Showing results by narrator "Kate Rudd" in All Categories

It’s anything but a calm, quiet semester at the School of Necessary Magic. Dangerous magical criminals are near, and Homeland Security puts the school on alert. Can Raine Campbell finally show her future boss - the FBI - what she can do, or will it all go sideways? The criminals think they can convince Raine and her friends to help them. But Agent Connor has taught her well. Their junior year gets even more challenging when students’ secrets are exposed. Do Raine and friends help their fellow students or turn them in? Should they follow the rules or do what’s right?

Their senior year is wrapping up. Finals are coming up, and decisions are being made for college and life after high school. Movie nights, pranks, louper finals, and trips to the kemana - Raine and her friends are busy. Too bad the bad guys didn’t get the notice that Raine and her friends are good at multitasking - because they’re not so busy that they won’t take a break to deal with trouble one more time and save their friends and save their school.

Senior year. Two semesters remain before Raine Campbell and her friends graduate from the School of Necessary Magic. Louper finals are in full swing. Raine’s friends are trying to figure out their plans post-high school. A teacher is being threatened. And it wouldn’t be a complete semester without Dark Wizards getting involved. Some evil never learns. Also, Raine and her friends encounter a witch with a strange necklace in the kemana. When she invites them to a meeting of a secret society, things get interesting - quick.

When Roger and Virginia Lindhal enroll their son Gregg in Mrs. Alt's Los Padres Valley School in the mountains of Southern California, their marriage is already in deep trouble. Then the Lindhals meet Chic and Liz Bonner, whose two sons also board at Mrs. Alt's school. The meeting is a catalyst for a complicated series of emotions and traumas, set against the backdrop of suburban Los Angeles in the early fifties.

Falling for a bad-boy rock star is the last thing single mother Casey Anderson-Bovier should do. Embroiled in a custody battle with her ex, Casey is fighting to raise her boys in their quaint Colorado hometown - a secret haven for celebrities. But when it comes to her hotel's newest guest, Casey can't connect the dots. Is Zane Steele the out-of-control rocker plastered all over the media, or the captivating man with a killer smile who's charming her and her two boys?

Single mom Vanessa Holt has a daughter she loves, a supportive family, and her art. Having given up on finding true love - if that even exists, which she doubts - she's content to put romance on the back burner. But not everyone agrees. Those nearest and dearest are ready to see Vanessa let down her long blonde hair and have some fun. To put their grumbling to rest, Vanessa agrees to go on a date with the next man who asks.

An electromagnetic-pulse attack has destroyed the country's power grid, sending the United States back to the Dark Ages. Now Dee and Grandpa must face a world without electricity and clean water - let alone cell phones and the Internet - as well as the chaos brought on by this sudden catastrophe. Soon their town begins to collapse as disease and lawlessness run rampant.

Felicity Wright never expected to inherit the hotel where she works as head chef. But now, she'll do anything to keep the Bancroft Hotel operating - even if that means mixing it up with the late owner's handsome nephew, Blake Bancroft. He's here to challenge her unexpected inheritance of the Bancroft Hotel, and there's no way either of them are walking away without a fight.

Recovering from a past shaped by violence, Matt Holloway has sworn to live a different life than his parents did. Matt has found a purpose that keeps his lingering pain and fear at bay: helping others to heal. Yet the nightmares continue to haunt him. Grace has lived a life of luxury, sheltered by her family’s money and connections. When a betrayal forces her to question everything, she leaves her family and accepts an ambitious position in a career for which she may not be ready.

Like many people, you've done your best to gain control of your life - to force reality to fit into the confines of your high expectations. Reality, though, has a way of repeatedly dashing your hopes and crushing your dreams. You've been told to believe God is in control, but countless dark and painful circumstances have your mind filled with questions that desperately beg answers: Why can't life ever go according to my plan? How do I trust God in the midst of chaos?

In this captivating collection from the Shaanxi region, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization, twenty disparate and unique voices come together to show a China caught between new-world advancements and old-world traditions. From the homeland of China’s first dynasty and the world-famous terra-cotta warriors, these tales show rugged rural life colliding with fast-paced city life; hollow arranged marriages juxtaposed with torrid forbidden love affairs; and the vanity of newly minted millionaires clashing with the desperation of the poor.

Caroline used to have it all: she was madly in love with her husband, Peter, and they worshiped their beautiful baby girl. But as Lily grows into a toddler, Caroline notices that her daughter seems to live and act with a disconnect, and soon the perfect future Caroline had envisioned, along with her marriage, begin to crumble. Now she and Peter are no longer lovers, they're plaintiffs in the throes of divorce while still struggling to care for Lily.

When the security director of the powerful corporation Nebulaco dies under mysterious circumstances, courier Sai Collins has one last top-secret delivery to make on his behalf. Sai has come a long way from her street-kid childhood, but she has her secrets - namely that she’s a cyber-psi, a computer telepath who can connect to the grid without hardware. A talent she’s going to desperately need.

From a brilliant new literary voice, a collection of stories that follow a young woman from college into her early thirties - from delayed adolescence to (delayed) adulthood. Through college, careers, love affairs, and marriages, Linden’s characters try to sort out what separates the passing from the permanent, the actual from the possible, and exactly how involved you really have to be in the basic questions of your life.

Being popular in the college music scene doesn’t solve all your problems; at least that’s what the hot musicians of indie band Luminescent Juliet discover. In this compelling novel, trouble begins when 18-year-old Riley, trying to regain her rhythm after throwing away her percussion scholarship to a top school, wins an audition to become the band’s new drummer. This sets her on a collision course with Romeo, the band’s sexy dark-haired guitarist, whose ambitions do not include performing with a girl.

"My name is Colette. This book is about me. Who am I? To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly sure who I am. I guess you could say I'm the 15-year-old daughter of an annoyingly famous movie star. Or maybe I'm the 18-year-old daughter of a famous movie star's stand-in. Or maybe I'm the thousand-year-old daughter of a vampire.... Having trouble guessing which one of these stories is true? Join the club. My friends have a joke about me: 'How can you tell if Colette is lying? Her mouth is open.'"

Someday, Livvi Gray will break free from her past. Someday, she will escape her recurring nightmare about a stranger in a shimmering silver dress. Someday, she will have a family of her own. Now she's found Andrew, and someday seems to be right around the corner.

But there's so much Livvi doesn't know. Shortly before her 30th birthday, she will come face-to-face with the stranger from her dream - an encounter that will alter Livvi's future and crack open everything she knew about her past.

He's Here. Amanda Young doesn’t know who…or how…or why. She only knows that evil has come to Port Isley, the picturesque seaside village she calls home. It arrives on the wings of summer, in the guise of a sinister, nameless man crowded among the tourists from Seattle. He’s there when Amanda has a premonition of a classmate’s murder and when the girl’s mutilated body is discovered hours later. He’s lurking nearby when the neighbors she’s known forever inexplicably begin to…change. There — when their suddenly raging emotions transform them into lustful, violent shadows of themselves. Only a select few see the dark signs: Amanda, the town psychiatrist, and the local newspaper publisher. Together, they set out to discover exactly what’s happening in Port Isley — and whether or not anyone has a prayer of getting out of the town alive.

Nate, a midlevel money manager on Wall Street, and his girlfriend, Emily, can no longer afford their cramped $5,000-a-month apartment on the Upper East Side. They purchase an idyllic small home in Newport and flee city life with their belongings packed tightly in their Jeep Cherokee, eager to start anew. But within minutes of arriving, the car is stolen and they're left with nothing but the keys to their empty house and a crying son. Over the course of the following three days, as Emily and Nate watch their savings dwindle and tension increase, the secrets they kept from each other in the city emerge - and threaten to destroy their relationship.

For twenty-nine-year-old Lola Watson, life is finally looking up: she has fabulous friends, is working her dream job at a popular magazine, and has just inherited a beautiful house from her late aunt. Sure, her love life isn’t in great shape, but she’s got time, right? And so what if her new neighbors are a little too friendly (i.e., incredibly nosy)?