Showing results by narrator "Vaneh Assadourian" in All Categories

Jacqueline Saper, named after Jacqueline Kennedy, was born in Tehran to Iranian and British parents. At 18 she witnessed the civil unrest of the 1979 Iranian revolution and continued to live in the Islamic Republic during its most volatile times, including the Iran-Iraq War. In a deeply intimate and personal story, Saper recounts her privileged childhood in prerevolutionary Iran and how she gradually became aware of the paradoxes in her life and community - primarily the disparate religions and cultures.

D-Day, June 6, 1944: the most expansive military endeavor in history. No less than world cooperation would bring down Hitler and the Axis powers. And so people - and kids - across the globe lent their part. From the young US soldiers in the boats to spies in the French countryside, the coordination of thousands came together. Alan Gratz, author of the New York Times best-selling Refugee, explores the necessity of teamwork and heroism in dismantling tyranny in this epic, yet personal, look at D-Day in time for the 75th anniversary of the operation.

New York Times bestseller and Newbery Honor Book! A gorgeously written, hopeful middle grade novel in verse about a young girl who must leave Syria to move to the United States, perfect for fans of Jason Reynolds and Aisha Saeed. Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother...

When the matriarch of Sarah’s family arranged her marriage to Ali, it was with the intention of uniting two compatible families. However, as the 2009 election becomes contentious, political differences emerge, and Sarah’s conservative family tries to call off the wedding. Sarah and Ali, however, have fallen in love and, against the wishes of their parents, insist on going through with the marriage.

As night falls in Adana, köftes and cups of cloudy raki are passed to the dinner guests in the home of Ali—a former laborer who gives tight bear hugs, speaks with a southeastern lilt, and radiates the spirit of a child. Among the guests are a journalist named Oya, who has recently been released from prison and is living in exile on charges of leftist sympathizing, and her new acquaintance, Mustafa. A swift kick knocks down the front door and bumbling policemen converge on the guests, carting them off to holding cells, where they’ll be interrogated and tortured through the night.

Three years ago mortuary cosmetologist Phoebe Glassman lost her husband in a tragic accident. No longer the hopeful wife and mother she once was, Phoebe is disappearing into her grief and into the quietude of her job - restoring to the dead the illusion of life. Then the body of a woman named Pauline Steele arrives in the mortuary, and for Phoebe, everything changes. Pauline is unmistakably Phoebe’s mirror image and bears an alarmingly familiar tattoo. Even more startling is that among Pauline’s effects is a faded photograph of Phoebe.

Samira is a young girl who is part of the underground French resistance during World War II. Samira cracks codes and trades secrets in order to sabotage the Nazis' plans. In Resist, we follow Samira as she journeys through the Nazi-occupied French countryside, on a daring rescue mission to find her captured mother. Accompanied only by a loyal dog named Cyrano, Samira must rely on her courage and wits to avoid and outsmart the German forces.

It’s 1979. Olivia Murray, a secretary at a Los Angeles newspaper, is determined to become a photojournalist and make a difference with her work. When opportunity arrives, she seizes it, accompanying her Kurdish boyfriend, Delan, to northern Iraq for a family wedding, hoping to capture an image that lands her a job in the photo department. More important, though, the trip is a chance to understand Delan’s childhood and bridge the differences of their pasts. Yet when the return home proves less safe than Delan believed, Olivia is confronted with a reality she had not expected.

Based on the wildly popular TikTok series, F--ked Up Fairy Tales presents modern retellings of some of the strangest and darkest stories humans have invented. Inspired by sources across the world, “Cosbrarian” Liz Gotauco conjures gossipy animals, homicidal royals, doomed commoners, and shape-shifting beaux—all reckoning with complicated, adult problems that “Disney versions” have sanitized.

After her desert-transforming wish, Emel follows Saalim to Madinat Almulihi to reclaim all she has lost. But the seaside city is not what she expected. When she is tasked with assisting the palace healer, she is faced daily with the reminder that Saalim—focused only on seeking the revenge of those who killed his family—does not remember her at all. Cursing the magic that destroyed her love and brought her to an unwelcoming city, Emel regrets her decision to leave her settlement. That is, until she meets Kas.

Diana Quincy returns with a steamy affair between an Arab-American woman who inherits a run-down castle in the English countryside and the duke who asserts the castle is his, in the first book in a brand-new Victorian historical romance series. Anthony Cary, Duke of Strickland, inherits his...

In Queens, New York, while their father deteriorates from a terminal illness, three sisters contend with one another, their self-destructive pasts, and their indomitable mother as they face the loss of the one person holding their unstable family together. Kohar, the oldest sister, is happily married, yet grapples with fertility issues and, in turn, her own self-worth. Lucine, the middle child, is trapped in a loveless marriage and haunted by memories of her estranged father. Azad, the beloved youngest child, is burdened by an inescapable cycle of failed relationships.