Showing results by narrator "Joan DuKore" in All Categories

Witch Island used to be feared. Even the bravest would not dare go there. Legend said a witch had been burned alive at the stake, and upon her death she cursed the town. Terrified residents performed rituals to keep her spirit trapped on the island where she was buried.

I’ve made it out of Nocturnal Academy. No longer do I exist to please the vamps. Now, as a member of the Winter Court, my job is to execute them. Yet my new standing as an assassin is not much better than being a courtesan. The rules of the game have changed, but I’m still a pawn. Worse, Thorsten, a handsome jerk of a vampire who has messed with my mind and feelings one too many times, is back.

So far I have two possible fates: Die in my dorm or end up as a vampire’s slave. There is no escape out of Nocturnal Academy's prison school. Being here means I’ve lost my mother, my best friend, and my freedom - and it gets worse...Now Nocturnal Academy plans to make me into a courtesan for the vampires. Unless I get a win the chance to become the one out of 100 fae who gets to shape her own fate. Topping the Placement Tests are my only hope.

Elsabet or Elizabeth Bathory's life is notorious and, for the most part, known to history. What she's done since is another story altogether. Haunted by the crimes of her life and by her bloodfather, Vlad Dracula, Elsa seeks a life of her own in the New World. But her past will always catch up to her and she must face her demon.

The curtain rises on Cherry Tucker’s debut as a high school set designer at the posh Peerless Day Academy. Cherry’s been hired for an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, but the drama director is hoping Cherry can also turn the spotlight on a malicious social media bully who’s sending poisonous texts to the faculty. The director’s got his own drama to hide, and the phantom texter seems eager to spill school secrets. When the principal’s secretary commits suicide, Cherry suspects foul play.

With a classical series sold and a portrait commissioned, Cherry Tucker's art career is in Georgia overdrive. But when the sheriff asks Cherry to draw a composite sketch of a hijacker, her life takes a hairpin as the composite leads to a related murder, her local card-sharking buddy Max Avtaikin becomes bear bait and her nemesis labels the classical series "pervert art". While she seeks to help the misfortunate and save her local reputation, Cherry's hammer-down attitude has her facing the headlights of an oncoming killer.

While ex-celebrity Maizie Albright’s dreams of becoming a for-real private investigator have not exactly been dashed, they have been slightly thwarted. Her ex-manager and still-mother, Vicki Albright, has taken the helm of Nash Security Services while rebuilding her entertainment management company. Sometimes with the same clients. Like Chinese action star, Lili Liang, who’s making the film Unlucky 18 in Georgia.

There’s something Allie can’t remember, hidden memories that refuse to surface. Until one day, when something brings back images of a forgotten night. A year after graduating from Emsworth University, Allie receives a mysterious email asking a single question. Someone wants her to remember, and they are getting closer. As forgotten memories gradually surface, Allie has to come to terms with her dark past, and a revelation she could have never imagined. What really happened at 1414 Kalorama Road?

Gin Crawford has enough problems dealing with her empath abilities. Finding out she's the world's newest demon slayer is the last thing she needs. Unfortunately, when she slips on a mysterious bracelet, she is given no other choice. On the plus side, her new gig comes with Tall, Dark, and Handsome, a mage who may or may not have her best interests at heart. Thrust into a power play between good and evil, Gin must choose a side before she becomes the next victim in the ongoing battle.

What If the Very Fabric of Reality Could Be Broken? One moment, Sylvia Huntershaw is toasting her future in one of San Francisco’s most exclusive restaurants. The next, she vanishes—leaving behind only her clothes, her jewelry, and a husband staring into the impossible. Hours later, a tech executive is found dead on the Golden Gate Bridge, his body shattered, his car simply… gone. These aren’t random events. Each is tied to cryptic messages, precision-timed and chilling in their intent. A pattern begins to emerge—one that sends ripples through the powerful elite of Silicon Valley.

On a hot, muggy afternoon in Eden, a tiny, rural town deep in southeast Louisiana, two boys make a grim discovery: They unearth the decades-old remains of a child, strands of hair and clothing still attached to the bones. Meanwhile on the other side of the country, in California, forty-one-year-old Evelyn Yates, a single mother is struggling to maintain psychological equilibrium despite problems with alcohol, a difficult teenage daughter, and her own traumatic past.

Vampires Valad and Michael control the town, and every 10 years, they pick a fertile woman from the village to be wedded to them as part of a tradition that dates back to over a century. No one knows what happens to the women once they are chosen and, quite frankly, no one wants to know. The simple fact is they are never seen again. When curvy Siona discovers that her newly engaged best friend is the next girl to have been selected, she does what no woman has ever done before. Siona volunteers herself to be chosen and to take her friends place.

Grace Allen had always been a big fish growing up in a very small pond. Of course, just about any place was bigger than her tiny town of Chetwynd, nestled in the wildlands of northern Canada. So when she left to attend college in the states six years ago, she thought she’d never look back. That was until a terrifying breakdown brought her overly ambitious life crumbling down around her. Shiloh Pierce had always embraced her small town in Canada, with no intention of ever leaving. A quiet cabin and living off the land was all she really needed. Except six years ago her best friend and the love of her life moved thousands of miles away, leaving a gaping hole that she was unable to fill and throwing her entire world off of its axis.

Shauna discovers the vampires in her favorite novels are real, as she hoped they would be. Her initial encounter with them proves fatal for her. She awakens as one of them, but the mysterious vampire who turned her has disappeared. She is taken under the wings of both the Countess of Philadelphia and the legendary Elizabeth Bathory and soon discovers that even immortality can be fatal.

When Cherry Tucker's invited to paint the "kill portrait" for the winner of Big Rack Lodge's Hogzilla hunt, it seems like a paid vacation. Back home in Halo, a Hatfield-McCoy-style standoff builds between Luke and Cherry's families. She's ready for a weekend away, hobnobbing with rich and famous hunters, where she can forget her troubles and nobody knows her name.

Maizie Albright might have once played a (teenage) private investigator on TV, but she’s now living the (adult) part. Her (mother’s) name is on her business cards. Her (boss’s) appointment book is brimming with new clients. And her bank account has grown large enough to finally trade in her dirt bike for an actual new (pre-owned) vehicle. While the police begin their inquiries, Maizie starts her own case. She’s needling Black Pine’s wealthy do-gooders, threading through lies, stitching together clues, and ripping out false leads.

As an ex-star of a hit teen detective show, Maizie Albright gets the youth demographic. Or so she thought. Now that she’s adulting, today’s kids make Maizie feel out of date. At least the teen Youtube stars of Bigfoot Trackers who want to hire her to look into the disappearance and possible murder of their producer. A murder the police find as likely as Bigfoot.

In continuing her career-makeover quest as a for-real detective, ex-teen and reality star Maizie Albright has a big learning curve to overcome. A sleuthing background starring in a TV show does not cut the real life mustard. It doesn't even buy her lunch, let alone extra condiments. So when a major movie producer needs a babysitter for his hot mess starlet, Maizie eagerly takes the job against her mentor's wishes. But when her starlet appears dead and then not dead, Maizie's got more than an actress to watch and a missing corpse to find.

Dr. Hart adores his wife and is known to gently push Meg’s boundaries when he knows it is for her own good. Keeping her safe is his priority. When their friends go missing and it seems as if she is the next target, will he be able to save her when the killer strikes again?

Deputy Chief Jess Harris knows her time is running out. Somehow she must protect the people she loves and any more innocent victims from the serial killer obsessed with her. Is sacrificing herself the only way to stop this evil?