Showing results by narrator "Daniela Acitelli" in All Categories

In my childhood the shunned house was vacant, with barren, gnarled and terrible old trees, long, queerly pale grass and nightmarishly misshapen weeds in the high terraced yard where birds never lingered. We boys used to overrun the place, and I can still recall my youthful terror not only at the morbid strangeness of this sinister vegetation, but at the eldritch atmosphere and odor of the dilapidated house, whose unlocked front door was often entered in quest of shudders.

If you have body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRB) such as hair pulling or skin picking, you may feel embarrassed about seeking help. But there are proven-effective strategies you can use to overcome these behaviors and improve your overall quality of life—this book will show you how. In this evidence-based resource, three renowned experts and clinicians offer powerful CBT skills to help you move past BFRB. You'll learn why you engage in these behaviors, and how to identify your own sensory "triggers"—places, things, or experiences that cause your behavior to become worse.

It's been six years since Josiah stole kisses from Anne, his best friend's younger sister. Six years since Josiah left after his best friend's death, burdened by the knowledge that he was responsible for destroying Anne's family. Now he's returned to claim the woman he can't live without. But even as their desire threatens to consume them both - body and soul - the dark workings of suspicion and witchcraft are afoot. Because in Salem, too much passion can lead a woman to ruin...and condemned to death.

A long time ago, the Vanderchucks fled the growing climate disaster and followed their neighbors into the Underground. Jesse Vanderchuck thought it was the end. Of the world. Of life. Eventually, Jesse's little sister, Olivia, ran away and Jesse started picking through trash heaps in Toronto's abandoned subway tunnels. Day in, day out.

Dashing stranger, Henry Dunham, comes to Salem on a mysterious errand, but is thrown from his horse in the dead of night and rescued by the local Puritan midwife, Lydia Colson. Haunted by her past, Lydia is running from her own dark secrets, avoiding intrusive questions by pretending her dead husband is simply . . . away. But when she and Henry are caught in a compromising situation, one punishable by Puritan law, he saves her from scandal by claiming to be her errant spouse . . . and claiming her bed.

After he’s shot in the line of duty, Detective Thomas Shepherd returns to Wolf Lake to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Living beside the water, he finds peace...until the body of a missing woman washes up on his shore, and the town blames a teenage boy with a history of violence. Is a killer stalking the sleepy resort village?

Longtime teacher and novelist Alice LaPlante shares 100 original exercises that will simultaneously push you into a corner and give you the tools to write yourself out of it. LaPlante explains the purpose of each exercise—to sharpen your ear for dialogue, generate surprising images, or access intense emotions—and breaks down student examples to reveal how to achieve these goals.

Is being a part of the "herd" really a good thing? In Ayn Rand's Anthem, we join our protagonist in this dystopian future world where humankind's compulsion to seek and live in the "safety of numbers" can go horribly wrong. Anthem was published in 1938 but is scarily relevant to our modern world.

Six of Edgar Allan Poe’s most chilling tales: "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat", "The Raven", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "Shadow," and "The Cask of Amontillado". In each of these tales, the author takes us to the brink of madness with his uncanny ability to paint a macabre picture with words. You might never sleep with the lights out again.

In this unnerving Edgar Allen Poe tale, our narrator insists on his sanity after carefully calculating and committing the brutal murder of an old man because of his monstrous eye. He argues that it is quite sane to cut the body into pieces and hide it under the floorboards. Will our narrator's guilt be his undoing? To what extent will he go to defend his sanity?

What would you do in the name of revenge? In The Cask of Amontillado, our narrator Montresor feels that the pompous Fortunado has insulted him one too many times. Join us as Motresor takes advantage of his enemy's love of wine to exact an unspeakable revenge.

In this tale, our narrator is deemed guilty of an unnamed crime and condemned to death by a tortuous method of which he can only imagine. In complete darkness in a room with only a large pit in the center and rats to keep him company, he soon realizes there is a large bladelike pendulum hanging above him, slowly getting closer to cutting through his chest.

How easily does love turn to hate? In what is arguably one of Edgar Allen Poe's most disturbing tales, we join our narrator as he cruelly injures and betrays his once beloved cat. Our deeply disturbed narrator shows a malicious streak and lack of conscience that is painful to witness. The narrative forces us to question to what extent we can escape our conscience. As we realize all is not as it seems.

Who among us would not wish the return of our lost loved one? Our narrator, while in the depths of grief for his "Lenore", is visited by a talking raven. Is this supernatural raven a voice from the other side, or is our narrator merely following a slow, sorrowful descent into madness?

On Mars, the dust is yellow, and microscopically fine. With the result that it penetrates to the sensitive lung tissues of a human being, causing distress. Crossing the street toward the dive set into the towering wall of the cliff overhead, Jim Ronson sneezed violently. He wished fervidly that he might get another glimpse of what Robert Heinlein, two centuries before, had nostalgically called The Cool Green Hills of Earth, and again smell air that had no dust in it.

When Janice Gale is offered a job as a housekeeper at a country place near Pine Cone, she is grateful and looking forward to finally attaining some stability and peace. The last thing Janice expects is to become involved in the search for stolen Russian jewels. To further complicate matters, Janice finds herself dangerously attracted to Paul Dabney, the charming and suspicious houseguest.

Dr. Randall Forth is so desperate to discover a cure for the 48-year-fever, known as Trailmen's fever, he persuades Dr. Jay Allison to undergo hypnosis. Once hypnotized, Jay Allison becomes Jason Allison, his hidden and polar opposite secondary personality.

Jasmine Marcks was a teenager when she discovered her father was a killer. First, there was the strip of bloody duct tape; then, the bloodstain on his shirt; and finally, the long nights away from home that always coincided with gruesome deaths. Roscoe Lee Marcks killed 14 people before he was finally put behind bars - but, as renowned FBI agent Karen Vail soon learns, Marcks's reign of terror isn't over yet.

Mary Shelley wished with her classic Gothic novel Frankenstein to "make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart". Mary Shelley succeeded. Victor Frankenstein finally fulfills his dream of creating his own living creature, stitched together from the macabre remains of corpses. To his horror he finds he has created something even more ghastly than in his worst imaginings. Frankenstein has created a monster with a soul!

Betty Jane Welch reluctantly enters the Miss Delaware contest to make her mother happy and, surprisingly, finds herself to be the judges' choice. Just like that, she's catapulted into the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. Her pageant-approved escort for the week is the dashing, mercurial Griffin McAllister, and she falls for him hard. But when she unexpectedly wins the crown, she finds she may lose what she wants most: Griff.