Showing results by narrator "Erin Ruth Walker" in All Categories

One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old left behind by her white mother and step-family.

Twenty years ago, seven-year-old Charmaine Tillman vanished without a trace from a crowded school fair. Her disappearance shattered her family, destroyed her father, and turned her mother into a relentless force in the public eye. Her older sister Taylor transformed the tragedy into a media empire built on the desperate hope that one day, Charmaine would come home. Now, against all odds, Charmaine has returned.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work. Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State. But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers.

Cults prey on the very attributes that make us human: our desire to belong, to find a deeper meaning in life, to live everyday with divine purpose. Their existence creates a sense that any one of us, at any time, could step off the cliff’s edge and fall into that daunting abyss of manipulation and unhinged dedication to a misplaced cause. Perhaps it’s this mindset that keeps us so utterly obsessed and desperate to learn more, or it’s that the stories are so bizarre and unsettling that we are simply in awe of the mechanics that make these infamous groups tick.

Seventeen-year-old Kaldur’s heart has always beat in two places: on the page, and in the community he holds dear. Those precious to him keep him afloat in a world dedicated on seeing him drown. But when he accidentally unleashes soul magic that kills four boys, that love is tested. Kaldur’s closest friends rise to the occasion and do what is necessary to protect him. When all is said and done, the bodies disposed of, they swear a blood promise to carry the weight of this secret like they do all others: together.

In 2004, Juliette Marker, a white college freshman, and Noah King, a Black high school senior, are two lonely souls who enter each other’s orbit, forge a connection, and, after a chance meeting, go home together. Twelve years later, Noah has done the impossible and made it in Hollywood. His first film is about to be released, and he and his beloved wife Jesse, a successful writer herself, have just had a baby. Meanwhile, Juliette’s best friend Annie is back in LA for the first time in more than a decade.

After taking control of House Brood, Ren and Theo dreamed of using their newfound influence to change the rest of Kathor, but now they find their efforts being countered by the other great houses, who have no interest in a world where they enjoy less power. No one understands that better than the Tin’Vori siblings. The return of their ancestral home was a decade in the making, but they’re eager to keep rising from the ashes. Nevelyn begins researching House Brood—and ends up face-to-face with an enemy that’s already slouching toward the gates of the city.

Set in Newman’s home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is an exhilarating collection about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose, but the raw legacy of their marriages and families.

Lauren and her family—lucky bastards—have been granted the use of a spectacular brownstone, teeming with history and dizzyingly unattractive '70s wallpaper. Adding to the home’s bohemian, grungy splendor is the bar occupying the basement, a (mostly) beloved dive called The Sweet Spot. Within days of moving in, Lauren discovers that she has already made an enemy in the neighborhood by inadvertently sparking the divorce of a couple she has never actually met.

Heidi is making new friends at Broomsfield Academy—in particular, a popular girl named Isabelle. But it turns out Isabelle has a big secret that Heidi discovers by accident! Heidi promises to keep the secret, but as more time goes by, it becomes more and more difficult…especially with nosy Melanie Maplethorpe snooping around. This secret is huge. Will Heidi be able to keep her promise?

When eldest daughter Caroline and her husband announce they are divorcing - and 15-year-old daughter Vivi acts out in response - Caroline, at her wits end, can’t think of anything to do besides leave her with her mother Ansley in Peachtree Bluff for the holidays. As the “storm of the century” heads toward Peachtree Bluff, Ansley and her husband, Jack, with Vivi in tow, are grateful they’re planning to leave for the trip of a lifetime. But Vivi’s recklessness forces the trio to shelter in place during the worst hurricane Peachtree has ever seen.

In this hilarious fourth book in the Middle School and Other Disasters series that started with New York Times bestseller Worst Broommate Ever, witch-in-training Heidi Heckelbeck tries to keep magic hidden when Lucy Lancaster comes to visit. Featuring black-and-white illustrations and doodles throughout and sparkly foil on the cover!

When Heidi finds out about a magical wishing well at her school, she’s amazed and delighted—even though students are forbidden to use it. Then, an important exam is scheduled at the very same time her crush invites her on a nature walk, and Heidi needs a magical assist. Usually, she tries to follow the rules—really!—but she decides to use the well to wish to be in two places at once. What could go wrong?

Trex’s experimental brain implant saved his life—but it also made his life a lot harder. Now he shocks everything he touches. When his overprotective mother finally agrees to send him to a real school for sixth grade, Trex is determined to fit in.

In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, he will go to Aspen. In the Hotel Jerome, where he was conceived, Adam will meet some ghosts; in The Last Chairlift, they aren’t the first or last ghosts he sees.

Heidi is settling in at Broomsfield Academy. She and Melanie are trying to get along, and Heidi is getting used to her classes, all her new friends, and her very first crush, Hunter! The problem is: Hunter is really popular. How will Heidi get him to notice her? Her friends tell her to just be herself, but that sounds so boring! After all, Heidi is a witch-in-training. What good is having magic if you can’t use it? She knows she can find the perfect love spell to make Hunter fall in love with her. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s goodbye, Brewster Elementary and hello, Broomsfield Academy when Heidi starts middle school at the only school in the country that has secret classes for witches in training! Heidi is excited but nervous about living on her own and making new friends (and new crushes)! Her first day takes a turn for the worse when Heidi discovers her roommate is none other than her old rival, Melanie Maplethorpe! Melanie is also less than thrilled, and the two find themselves engaged in an epic prank war. But when magic enters the mix, will the reluctant roommates go too far?

What would guilt make you do? Hadleigh Keene died on the road leading away from Hollyhock Asylum. The reasons are unknown. Her sister Morgan blames herself. A year later with the case still unsolved, Morgan creates a false identity, that of a troubled housewife named Charlotte Turner, and goes inside. Morgan quickly discovers that Hollyhock is… not right. She is shaken by the hospital’s peculiar routines and is soon beset by strange episodes.

A suspenseful, lyrical debut novel tracking three days leading up to the eviction of a pregnant single mother and her nine-year-old twins from a trailer park in the American Southwest.

In Sleepless Nights, a woman looks back on her life - the parade of people, the shifting background of place - and assembles a scrapbook of memories, reflections, portraits, letters, wishes, and dreams. An inspired fusion of fact and invention, this beautifully realized, hard-bitten, lyrical book is not only Elizabeth Hardwick's finest fiction but one of the outstanding contributions to American literature of the last 50 years.