Showing results by narrator "Shaina Summerville" in All Categories

Perched between branches and shadows, we watch, we scheme, fighting for a kingdom forgotten and forlorn. Until we rip her away with our claws, our prisoner, our pawn, our plaything. She’s innocent and pure, fragile and helpless…but oh so guilty by blood. She calls us beasts, wicked and evil, vicious and cruel. We are all that and worse. One of us offers her shelter beneath his wings, whispering promises of pleasure, seeking redemption. The other longs to shatter her into a million pieces, whispering promises of pain, seeking revenge.

Nyah, the illegitimate daughter of a sorcerer king, has always lived in the shadows. With only a touch of magic and no real power to call her own, she's accustomed to being overlooked—especially when compared to her full-blooded sister, Leuruna, the princess who suffers at the hands of their cruel father. But when Leuruna transfers her magic to Nyah to protect it from their father's tyranny, Nyah is forced to flee the kingdom. Her escape takes an unexpected turn when she's saved—and kidnapped—by Rivven, a mysterious and charismatic warrior with dangerous secrets of his own.

Talia Reed was supposed to be a tactical asset—brilliant, unwilling, and utterly necessary to defend my cyborg colony. We brought her here because we had no choice. But from the second she looked at me with those fire-blue eyes, everything changed. She fought me. Challenged me. Matched me move for move. And I wanted her.

Shadows so Cruel is a full-length dark fantasy romance novel, and book two in the Court of Ravens duet. The two-part story features two morally gray raven shifters, a young woman at the mercy of their shadows, and a HEA.

For decades, performance management has been seen as an annual chore by managers and HR alike. But this process is changing, and there are ways to make it more effective for your organization and more useful for employees. If you read (or listen to) nothing else on performance management in your organization, listen to these ten articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you assess performance more accurately, have more effective feedback conversations, and encourage the growth of your employees.

Being a parent is the hardest job in the world – there’s no denying that! Not only do you have to keep a child healthy and happy, you are in charge of disciplining them, turning them into a good human being for the sake of society. And there’s where everything starts to go downhill. No matter how fiercely you love your child and no matter how devoted they are to you, children doesn’t want to listen! They don’t want to listen to you when you want them to do something, and definitely not when you don’t want them to do something. The result – utter chaos!

When Primrose Courtier—the second, turned up on my doorstep, looking like Me, I didn't know what to think. I knew I was adopted. My Italian parents didn't hide the fact. But I had no idea my birth parents are King and Queen of a country I've never heard of. Prim wants to get a taste of normal life and I have to find out why my parents let me go!

I couldn't believe my luck when I got sent to a work conference in Hawaii. Living the dream after years of pulling myself up by my bootstraps. The sand, the palm trees, and the blue water were straight out of a romantic fantasy. So was the guy at the beachfront bar, let's be honest. Blue eyes. Broad-shouldered in his business suit but with a rough-around-the-edges swagger and a filthy mouth.

I've built a successful career helping men get the women they desire while schooling them in the lost art of respect and chivalry. It's much more than a job to me. I live my life by those same principles. I'm polite and generous, and I always call after spending the night with a woman. But don't be mistaken—this gentleman still knows exactly where to kiss, bite, lick, and touch.

Web3 Marketing: A Handbook for the Next Internet Revolution is the essential book for anyone looking to understand the next era of the internet and start building. Beyond the sensational hype and headlines around crypto and NFTs, a real revolution is taking place: new technologies for owning, moving, and organizing value spell the overdue end of an internet where a few huge companies hoard data and power, and open a new frontier for products, services, and applications in which ownership and control belongs to creators, builders, and users.

I had one mission: secure the best obstetrician on Earth to save my people's future. What I didn't expect was the firestorm of resistance, vulnerability, and desire that Dr. Parker ignited in me. As Olivia fights to retain her freedom and I grapple with the awakening of emotions I was never programmed to feel, a fragile alliance begins to form—one born of necessity but threatening to become something far more dangerous. Because in a world where humanity is evolving by design, love might be the most unpredictable force of all.

The single dad falling for the younger nanny seems like such a cliché until it happens to you. Except that's not going to be me. I'm not going to be the mom who fell for her daughter's manny, even if Preston is hot. He's also younger than me and completely off-limits. At least that's what I keep telling myself. But it doesn't help that he's staying in my pool house. Doting on my daughter and restoring a sense of calm and order to our busy lives.

Being a dog walker isn't as glamorous as you might imagine. Unless, of course, you're walking a tech billionaire's German shepherd mix. And when your grumpy, gorgeous billionaire boss asks you to spend the evenings at his place to babysit his teenage niece, who are you to refuse? You think, what could possibly go wrong? I'll tell you what can go wrong: Your business implodes, your heart shatters, and you find out you're carrying his baby.

I'm completely in love with my husband. And he takes care of my needs . . . as long as they're financial or physical. Anything more is too much to ask. I know that while I might have his name, I don't have his heart. It's almost like he keeps me in a very specific box: WIFE. He only opens that box when we're home alone, anything else would make me too much a part of his life. Even though I love him, I can't live like this anymore. I don't want to, but I ask him for a divorce.

I thought my invitation was a birthday present from my best friend. The dress, the limousine, the red carpet...I thought they were meant for me. That was mistake number one. Then my date arrives, all gleaming cufflinks and tousled hair, steely blue eyes, and a body honed to masculine precision. Arrogant. Charming. Panty-melting. And melt, they do. Hanky-panky with a rich hottie in the back room of the event I'm crashing? Don't mind if I do.

All Penny Clark wants is one last night of fun before stepping into her new role as owner of her father's pro hockey team. No names, no strings—just one perfect distraction. But her mystery man turns out to be none other than Jack "The Saint" West—her star player.

Billionaire. CEO. Single dad. And for the next seven days, this arrogant hunk is going to be my boss. Easy, right? All I have to do is be a good nanny to Leif Sorensen's adorable, hell-raising, ballet-loving daughter. Keep my head down, my hands to myself, and forget about this silly crush I've been nursing. So he's big, and blond, and he stars in all my not-so-innocent "Hot Viking Ravages Innocent Maiden" fantasies? Who cares? Certainly not me. Nope. My week-long contract is my ticket out of trouble, and I'm not going to mess it up. Except . . . Leif has other ideas.

Holden James was my everything—my first love, my future, or so I thought. When he left after our high school graduation, he shattered my heart, and I promised myself I'd never look back. Now, he's returned to Lilac Harbor, acting like he can waltz back into my life as if nothing happened. He says he can explain, but I won't listen. I'm stronger now, smarter. I'm not the girl who once believed in forever with him. He broke me once, and I'll be damned if I let him do it again.

Maddie's life is a mess. Homeless, heartbroken, and ready to give up on her dream of running her own dating agency, she's desperate for a way out. Thank goodness there's a solution to all her problems, and his name is Matthew Payne. After all, having a famous, sexy hockey player as a best friend has to have perks, right? Like the use of his guest room when she has no place to stay, and his handsome face for an ad campaign.

Once a globe-trotting anthropologist, Harry Lancaster is now certain that all his grand adventures are behind him. Recently widowed and suffering from a fractured hip, Harry spends his days and nights behind a pair of binoculars, nose-deep in his neighbors’ affairs. His millennial caregiver, Emma, is determined to get him out of his armchair and back into the world.