaria.

Siren Callypso Lillis still wears the physical reminders of her time as Karnon’s captive, even after reuniting with soulmate Desmond Flynn, the King of Night. Not only that, but mounting evidence suggests the Thief of Souls, the being responsible for the disappearance of countless fae warriors, is still out there. Invited to an annual Solstice celebration, Callie and Des journey to the Kingdom of Flora to continue their investigation. But under the bright lights and striking blooms of the realm, new complications arise, ones that no amount of bargaining can undo.

The arrival of the Malor spacecraft proved, once and for all, that humanity is not alone in the universe...the path of destruction it left behind showed that aliens are not always friendly. Remaining on Earth, Sydney and Brian must now face the aftermath of the Malor invasion. When a mysterious stranger shows up on Sydney's doorstep in the middle of the night, she's drawn into an urgent mystery: There has been a massive increase in alien abductions around the globe, despite the breakdown of Malor technology - and someone powerful is trying to keep it quiet.

Immediately following the Malor invasion, Malia and Jaden Kwan have left Earth with the Othali, seeking a habitable planet in the distant reaches of the galaxy. But as they approach Mars, the ship's engines fail. Entering orbit to make repairs, they discover evidence of ancient, technologically advanced life down on the surface. Malia and Jaden join the team going down to investigate.

For Karian Vanador, though, being resurrected comes with a price. Not only is she in a different time and place, but the world has changed in her absence, and she must face the dark demons of her past once again. Partnered with allies who would've been her enemies in her past life, she must adapt to this new world and lead these young heroes to fulfill their potential - to stop a civil war being stoked by demonic influences. If they fail, Citaria may fall to a war that dwarfs the Apocalypse.

When magic returns to Gloamington, the town holds a Spring Awakening Festival. It should be an opportunity to celebrate. Instead, it becomes the perfect stage for murder. When the mayor is found dead at the festival, Malcolm Fawkes and Ella Bloom find themselves hunting a killer among the celebrating crowd. The sheriff calls it an accident but the great detective knows better.

It's bad enough learning your lover is married—worse still is discovering who the wife is. Claudia Khoury lives by one rule: honesty, no matter the cost. When her fun fling turns out to be married—to her new boss, no less—she's left reeling. Elizabeth Lancaster thrives on structure...

Seconds from a meteoric career launch, cellist Courtney Starling suffers a frightening migraine attack during a key performance. While harmful rumors fly, she escapes to her happy place—her best friend’s Kansas bookshop. Courtney’s working incognito when a scream sends her leaping off a shelving ladder to find the woman who screamed cowering near the register.

Flying-phobic ER nurse Olive Murphy is still gripping the armrest from her first-ever take-off when the pilot announces an in-flight medical emergency. Olive leaps into action and saves a life, but ends up getting stuck in the airport hours away from the marathon she's running in honor of her brother. Luckily for her, Stella Soriano, the stunning type A copilot, offers to give her a ride. After the two spend a magical day together, Stella makes a surprising request: Will Olive be her fake girlfriend?

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation but which haunts the Signalman. In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea, a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible - the Children of the Next Level - and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming, and they will help to usher it in.

A fresh post-apocalyptic anthology: the end of the world seen through the salvage and ruins, featuring Emily St. John Mandel, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.

Kiss of Death: One second, Gem Hawkins is on her way to being the number one drag racer in the state and the next she's burying her father, a badass demon hunter.

One hundred and ten years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind nine insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

In an age riven by "fake news," "alternative facts," and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, the authors argue that social factors, not individual psychology, are what's essential to understanding the persistence of false belief and that we must know how those social forces work in order to fight misinformation effectively.

A LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST "The feelings in this one are dialed up so high you almost can’t look at them directly: It would be like staring into the sun... Like Rosie Danan or Kate Clayborn, Barrett has a way of making palpable the full journey of a relationship" –New York Times...