Showing results by narrator "Emily Lawrence" in All Categories

Though she is the oldest daughter, Princess Faraine lives in the background, shunned from court and kept out of sight. Her chronic illness makes her a liability to the crown, and she has learned to give place to her beautiful, favored younger sister in all things. When the handsome and enigmatic Shadow King comes seeking a bride, Faraine is not surprised that her sister is his choice. When King Vor meets the lively Princess Ilsevel, he quickly agrees to a marriage arrangement. So why can’t he get the haunting eyes of her older sister out of his head?

Valera couldn’t have known the disaster that would fall when she betrayed her husband by looking at his face by candlelight. Now, it’s too late - he is taken from her to some faraway world. She doesn’t know where. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t even know who kidnapped him. But she will save him. No matter what. Neither adventurous nor skilled with weapons like her younger sister, Valera nonetheless sets out on the adventure of a lifetime. 

Clara is an Obligate, an indentured servant of the fae. If she ever wants to see home again, she must survive ten more years of servitude, developing her newly-discovered magic and battling powerful nightmare monsters in the Doomed City Library. She can’t afford any distractions. Distractions like Danny—her handsome childhood sweetheart—who longs to free her from her Obligation. Or Lord Ivor—the devastatingly beautiful fae lord—who desires to whisk her away to his own bright court of intrigue and danger. 

Five years ago, Kellam left to study magic at the big city university. He promised he'd write every day. He never did. But Farryn isn't about to sit around crying her eyes out over the stupid boy who was once her best friend. She's got burgeoning magic of her own, and she's eager to learn how to use it. Surely a witch like Mother Ulla will be the perfect teacher, right? Wrong. Mother Ulla is delighted to have an apprentice around to scrub floors, weed the garden, make meals, and wash her many strange witchly implements. But this apprenticeship is not what Farryn had in mind. 

Emerging journalist Adina Gellar is done with dating in New York City. If she’s learned anything from made-for-TV romance movies, it’s that she’ll find love in a small town—the kind with harvest festivals, delightful but quirky characters, and scores of delectable single dudes. So when a big-city real estate magnate targets tiny Pleasant Hollow for development, Adi knows she’s found the perfect story—one that will earn her a position at a coveted online magazine, so she can finally start adulting for real...and maybe even find her dream man in the process.  

For years, Valera has worked weary hours as a seamstress just to keep food on the table. She would give her all to protect her little sister from the cruelties of the world, and the tantalizing lure of the fae forest. One day, she fears, the fae will spirit her sister away, and how can Valera hope to stop them? Then the fae come. Not for her sister...but for her. Trapped in a magnificent palace far from her own world, Valera finds herself the unwilling bride of an enigmatic fae lord.

Sam is a charismatic actress with big plans for her future. Rosalyn Shew is the smartest girl in school - but she’s a loner and likes it that way. Then there's Christian Powell, the darling of the soccer team. He’s not the best at communication, which is why he and Sam broke up after dating for six months, but he makes up for it by being genuine and kind, which is why they're still best friends. When Christian falls for Ros on sight, their first interaction is a disaster, so he enlists Sam's help to get through to her.

Amelia Cole—Lia for short—is one of the first women studying abroad at Oxford University in the 1920s. Finally free from her overbearing Brooklyn parents, she finds a welcome sense of independence in British college life. Lia quickly falls for Scarlett Daniels, an aspiring actress and hardheaded protester. Scarlett introduces her to an exciting gender-equality movement with high stakes. But when their secret love clashes with political uprising, their relationship is one of the casualties. 

Clara is an Obligate—a human servant at the Court of Dawn. She doesn’t know why. She knows only that she broke the Pledge and must therefore spend her days obliging the every whim of a capricious fae princess. If she can keep her head down and follow the rules, she might survive to the end of her Obligation, spending her days working in the vast palace library.

Emily Joiner was once part of an inseparable group—she was a sister, a best friend, a lover, and a rival. Summers without Emily were unthinkable. Until the fire burned the lake house to ashes with her inside. A year later, it’s in Emily’s honor that Chelsea and her four friends decide to return. The house awaits them, meticulously rebuilt. Only, Chelsea is haunted by ghostly visions. Loner Ryan stirs up old hurts and forces golden boy Chase to play peacemaker. Which has perfect hostess Kennedy on edge as eerie events culminate in a stunning accusation.

Triumph. Tragedy. The empyreal. The infernal. Even the mundane, filtered through the fantastical. Superheroes are, appropriately enough, a sort of super-genre, encompassing all other story types. This YA anthology features thirteen short stories that creatively turn superhero tropes on their head, while still paying homage to the genre that has found fans for more than eight decades. And there will be no mistake—superheroes don’t have to just be generic handsome white dudes. 

Welcome to the world of Droll Tales, in which reality is a mutually agreed-upon illusion and life is painful, paradoxical, beautiful, and brief. With an oddball cast of characters who reappear in various guises throughout these interrelated stories, Smyles reveals an off-kilter world overlapping this one. And in giving us a tour of this enchanted, sometimes absurd place, with its own workings and ways of expression, she gives us a new way to understand our own. 

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor with her sisters and their father and stepmother. Once there were 12, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls' lives have been cut short. Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that her sister's deaths were no accidents. The girls have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn't sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts.

Valora Rigmore understands pressure. As the Chosen One (resident telekinetic, superstar, and model girlfriend), her life revolves around it. According to an ancient prophesy, Valora is destined to fight Erys, a terrifying individual with the power to control monsters. Valora is worshipped at school, in the press, and by her parents, but as the battle with Erys looms near, the cracks in her perfect façade are beginning to show.

Brielle owes Granny Dorrel seven years of her life. Seven years of slavery, serving as the ward witch’s huntress in the depths of Whispering Wood. Dire is a werewolf, a former slave of Granny’s in his own right…and Brielle’s newest target. Can these two enemies find a way to work together and undo the curses binding them? Or will the witch's hold on their broken hearts lead them to destroy one another?

 The Not Wives traces the lives of three women as they navigate the Occupy Wall Street movement and each other. Stevie is a nontenured professor and recently divorced single mom; her best friend, Mel, is a bartender, torn between her long-term girlfriend and her desire to explore polyamory; and Johanna is a homeless teenager trying to find her way in the world who bears shared witness to a tragedy that interlaces her life with Stevie’s. 

Imogen Lovelace is an ordinary fangirl on an impossible mission: save her favorite character, Princess Amara, from being killed off from her favorite franchise, Starfield. The problem is, Jessica Stone, the actress who plays Princess Amara, wants nothing more than to leave the intense scrutiny of the fandom behind. When a case of mistaken identity throws look-alikes Imogen and Jess together, they quickly become enemies. But when the script for the Starfield sequel leaks, and all signs point to Jess, she and Imogen must trade places to find the person responsible.

Judy Glassman lives with her brother, Kenny, and father, Noah, in a village at the foot of Evil Rock. Every winter, Kenny accompanies their dad up to the mansion at the top of the mountain to assist the rich, eccentric Grendel family with their house repairs. But this year, Judy convinces her dad to let her come, too. Judy has heard whispers about the Beast of Evil Rock - a half-human creature who stalks the crags. And she's determined to find out for herself if it's true. Will Judy discover the secret of Evil Rock before the Beast finds her first? 

Aspen is a Norm. A non-magic. A human. And in this supernatural city, that's a quick way to wind up dead. Or worse. She didn't plan on becoming an apprentice to Lucien Dunadine, one of the strongest members on the Council of Mages. She really didn't plan on taking part in a deadly competition against Isak Uchida, her handsome, aggravating, deadly opponent. But with something sinister going down in the magic boroughs, they'll all have to work together if they want to uncover the source of an ancient evil threatening their home.

Reports of a strange gray ghost causing accidents on Highway 98 brings the team to the small town of Wilmer, Alabama. But not everyone in the area is happy to see Midas and the crew. Small-town secrets make it difficult to get a sense of what's really happening on Bloody 98, but the team has a new secret weapon. As they take the investigation to the supposedly haunted forest near the highway, Sierra witnesses an old crime, and Midas tries to keep everyone safe.