Showing results by narrator "Jennifer Araya" in All Categories

Holding the Line, Barbara Kingsolver's first nonfiction book, is the story of women's lives transformed by an a signal event. Set in the small mining towns of Arizona, it is part oral history and part social criticism, exploring the process of empowerment that occurs when people work together as a community. Like Kingsolver's award-winning novels, Holding the Line is a beautifully written book grounded on the strength of its characters.

Is he dead — or out looking for wife number three? The first part went like this: Five years ago I was working a late-night shift at Over Easy when Ledger Stone walked in. He looked straight into my eyes and never looked away. We got married. We were blessed with two beautiful twins. We...

Through blood and cunning, my mother and I escaped the sadistic clutches of House Redbriar. Now, I just want to finish my first year at Wraithwood Academy in peace, studying demonology and magecraft alongside my boyfriends while unraveling the mysteries of the school. If only I could be so lucky. War has erupted between the two most powerful mage families. On one side are my old enemies from House Redbriar, and you'd better believe they're out for my blood. On the other is troubled, ruthless Arcturus Nightfeld, whose dark past threatens the fragile connection growing between us.  

A riveting debut novel about a family escaping Czechoslovakia after the 1948 Communist takeover--based on the author's own family history. Anna's father disappeared months ago. He had to flee the country because the cruel new Communist government wanted to arrest him. The Communists may have...

Rocio Lopez and Finn Lockwood are finally reunited - but under desperate circumstances. Magic is raging, and the mage community is in chaos as the Confed struggles to hold onto its secrets. Rocio believes exposing those secrets is the key to saving the world's magic. She never wanted to become the leader of a revolution, but with her unique understanding of the crisis, taking charge may be the only way to see her mission through.

Addie: In that one moment everything changed. Everything I thought I knew shattered with just a few words. Who knew the truth could be so devastating. I need to decide which side to take. But can I even trust myself? Xander: She's gone, but I'll scorch the earth to find her if that's what it takes. I'll call upon friend and foe for the battle that is to come. The fires of hell couldn't keep me from her and whoever thinks they can take what is mine, is going to regret it for all time. One thing is for sure. The Crash could ruin us all.

This is Nadina LaSpina's story - from her early years in her native Sicily, where she contracts polio as a baby, a fact that makes her the object of well-meaning pity and the target of messages of hopelessness, to her adolescence and youth in America, spent almost entirely in hospitals where she is tortured in the quest for a cure and made to feel that her body no longer belongs to her, and to her rebellion and her activism in the disability-rights movement. 

In the final moments of The Fracturing, Reagan Scott was taken. While the rest of the country casts their votes for the next Presidential Couple, Reagan must now fight to survive. It's no longer just about winning the Culling, it's about ending the war with the drifters once and for all. As the darkness spirals out of control and threatens to destroy everyone and everything she loves, Reagan will be forced to make some difficult choices.  

Seventeen-year-old Adelaide Tate is in her last year of the Academy, with her eyes set on becoming part of the Red Guard. Who cares that no female has ever joined? When a dark force develops an unhealthy liking for her, Adelaide needs to fight for her life and figure out what makes her so different from the others. Betrayal. Fear. Anger. She must overcome it all in order to turn her world the right way around again. Adelaide has one choice. Accept the help offered to her by Xander Bane, or face the Demon Hoard alone.

Into this sorry state of affairs falls Eve. She's abnormal in all the ways that count to humans, but at Caelum, where she should be among her peers? Even here she's weird. No woman has more than one mate. Eve? She has seven. And the creatures that dominate her mind? There are eight of those battling for power in her soul. With the war having come to Caelum's front door, Eve and her mates have no option but to escape the perils she faces at an Academy where anyone extraordinary is to be exterminated. 

Caelum: an Academy built to protect people like Eve. Who they can't protect her from? Its own student body. The threat of death isn't new to Eve, but when she's given the chance to escape her past, she prays her future will be brighter. How wrong she is. Raised in a cult, Eve has no understanding of the modern world. Targeted as a freak, a Pack of boys take her under their wing but one among them recognizes Eve for what she is. Trouble. And a threat.

American journalist Milly Bennett has covered murders in San Francisco, fires in Hawaii, and a civil war in China, but 1930s Moscow presents her greatest challenge yet. When her young Russian husband is suddenly arrested by the secret police, Milly tries to get him released. But his arrest reveals both painful secrets about her marriage and hard truths about the Soviet state she has been working to serve. Disillusioned and pulled toward the front lines of a captivating new conflict, Milly must find a way to do the right thing for her husband, her conscience, and her heart.

John and Marcy Stanley moved to The Coves for the quiet life. When the two meet the couple next door, they think they’ve struck neighbor gold. Jill and Marcy become fast friends, but it isn’t until Marcy receives an ominous letter that she begins to suspect Jill’s husband, Mark, of hiding something. Something dark. Something violent. Shannon Vogle was the victim of an elaborate kidnapping. After being set free, she becomes obsessed with finding the man who took her.

One hundred and fifty years after a virus wipes out most of the world's population, Reagan Scott finds herself chosen for the State of the Union's fifth Culling. She will compete against 49 of the country's brightest girls. And then, of course, there are the 50 boys. She'll have to pair up with one for her shot at becoming the next Presidential Couple. Though the government truly means well, not everything is as it seems. She will be tested to the fullest extent while an evil storm brews. 

We’re meant to live in such ongoing satisfaction in Jesus and transformation by Jesus that others are drawn to him through us - and all without joining a convent, hauling our sleeping bags to church, or barricading ourselves in the bathroom with our Bibles and prayer journals. The truth is that we can invest in all those religious activities and still be God-starved refugees going through the motions unless we learn how to trust Jesus to do in us what God asks of us.

In the early 2000s, a string of abductions rocked the small upstate town of Reine, New York. Only one girl survived: Alex Salerno. The killer, Ken Parsons, was sent away. Life returned to normal. No more girls would have to die. Until another one did. It’s been seven years since Kira Shanks was reported missing and presumed dead. Alex Salerno has been living in New York City, piecemealing paychecks to earn a livable wage, trying to forget those three days locked underground and her affair with Sean Riley, the married detective who rescued her....

Meet the next generation of big donors - the Gen X and Millennial philanthropists who will be the most significant donors ever and will shape our world in profound ways. Hear them describe their ambitious plans to revolutionize giving so it achieves greater impact. And learn how to help them succeed in a world that needs smart, effective donors now more than ever.    

They drowned Victoire's mother, claiming she was a witch. Then, her father died beneath the wheels of a nobleman's carriage. Forced to leave her village, Victoire finds work in Paris. But domestic employment comes at a high price, and the orphaned girl suffers gruesome abuse at the hands of a diabolical aristocracy. Accused of a heinous crime, they imprison her in the depraved lunatic asylum, La Salpêtriere. With the help of ruthless seductress, Jeanne de Valois, Victoire must find the strength to join the revolutionary force storming the Bastille.

Rocio Lopez and Finn Lockwood survived the deadly trials of the Mages' Exam in a bid to keep their magic. But the world outside presents vicious threats of its own. Forced into the Confed's military special ops unit, Rocio must walk a fine line between complicity and resistance, or everyone she loves could pay the price. With the magic's pleas growing increasingly urgent, can she make her stand in time? Stripped of his talent, Finn is determined to fight the corrupt magical government - and to find his way back to the girl he's fallen for.

It’s the first day of summer and Rachel's 13th birthday. She can't wait to head to the lake with her best friend, Micah. But as summer unfolds, every day seems to get more complicated. Her “fun” new job taking care of farm animals quickly becomes a challenge, and at home, her parents are more worried about money than usual. Fortunately, Rachel can count on Micah to help her cope with all the stress. But Micah seems to want their relationship to go beyond friendship, and though Rachel almost wishes for that, too, she can’t force herself to feel “that way” about him.