Showing results by narrator "Gabrielle de Cuir" in All Categories

Anna's nice comfortable world is in turmoil. Because of their success in destroying the foreign Raiders, Anna, Kris, and Adrian were promoted to full commander, and the project team was disbanded. Kris and Adrian were given NIA offices to manage on Stone Ring and Westar, and Anna is being pressured to move to Eastar to manage the NIA station.

Genoa, Italy, 1946. Vincenzo and Giovanna fall in love at twenty-one the moment they set eyes on each other. The son of a count and the daughter of a tailor, they belong to opposing worlds. Despite this, the undeniable spark between them quickly burns—until shifts in political power force them each to choose a side. New York, 2017. Although neither quite fits with the other's family, Cassandra and Luca have always felt like a perfect match for each other. But when Luca, an artist, convinces his grandfather and Cass’s grandmother to pose for a painting, past and present collide.

Ryana, a worthless girl-child, is sold to a mysterious woman who takes her to the home of the Shadow Sisters who are prized for their abilities as spies and assassins. She survives years of training in spite of being unconventional: adopting poisonous bats as familiars - something no one else would dare to do; choosing the blow dart as her weapon of choice - a weapon the Sisters don't teach; and relying on intuition rather than logic. As she completes her training, the Shadow Sisters are under attack and send Ryana out to find out who is killing Sisters and why.

Lyr might be a powerful elven lord in charge of thousands, but his personal life is a disaster. Just the month before, a daughter he'd never known existed arrived from Earth, giving him news of his lost love's death. Since then, he has been betrayed, captured, and almost murdered. And though his enemy was defeated, Lyr's wounds never seem to heal. He certainly doesn't need more conflict.

To study magic at the university, Siobhan sacrificed her name. She sacrificed her body and her past. Magically disguised as a boy named Sebastien, she is learning wondrous secrets of the thaumaturgic sciences. As Sebastien, she mingles with the young nobles who will one day rule their country. But danger is closer than ever, and she cannot escape her past.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first issues of Weird Tales Magazine, 100 Years of Weird is a masterful compendium of new and classic stories, flash fiction, essays, and poems from the giants of speculative fiction, including R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, and Isaac Asimov.

Many years of working with the dying showed the authors that certain lessons come up over and over again. Some of these lessons are enormously difficult to master but even the attempts to understand them can be deeply rewarding. Here, in 14 accessible chapters, from the "Lesson of Love" to the "Lesson of Happiness", the authors reveal the truth about our fears, our hopes, our relationships, and above all, about the grandness of who we really are.

"The Lottery," one of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, created a sensation when it was first published in the New Yorker. "Powerful and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery" with 24 equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate her remarkable range - from the hilarious to the truly horrible - and power as a storyteller.

In Ed Park’s utterly original collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters question the fleetingness of youth and art, reckon with the consequences of the everyday, and find solace in the absurd, the beautiful, and the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. All together, these sixteen stories have much to say about the meaning—and transitory nature—of our lives. And they are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most insightful and imaginative writers working today.

Born into an alternative frontier America where life is hard, and folk magic is real, Alvin is gifted with power, but he must learn to use his gift wisely. Dark forces are arrayed against Alvin, and only a young girl with second sight can protect him.

The Royal Society of London plays home to the greatest minds of England. It has revolutionized philosophy and scientific knowledge. Its fellows map out the laws of the natural world, disproving ancient superstition and ushering in an age of enlightenment. To the fae of the Onyx Court, living in a secret city below London, these scientific developments are less than welcome. Magic is losing its place in the world - and science threatens to expose the court to hostile eyes.

Fairytales are a universal part of childhood. No matter what time or what place you grew up, you have at one point or another heard that classic phrase “once upon a time.” They are usually the first stories we ever hear or read. These types of tales set us up to understand the art of stories and storytelling, and they are certainly worth revisiting. Here in The Blue Fairy Book, the first of Andrew Lang’s beloved collections of classic fairy stories, you will return to the tales you already know.

The Profiler's Daughter is a psychologically haunting thriller that combines murder mystery, love triangle, and family intrigue in one satisfying page burner. Sky Stone was born into the wealth and privilege of Boston's oldest Brahmin family but chooses instead to follow in the footsteps of her deceased father, legendary FBI profiler Monk Stone. In the chilly morning hours before the Boston Marathon, when a beautiful university student is found strangled and mutilated, her body left at the base of Heartbreak Hill, Sky returns from self-imposed exile to investigate.

Sita Dulip has missed her flight out of Chicago. But instead of listening to garbled announcements in the airport, she discovers a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, a nasty lunch, whimpering children, their punitive parents, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor: she changes planes—literally. Sita discovers entire planes of existence and visits societies not found on Earth—bizarre societies that share similarities with Earth's cultures and sometimes open doors into the alien.

In The Dragon's Son, there is new hope in the form of a special offspring who might be able to bridge the anarchy that is disrupting the delicate and unseen order that the Parliament has tried to protect. The twin offspring of a high priestess and a dragon hold the key to man's future, but their identity must be held secret, even from each other, until they have matured. One is raised in a human court, the other in hiding.

In June of 1961, A. E. Hotchner visited an old friend in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital. It would be the last time they spoke: a few weeks later, Ernest Hemingway was released home, where he took his own life. Their final conversation was also the final installment in a story whose telling Hemingway had spread over nearly a decade.

In this darkly comic parable of sin and sainthood, a fifteenth-century peasant girl, Joan of Domrémy, must secure an audience with the derelict Dauphin of France, that he might unite his armies under her leadership against ongoing English invasion. But with her angelically inspired project seeming doomed to failure and ridicule, and with no royal meeting in sight, the girl strikes a dangerous bargain with an old acquaintance—a spirit of uncertain motives—leading to an existential showdown between piety and personal pride which may cost Joan not only her soul but the future of her nation.

In a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations. Hideous demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sadistically as possible. Ira, a young San Francisco artist, becomes involved with a strange group of scientists and philosophers desperately trying to end the bloody siege. But the most shocking revelation is yet to come.

Rich with unforgettable characters and history, intricately plotted and utterly absorbing, City of Dreams is a stirring saga of early Manhattan and the beginnings of medical science told by a master storyteller.

Skyboat Media presents The Best of Katherine Mansfield, an original compilation of stories from one of the defining writers of modernist fiction. Katherine Mansfield’s stories shine a light on the duality and the overpowering nature of psychology through her delicate, nuanced, and often stream-of-consciousness narration style. None of her stories seem to settle on just one theme; like life they encompass the intersectional nature of all moments, from the most minute and mundane to the most terrific and tragic.