Showing results by narrator "Zura Johnson" in All Categories

A wildly inventive, exhilarating debut narrated by a young woman meditating on her Czech ancestors' 'falling curse', her twin brother's fall from a window and the malleable, breakable bonds keeping her family from falling apart. One thing that the city of Prague is famous for is throwing men out of windows. The word for this is defenestration.

Hotshot Attorney Ashley D'Angelo takes refuge at her grandmother's tranquil home after a terrible case makes her reevaluate everything - even her successful career. Still, no matter what her sisters think, the place isn't magical. She won’t succumb to any “Rose Cottage Curse” and wind up falling head over heels in love.... But after a minor fender bender provides a memorable first meeting, Ashley can't believe how compelled she is by salt-of-the-earth Josh Madison.

When Melanie D'Angelo arrives at Rose Cottage, she’s only looking to mend her shattered heart and restore the beautiful house her grandmother once called home. The last thing she wants is to become involved with her landscape designer.... Single dad Mike Mikelewski can't deny his instant connection with the gorgeous Melanie, but he already has a woman in his life - his adorable but troubled young daughter, Jessie. So even though Melanie makes his heart pound - and Jessie smile - he won’t allow himself to take a chance on a love that’s blossoming just like the Rose Cottage garden.

Take one part Maggie D'Angelo, a striking and independent food critic who's had her fill of casual men. Add one part Rick Flannery, a gorgeous photographer on a mission for seduction. Then mix in a healthy dose of meddling sisters who believe Rick is just the man to spice up Maggie's life.

Jo D'Angelo's sisters thought they had the perfect prescription for mending her shattered heart: a relaxing stay at Rose Cottage, their grandmother's idyllic home. But for Jo, Rose Cottage is a painful reminder of her youthful summer romance with Pete Catlett, whose infidelity came to light when she learned of his shotgun wedding.... Pete can't believe it when Jo reappears at Rose Cottage, but he gets the distinct impression that he’s the last person she wants to see on her doorstep. Even so, he vows to gain her forgiveness - and perhaps win her heart in the process.

In the village of Liver-and-Onions, there was a Potato Face Blind Man who used to play an accordion on the corner near the post office. The sometime narrator of these tales, he transports readers and listeners to Rootabaga Country, where the railroad tracks go from straight to zigzag, the pigs wear bibs, and the Village of Cream Puffs floats in the wind, looking like a little hat that you could wear on the end of your thumb. Carl Sandburg, the beloved folk chronicler and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, invented these stories for his own daughters.

Abby Callier is more in love with Shakespearean heroes than any real man, and she’s beginning to wonder if there is life for her outside the pages of a book. It doesn’t help that her esteemed parents tend to view her as they would one of their science experiments gone wrong. On the eve of finishing her dissertation, she escapes her staid existence to live in the house she inherited from her Great-Aunt Evie in the small town of Echo Springs, Colorado. Because, let’s face it, when a woman starts comparing her life to horror films, it might be time for a break.  

Masha remembers her childhood in the former USSR but found her life and heart in Israel. Anna was just an infant when her family fled but yearns to find her roots. When Anna is contacted by a stranger from their homeland and then disappears, Masha is called home to Milwaukee to find her.

Hot on the heels of her 2018 This Is Horror Award–winning short story collection Spectral Evidence, critically horror author Gemma Files compiles fifteen more of her most startling recent nightmares—a creepily seductive downward spiral of dark poetry and existential dread, entirely suitable to the slow apocalypse going on all around us. So take your mind off your troubles and send it somewhere the rules still operate, if only to punish those who violate them.

Olive Maxwell much prefers teaching about the Supernatural world to taking part in it and leaves the magical shenanigans to her two sisters. After assigning her college students a project designed to nudge them outside their comfort zones, Olive realizes she’s never once stepped a toe out of her own—and it’s about time that changed. Her first trip into the unknown? Moving in with her longtime crush and friend: tattooed, motorcycle-riding, and pleasantly pierced Baxter Donovan.

Nineteen-year-old Katrina van Tassel knows she’s a disappointment to her parents, for more reasons than one. But as the only daughter of the most prominent family in Sleepy Hollow, she never imagined that she would be chosen as the next sacrifice. Or that in her attempt to escape, she would instead come face to face with the Horseman himself.

Mia Madden is pretty sure that the road to dating app hell is paved with suspiciously hot profiles. Take tonight's date, for example. Alex Conroy is unreasonably gorgeous—he's got that whole "board-room in the streets, lumberjack in the sheets" happening—but he also represents everything she loathes about corporate hustle culture. Yet another lousy date to laugh-cry about later. Except, it turns out that Alex is also the hot-shot new boss her dad can't stop complaining about—the Forbes thirty-under-thirty company fixer of his nightmares. Worse, their respective best friends are dating.

Are you ready for an adventure? Well, to be honest, Julia Thorton wasn’t ready either! When she finds herself kidnapped, Julia holds on for dear life as an unexpected journey turns her life upside down on a long, winding road of craziness. Julia and her partner in crime, Greyson Stone, set out into the unknown and discover more than either was prepared for …

Tricia Goyer presents a must-listen contemporary Christian romance.

This is a tale that used to be about dungeons... Now it's mostly about walking in the woods with a friend, looking for mushrooms to put in your soup. Maybe haggling with the squash seller, or taking care of a neglected garden, or even just putting some jam on a good shortbread biscuit. And yes, sometimes you still go down into the dungeons with your friends, and kill monsters there, disarm traps, avoid spiked pits etcetera, etcetera. But when you come out now, it's not really about the gold and loot.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first issues of Weird Tales Magazine, 100 Years of Weird is a masterful compendium of new and classic stories, flash fiction, essays, and poems from the giants of speculative fiction, including R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, and Isaac Asimov.

A malignant blight ravages Tearmann, wreaking havoc on the lives of the Danú. If Tadhg and Keelynn cannot find a way to stop it before it reaches the castle, there won’t be anything left for them to save. While the blight rages on, Aveen and Rían face troubles of their own. Between confronting ghosts from the past and fending off the Phantom Queen’s thirst for vengeance, peace and happiness seem too far out of reach. It isn’t a matter of if the Princes of Tearmann will fall, but when.

The world of Zenafrost is burning. Darkness has overtaken the lands, corrupting everything it touches. After discovering the truth of her birth, Mara—Princess of Delinval, daughter of the Dread Queen, prophesied bringer of the dawn—has no time to sift through the rubble of her former life. Not with the salvation of the world resting upon her shoulders. By sheer luck and the help of her allies, Mara has somehow managed to survive the first Trial of the Odelians.

All that stands between rowdy long-haul trucker Jill MacLeod (aka Junkmouth) and her family back in Boston is two thousand miles of asphalt. Well, that and the monstrous game the System has had her playing ever since it descended on Earth. The reward: mana. Jill's goal: kill, score, drive—and stay alive. Behind the wheel of a turreted forty-ton semi named Bertha, Jill hammers east from Montana through a gauntlet of every kind of chomping, hissing, rabid creature imaginable. Barreling forward in her magical soulbound big rig and chalking up a bumper crop of roadkill, Jill isn't alone for long.

Every family has secrets, and Natalie Morrigan was used to being kept in the dark. But when her childhood home is destroyed following the mysterious disappearance of her parents, Natalie soon discovers her secrets are darker than most. With nowhere else to turn, Natalie and her four lifelong friends seek out their estranged uncle for guidance, and he cannot wait to tell her the truth. Her entire life has been a lie.