Showing results by narrator "Natalie Duke" in All Categories

Detective Mary Joe Court sleeps with a shotgun beside her bed and a lovable bull mastiff at her feet. For the past 12 years, she’s hidden from a nightmarish past, but with every passing day, her scars fade, and her heart grows lighter. Now, for the first time in her life, she looks forward to her future. She’s happy. Then she finds the body. Someone shot the victim in her chest and left her to die in a cheap motel. Joe knew her well. She grew up with her. They were sisters, of a sort.

Korinna has simple priorities: stay on the Navitas, stay out of trouble, and stay alive. She may be a Redseer, a blind priestess with the power to manipulate space-time, but she is the weakest in her Order. Useless and outcast. Or so she has been raised to believe.

Eve is a survivor. Kidnapped and genetically enhanced, she wakes in an alley with the ability to level up. As a Player, her life now belongs to the Game. Deadly Trials offer fantastic and powerful prizes, but as she fights against both alien monsters and other Players, Eve knows she would do anything to escape the Game. She may have to risk more than just her life to gain the power to control her own destiny...

Growing up in the city of Stillwater, Oklahoma, thirteen-year-old Liberty Justice has learned how to cook, clean, and care for her heroin-addict mother. But at school, Liberty struggles to fit in, and a fight with her rival gets her suspended. Frustrated, she turns to writing poetry—her only escape. When a drug dealer shows up at their house with wild accusations, a fight breaks out, and the dealer ends up dead. To save her mother from arrest, Liberty flees the scene with her mom in tow.

Kinsley Johnson seems to have everything going well in her world. She’s starting her junior year, her best friend is by her side, and the new boy happens to be really cute and is paying attention to her. So why isn’t Kinsley happy? With an English teacher who knows more than just literature, a youth leader who won’t give up on her, and a brush against a dangerous addiction, Kinsley has to decide if there is anything out there that can anchor her. If she could just find it, maybe her soul could catch somewhere and rest.

Thirty-three-year-old music therapist Kate Randolph is at the top of her professional game. Her life is happily on track, until she receives a phone call announcing the death of the man who abandoned her when she was eight years old. Kate has no interest in going to her father's funeral, but soon realizes she must confront the past to move forward. While in Oregon, Kate discovers why her scientist/father disappeared, and what she learns will set her on a path that will change her life forever.

She was the girl everyone wanted but no one could have—no one but him. They’d loved each other. Becca’s suicide at age eighteen broke Logan. The heartache never fully healed. But nothing could have prepared him for the shock of what came next. At age thirty nine, Logan Cooper’s hard-earned detective career is hanging on by a mere thread. His rage went too far this time. The department has assigned a psychiatrist, Dr. Webb, to help him unpack his deep-seated anger issues.

Annie feels like she's at a good place in her life: happily married, expecting her first child, enjoying a vacation with her extended family at their beautiful coastal home. But then her sister, Sunday, suddenly goes missing. Annie is immediately concerned, but the rest of the family assure her that everything's fine, this is the kind of thing Sunday does, she'll be back… But Annie knows in her heart that something is very wrong, and she won't rest until she sees her sister safe and well. As Annie digs for the truth, she realizes that some of her family are not what they seem.

Cara is a devoted mother to two little girls. She loves her hectic life, but she looks forward to a relaxing weekend alone while her husband, Michael, takes the kids on a camping trip. But their dream trip turns into a nightmare when their daughters are taken, deep in the forest.

On Compromise is an argument against contemporary liberal society’s tendency to view compromise as an unalloyed good - politically, ethically, and artistically. In a series of clear, convincing essays, Rachel Greenwald Smith discusses the dangers of thinking about compromise as an end, rather than as a means.

I'm one scrappy wizard. As someone with barely a flicker of magic, I've spent my life being mocked and surviving fights with bullies. But when my parents die in an accident, and I find myself responsible for our whole wizard house and family, I know my usual tactics aren't going to cut it. The situation veers from bad to catastrophic when my backstabbing cousin stages a coup and takes my family hostage. I barely manage to flee, but the only supernatural willing to help me is Killian Drake - the most feared vampire in the region.

Hazel Bly used to live in the perfect house with the perfect family in sunny California. But when a kayaking trip goes horribly wrong, Mum is suddenly gone forever and Hazel is left with crippling anxiety and a jagged scar on her face. After Mum's death, Hazel, her other mother, Mama, and her little sister, Peach, needed a fresh start. So for the last two years, the Bly girls have lived all over the country, never settling anywhere for more than a few months.

Personal trainer Jonah Bodine discovers more than he bargained for with the half-siblings he didn’t know he had in small-town West Virginia. Not only is his dead father a person of interest in a cold-case disappearance, but the entire town seems way too invested in Jonah’s happily-ever-after potential. His summer of solitude in a lakeside cottage is ruined when his matchmaking sister saddles him with an unwanted roommate. Adorable, snort-laughing nerd Shelby Thompson came to Bootleg Springs looking for answers and ends up getting adopted by the town’s nosy elders.

Humanity survived. Barely, and thanks to networks of gigantic tower systems created to surround small villages with a protective barrier of lethal energy. It kept everything out...and everyone in. Sixteen years have passed, and a girl born the night the world fell apart learns that she has a strange talent. The towers can speak, and she is the only one who can hear them.

To the outside world, my life is perfect. I’m young and rich, and some may even say I’m beautiful. But I would give anything to be somebody else because after being extraordinary all my life, all I wish for is...silence.

Pie isn’t just a dessert, it’s a way of life. Pies, fillings, jams, jellies, honey, they’re all a part of my award-winning business, Firefly Kitchen. After being left behind, by everyone, I was determined to make it all on my own, and I have. I love what I do, I love what I’ve created, and I love who I’ve become. Yes, it’s small, but it’s mine, and nothing or no one can stop me now. Not even Bryan Brennen. He may have returned, but it won’t be long before he leaves. And regardless of how you slice it, some things can’t be forgotten, no matter how sweet the taste.

June Tucker doesn’t understand people. Numbers, data, and statistics? Those make sense. People? Not so much. In a town of Friday night fighters and moonshine-swilling line dancers, she’s the odd duck. And that suits her just fine. But her sister and friends are pairing off, and the change is unsettling. George “GT” Thompson was at the top of his game — one of the best receivers in football. But a career-ending injury sidelined him for good. Now he’s hoping to find relief in the healing waters of this tiny West Virginia town.

One thousand years after a cataclysmic event leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, the descendants of the chosen survivors take refuge in 13 contingency shelters buried deep underground, at the bottom of the ocean, and in the far reaches of outer space. In the underwater 13th Continuum, 16-year-old Myra Jackson has heard rumors and whisperings all her life of a magical place called The Surface” where people could breathe fresh air, feel the warmth of something called sunlight on their skin, and see things known as stars and trees and mountains.

The chicken of the Norse god Thor, bewitched with the power of thunder and lightning, returns to action in Thundercluck! Chicken of Thor: Recipe for Revenge—written by Paul Tillery IV. The mighty chicken Thundercluck is in trouble. He and Brunhilde have run a-fowl of the gods of Asgard, and...

An evil chef faces off against the god Thor, and a hen's egg is caught in the crossfire. It hatches into a powerful chick called Thundercluck, beloved by the gods but a target for evildoers everywhere. When the Under-Cook threatens to make everyone into rotisserie, there's only one chicken who can scramble his scheme.