Showing results by narrator "Natalia Payne" in All Categories

Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering sought-after black-market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the front line when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a small act of rebellion. But one day Hanneke gets a very unusual request. One of her regular customers asks her to find a girl.

The threads on Zlata’s beautiful birthday blouse were knotted by her mother’s hands. “Red is for love, and black is for sadness,” her Papa says. Her Mama warns her not to show it off. Ever since the Communists came from Russia to Ukraine, they prohibited the teaching of Ukrainian culture. They’ve even taken the grain from Zlata's family's fields. But despite the danger, her parents refuse to give up their art, language, or beliefs.

With Awaken, number-one New York Times best-selling author Meg Cabot brings her reimagining of the Persephone myth to a thrilling conclusion. Pierce Oliviera doesn't regret her decision to accept John Hayden and live in the Underworld. But then John revives a human soul, disrupting the balance between life and death - and to restore the balance, someone must die.

Meg Cabot, the number-one New York Times best-selling author of the Airhead novels, offers up this second exciting installment in her Abandon trilogy. In Underworld, John Hayden is holding 17-year-old Pierce Oliviera captive in the world between heaven and hell - supposedly to keep her safe from the vengeful Furies. But Furies aren’t the only danger in this ominous place. Somehow, Pierce has got to find a way to escape - before she’s trapped there forever.

An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater). The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite", when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.

Death has her in his grasp. And he’s gorgeous… Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera isn’t dead. Not this time. But she’s been taken by John Hayden, Lord of the Underworld, to the place between heaven and hell where spirits gather before their final journey. John claims it’s to protect her from the Furies, who are hell-bent on vengeance against him. But could he have other reasons for keeping Pierce close?

Volodymyr Zelensky captivated the world when his country was invaded by Russia in February 2022. His appearances were accompanied by countless inspiring statements. But there's a single one that informs Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky: "We are all simple people." Jessie Kanzer sees Zelensky as a Spiritual Leader for Our Times. As a native Russian speaker, she picks up on the deep philosophical ramifications behind his words. Rich and yet easily understood, the life lessons in Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky are accessible and wise, and are more about starting where you are than about war.

Last year, 17-year-old Pierce died - just for a moment. And when she was in the space between life and death, she met John: tall dark and terrifying, it's his job to usher souls from one realm to the next. There's a fierce attraction between them, but Pierce knows that falling for John means a life of shadows and loneliness in the underworld....