Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Contemporary

Environmental devastation and economic chaos have turned America into a land of horrifying depravity. Assault, theft, sexual abuse, slavery, and murder are commonplace. And a zealous, bigoted tyrant has won his way into the White House. Directly opposed is Lauren Olamina, founder of Earthseed - a new faith that teaches "God Is Change". Persecuted for "heathen" beliefs as much as for having a Black female leader, Earthseed's followers face a life-and-death struggle to preserve their vision.

Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and not long after entering Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz's most promising young citizens. But Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere.

As the mate of the Beast Lord, Curran, former mercenary Kate Daniels has more responsibilities than it seems possible to juggle. Not only is she still struggling to keep her investigative business afloat, she must now deal with the affairs of the pack, including preparing her people for attack from Roland, a cruel ancient being with god-like powers. Since Kate’s connection to Roland has come out into the open, no one is safe - especially those closest to Kate.

In between running her vampire nightclub and hunting down the perfect pair of shoes, Betsy learns her long-lost half-sister Laura is actually the spawn of Satan. Complicating matters, prophesy states that the devil's offspring and the queen of the vampires are destined to rule the world together.

When Delilah Marlow visits a famous traveling carnival, Metzger's Menagerie, she is an ordinary woman in a not-quite-ordinary world. But under the macabre circus black-top, she discovers a fierce, sharp-clawed creature lurking just beneath her human veneer. Captured and put on exhibition, Delilah is stripped of her worldly possessions, including her own name, as she's forced to "perform" in town after town. But there is breathtaking beauty behind the seamy and grotesque reality of the carnival.

Nora knows she needs to move on. And forget about magic. She's back in graduate school, and her life is going surprisingly well. She doesn't need to think about other worlds, about enchantments and demons, or about magicians - even though she once aspired to become one herself. Most of all, she really should forget the magician Aruendiel, who shared the secrets of magic with her but fiercely guarded the deepest secrets of his heart. Then a chance encounter gives Nora the opportunity to slip between worlds again - and the next phase of her magical education begins. 

The Great Reawakening did not come quietly. Across the country and in every nation, people began to develop terrifying powers - summoning storms, raising the dead, and setting everything they touch ablaze. Overnight the rules changed...but not for everyone. Colonel Alan Bookbinder is an army bureaucrat whose worst war wound is a paper-cut. But after he develops magical powers, he is torn from everything he knows and thrown onto the front-lines.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke, and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god - and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it. 

Young Thomas Corn Eyes sees into the otherworld, but all he wants to do is get off the rez. Steve Cole escaped from his rock star life to disappear into the desert and mountains. Fifteen-year-old barrio kid Sadie Higgins has been discarded once too often. Blogger Leah Hardin needs to leave Newford, come to terms with the loss of her best friend, and actually engage with her life. When these lives collide in the Hierro Maderas Mountains, they must struggle to escape their messy pasts and find a way to carve a future for themselves.

Charlotte de Ney is as noble as they come, a blueblood straight out of the Weird. But even though she possesses rare magical healing abilities, her life has brought her nothing but pain. After her marriage crumbles, she flees to the Edge to build a new home for herself. Until Richard Mar is brought to her for treatment, and Charlotte’s life is turned upside down once again.

Two years ago, on the same day but miles apart, Finn Darby lost two of the most important people in his life: his wife Lorena, struck by lightning on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, and his abusive, alcoholic grandfather, Tom Darby, creator of the long-running newspaper comic strip Toy Shop.

Two-time Aurora Award-winning author Guy Gavriel Kay has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award three times. In the first book of his Fionavar Tapestry series, five college students meet a wizard who takes them to the heart of the first of all worlds - a place called Fionavar. The students soon discover that they have been pre-ordained as part of the pattern called the Fionavar Tapestry - and if they don't fulfill their destinies, the world will suffer devastating consequences.

The Masters, dreadful and severe, rule the Red City and the lands far beyond it. By night, they politic and feast, drinking from townsfolk resigned to their fates. By day, the Masters must rely on their human servants, their Day Boys, to fulfill their every need and carry out their will. Mark is a Day Boy, practically raised by his Master, Dain. It’s grueling, often dangerous work, but Mark neither knows nor wants any other life.

Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative writer Valentina Garnier loves a good story, so when she learns that CIA director Agnes Pendalon wants her to travel to Kunashir Island in Russia’s easternmost province, she jumps at the chance. Top scientists, political aides, CIA agents and even the vice president’s daughter have all made mysterious trips to the island in recent weeks. Could it be coincidence, or is something more alarming at play? When Val arrives in Kunashir, she’s mesmerized by a magical rowan tree and its leaves that turn to golden threads, encircling the visitors.

Juniper should have known better after her last foray into the otherworld. But when she’s asked to look into a mysterious box full of poltergeists she ends up making a promise to seven teenage ghosts that puts here directly in the crosshairs of a blood witch’s deadly ire.

There are dragons in Lagos and witches who wear their sons’ skins, while a cabal of otherworldly beings are collecting intelligent life forms in the depths of the universe. This collection features some of Falowo’s most notable previously published stories alongside new tales of magic and terror.

Firuzeh and her brother Nour are children of fire, born in an Afghanistan fractured by war. When their parents, their Atay and Abay, decide to leave, they spin tales of their destination, the mythical land and opportunities of Australia. As the family journeys from Pakistan to Indonesia to Nauru, heading toward a hope of home, they must rely on fragile and temporary shelters, strangers both mercenary and kind, and friends who vanish as quickly as they’re found.

A fifteen-year-old teenager is the backbone of her small Midwestern family, budgeting the household finances and raising her younger brother while her mom, a talented artist, weaves beautiful tapestries. For six years, it’s been just the three of them—her mom has brought home guests at times, but none have ever stayed. Yet when her mom brings home a six-foot tall crane with a menacing air, the girl is powerless to prevent her mom letting the intruder into her heart, and her children’s lives.

Casement Rise is a dusty town at the end of days, a harsh world of grit and arcane dangers. While Jean’s stern, overprotective Nan has always kept Casement Rise safe from monsters, she may have waited too long to teach Jean how to face them on her own. On Jean’s twelfth birthday, a mysterious graceful man appears, an ethereal and terrifying being tied to her family’s secrets. Now, Nan must rush Jean’s education in monsters, magic, and the breaking of the world in ages past.

After her girlfriend breaks up with her for being too emotionally stifled, Jo Miller is trying to become more expressive. But then her boss calls her into his office for a private meeting and sexually assaults her. His parting words are, “you won't want to talk about this Jo. You think you do now, but trust me, you won’t.” Jo had been ready to go straight to the police, but every time she tries to talk about what happened, live insects crawl up her throat and into her mouth.