Showing results by narrator "Amanda" in All Categories

First Meetings is a collection of three novellas (plus the original "Ender's Game") that journey into the origins and the destiny of one Ender Wiggin.

Eadie Browne is an odd child with unusual parents, living in a strange house neighbouring the local cemetery. Bullied at school – but protected by her two best friends Celeste and Josh, and her many imaginary friends lying six feet under next door – Eadie muddles her way through. Arriving in Manchester as a student in the late 1980s, Eadie confronts a busy, gritty Victorian metropolis a far cry from the small Garden City she's left behind. Soon enough she experiences a novel freedom she never imagined and it's seductive.

In the Jewish district of Leopoldstadt, Felix Wolff watches his beloved city transform into a nightmare. As people are rounded up and sent to destinations whispered in terror, Felix’s world shatters when his father is bound for Dachau. Determined to save his father, Felix makes a fateful decision that places him directly in the Gestapo’s sights, forever altering his destiny.

Working the land and raising my boys as a single mom is the only life I’ve ever known. But between managing a struggling farm in small town Whispers and nurturing a growing side hustle, I dream of a life beyond poverty, a chance to turn our hopes into reality. I’m done living on handouts. Then Sawyer shows up on my doorstep, the new local lawyer. A billionaire from the city, polished and privileged, he’s clueless about small-town struggles. He says he wants to help, but I’m not some damsel in distress. He’s polished perfection, and I’m pure chaos. Total opposites.

This is a world divided by blood - red or silver. The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change. That is, until she finds herself...

Jackie loves her family. Sure, her teenage children can be stroppy. Her husband a little lazy. And providing round-the-clock care for her Alzheimer's-ridden mother is exhausting. All Jackie wants is for her children to have brighter futures than she did. So long as Martha, the eldest, gets into university and follows her dreams, all her sacrifice will be worth something...won't it?

Spring has sprung, and I'm finally getting out of town with my monster-hunting boyfriend. However, our cozy little rental cabin in the woods turns out to have a serious problem—an angry leprechaun infestation. Before we can get back to our romantic rendezvous, we have to prove we didn't steal a magic hat. Piece of cake, right?

Well, it seemed as my days as a data analyst were long behind me, it seemed feeding random people’s cats and baking cookies for work colleagues was too. What wasn’t behind me, however, was getting snatched by the mob or finding myself tied to yet another chair. But this time the mob had made a big mistake, because this time they weren't the scariest ones out there. No, but I knew who was. The one who had claimed me. The one who wanted me back. The one who was now out for blood. A Siren’s Enforcer.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE NAIL-BITING NEW STORY FROM THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'TEACHER WANTED ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD . . .' Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts...

Whimbrel House is changing. Merritt and Hulda are raising a family. Owein has signed a marriage contract with the magically compatible Lady Cora, a heavyweight of British nobility who’s an ocean away. And the lovely shape-shifting druid Fallon makes a distractingly fetching friend for Owein. But another change is in the air, and this time it’s something wicked. The greatest wizard of the millennium, Silas Hogwood, is back—after five years dead. New body, same foul scent, and driven by madness and revenge.

Life in Winterspell is pretty idyllic, even during the peak of tourist season. At least, it was—until a psychic serial killer escapes from a supernatural prison and arrives in town. And something tells me she’s not here for the summer jam band showcase. In a twist of fate that could only happen to me, my familiar has been pen pals with the wanted killer, putting us right in her crosshairs.

Charity hasn't had it easy. Growing up in a bad part of Chicago, left by her mother at sixteen, she's a survivor. So when she gets a scholarship to a good college out in California, she thinks all her dreams have come true. Instead, she falls head-first into a nightmare. At a posh party she doesn't belong, she gets the shock of her life: vampires and shifters are real! Magic is real. And she is anything but a mundane poor kid just trying to make it. Warrior runs in her blood. If only she knew how to use it.

Winter blankets the land, and more than just hope has died. Prevented from invading the Fhrey homeland by the tower of Avempartha, the western army seeks a way across the Nidwalden River before the fane obtains the secret of dragons. As time runs out for both humanity and the mystic Suri, the only chance for the living rests with the dead. Having made their fateful choice, can a handful of misfits do the impossible, or are they forever lost to an inescapable grave? Do gods truly exist? Is it possible to know the future? And what lies beyond the veil of death?  

The eldest of the notorious Mitford sisters, Nancy Mitford was renowned for her comic novels of upper-class life. An aristocrat and socialite, she mingled with the 'Bright Young Things' in interwar London, and went on to satirise their foibles in razor-sharp, wickedly funny prose. Collected here are adaptations of her two best sellers, the semi-autobiographical The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, her delightful biography of Louis XV's chief mistress, and a pair of fascinating programmes exploring her own unconventional life.

They decimated Earth during the Long Winter. Now the Grid has returned, and they won't stop until the human race is extinct. On a ruined world, humanity's last survivors fight against impossible odds. In their darkest hour, they discover a new hope for survival. But it comes at an unthinkable price, with consequences that will change everything.

Abby and Tex both show up at the auction, and they both want that land. The sparks between them are as hot as they were twenty years ago, but Tex tells himself it's because the uppity town librarian outbid him and bought his family ranch. So he devises another plan to get the ranch back—and it includes taking his gorgeous former girlfriend to dinner a time or two. Can Tex and Abby build a real, lasting relationship now that they're both back in Coral Canyon for good? Or will Tex's plan to get his family ranch back end up breaking both of their hearts?

Brought to you by Penguin. The final nail-biting instalment in the critically acclaimed Hidden Iceland series - FROM THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'A world-class crime writer . . . One of the most astonishing plots of modern crime fiction' Sunday Times 'It is nothing less than a landmark...

Under an eternal night, the world has been ravaged by ten years of war between humans and vampires. Kyrene scrapes by as a bounty hunter, bearing a blessed sword from the goddess of justice. But in the wake of a devastating loss, Kyrene commits a crime that makes her a target for mortals and gods alike—and she is still desperate for vengeance.

Things are going great! I survived the sabotage of my witch shop and a murder attempt, my business and personal life are thriving, and Ian's estranged half brother and local shifter alpha wants me to make him a dark magic potion. Okay, maybe not that great. Turns out, Hutton has been keeping a huge secret, and he needs dark magic to keep it that way before a group of visiting "friendly" alphas figure out something's up and make a move on his territory.

From the #1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Arcana Academy comes the first in a new, heart-pounding fantasy duology, about a young woman who must survive a score of brutal tests and trials to escape her cursed fate. The moment you see a dragon is usually your last... Since...