Showing results by narrator "Maria McCann" in All Categories

Stealing magical artifacts was supposed to be my golden ticket, not a death sentence. Securing a dangerous book of spells should’ve earned me some time off and a fat bonus. I’d hoped to spend my days breaking in the new climbing wall at G.O.A.T. headquarters, hanging out with a hot alpha werewolf, and planning my next karaoke set. Instead, the Enclave hands me a ten-day ultimatum and a job hunting a cursed artifact that got their last two thieves killed. When the search turns up clues about my parents, I’ll do whatever it takes to discover who I am—even if it takes blood magic to do it.

Friendships are one of the most important aspects of a fulfilling life, yet making and maintaining meaningful connections can be challenging. Unlocking the Art of Making Friends: A Complete Guide to Meaningful Friendships for Adults is a practical and insightful guide designed to help you build lasting relationships, overcome social obstacles, and strengthen your existing friendships.

The story begins in 1940s Palestine, where twins Rasheed and Rasheeda Dinar work in the family’s inn. When Rasheed falls in love with Natalia, a Jewish woman, he applies what he learned from the Jesuit priest who mentored him to his budding relationship, but by then relations between Arabs and Jews have become tense. And when those tensions come to a breaking point, Natalia mysteriously disappears, and Rasheed and Rasheeda are chased out of Palestine forced to flee to Beirut, Lebanon. As the years pass and the Dinar family expands and enters the 1970s, their convictions are tested.

In 1985, three Harvard archaeology graduate students travel to Peru for a backpacking trip to seek adventure, culture, and historic sites. While exploring undiscovered Incan ruins on the remote eastern frontier of the old empire, the friends witness an unspeakable crime. Their enchanting trip becomes a primal fight for survival. The three friends must come to terms with their experiences, and each student's recovery and healing process becomes intensely personal and continues for decades. This is a story of exploration, endurance, and the cruelty of lost love.

Kate McKinney didn’t move to the middle of nowhere to make friends, she came for the quiet. The kind that doesn’t scream at her through dispatch calls or drag her back to a life she’s trying to forget. But when an old man vanishes from his remote cabin and his niece goes missing right along with him, Kate starts listening harder. A battered truck. A back trail no one uses. And eyes that follow her home after dark. The local sheriff calls it concern. Kate calls it what it is, a warning. Her only early ally is Boone, the sharp-eyed rescue mutt who trusts no one but her.

After serving his country for twenty years, the retired Navy SEAL was footloose and fancy-free. He wanted to travel and reconnect with family. One of his first stops was to spend the summer visiting his brother and cousin. Three months in Whisper Lake, and then he'd be on to his next adventure. Nothing was going to derail his plans. Not even a stunning, smart, sarcastic Sofia Vergara look-alike who made him want things he'd never wanted before.

We are established loners—each limited by the boundaries we set—but when a young boy’s life hangs in the balance, we discover we have more in common than we thought.

Coexisting with a demon is going to take more than a meditation playlist and good intentions. These days, I’m training hard core. My only accessories are bladed weapons and bruised ribs. It’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means staying in control.

Some women settle for charm bracelets. I get a murder of crows tattooed on my body. And that's the good news. After sending a demon back to hell, I thought I'd have a few weeks to kick back with my girls, go on that hot date with a certain stony-eyed enforcer, maybe even catch an outdoor concert or two. When witches start turning up dead, the Tribunal calls in a favor that lands me in the middle of a supernatural murder investigation. Again. When that search intertwines with a decade-old trail into my sister's death, there is nothing I won’t do to get answers.

No rest for the weary, right? Alex has barely strapped on her magical training wheels when a gorgon slithers into town! Medusa isn’t just seeking asylum, either. She expects Alex’s help in breaking her own family’s infamous curse. Old hatred runs deep in creatures with such long memories, and keeping the entire town from going after Medusa with their own torches and pitchforks may prove impossible.

The story of a fervent atheistic communist woman in Moscow who was denied entrance to medical school because she was Jewish. She applied to leave Russia and was denied, thus becoming a Refusenik. It describes her two-year tortuous struggle to leave, her humorous adjustment to American society, and her challenging journey to become a physician and learn what it meant to be Jewish. Her historian husband interweaves her life with the history of Soviet Russia and the Cold War period, including the fail of the Soviet Union.

Today, people and groups who disagree on an issue are less likely to send threatening letters, hold demonstrations, or riot. They are more likely to hire professional assassins to resolve the issue. The government has experienced an increasing number of assassinations: members of Congress, government agencies, and VIPs. Desperate, Congress directed the creation of an Anti-Terrorist Group and gave Home Land Security two and one-half years to produce the first anti-terrorist agents.

As a scrawny goat shifter in a pack of werewolves, my role is to get into places they can't go. The alpha who took me in after my parents died molded me into a master thief. For four long years, he's lined his pockets, while I've taken all the risks. Now he's sending me after the magical artifact he's chased for years. This is my chance to escape. All I have to do is pull off the biggest heist I've ever attempted, escape the seethe of vampires I'm about to rob, and ditch the wolves who watch my every move.

Betty Lennox, earth witch and paranormal investigator, has a whole slew of problems. Her magic is as finicky as a jackrabbit in the desert; the local werewolf alpha lurks around every corner, giving her death threats; and a certain sexy werewolf isn’t returning her calls. What’s a witch to do? Focus on work. Betty is hired to investigate a one-eighty personality change in a woman who was going to divorce her husband but suddenly loves him again.

Turns out, the only difference between a felony and acquisitions is who’s bankrolling my heist. I’m about to go from scrounging up enough tip money to make rent to pulling six figures. I’ll finally put those years stealing for my old alpha to good use. Only this time, I’ll be the one calling the shots. My crew. My way. When a witch starts dabbling in forbidden magic, the Enclave sends me after the demon artifact fueling her power. The job should be simple, except they can’t point me to the culprit or tell me what I’m after.

Betty Lennox is an elemental witch in a desert town that gives Hades a run for its money in summer. Her magic is tied to the land under a paranormal seniors' trailer park she inherited from her mother, land that hasn’t fully accepted her. Because of this, her power has become unpredictable, unreliable, and unbelievably inconvenient.

Betty Lennox is an elemental witch on a mission to leave her desert hometown of Smokethorn, California, for good. But first, she needs to sell the property she inherited from her mother to someone who, among other things, doesn’t mind living in a paranormal seniors' trailer park in a town where it’s so hot in summer that the local demons head back to Hades to cool off.

“I am a big fan of Women and Children First . . . Alina Grabowski is an astute and limber narrative artist and I could read her prose all day long and never grow weary.”―Lorrie Moore, author of A Gate at the Stairs A gripping literary puzzle that unwinds the private lives of ten women as...

I’ve coveted a lot of valuables in my life. Magic was never one of them. My plan was to spend my days on a little team-building, a headquarters’ renovation, and an overdue date with a smoking-hot shifter. Instead, I’m stuck learning to wield a magic as unpredictable as my nature. As the first known shifter witch hybrid, my sexy alpha werewolf isn't the only one pressuring me to join ranks. The local coven is determined to get me under control. With their rules and rituals, they're worse than a supernatural H.O.A. Too bad, I'm allergic to being told what to do.

In Cooking As Therapy, licensed clinical social worker and sous therapist Debra Borden provides you with all the tools and techniques to have therapy sessions in the comfort of your own kitchen. Cooking therapy is an experiential therapy that allows you to conduct a therapy session while you cook a meal. Using cooking processes like chopping, kneading, stirring, and more, you’ll develop the skills to recognize limiting patterns and behaviors, improve self-esteem, and form healthy daily habits.