Showing results by narrator "Susan Dalian" in All Categories

Men do not become mystics. They become warriors. But eighteen-year-old Salo has never been good at conforming to his tribe’s expectations. For as long as he can remember, he has loved books and magic in a culture where such things are considered unmanly. Despite it being sacrilege, Salo has worked on a magical device in secret that will awaken his latent magical powers. And when his village is attacked by a cruel enchantress, Salo knows that it is time to take action.

A fresh-faced newcomer arrives in an isolated, gang-run town and soon finds herself taking a job nobody else wants: bodyguard to a ghoul. Not just your average mindless, half-rotted shuffler, though. Lucille is a dancer who can still put on her own lipstick and whose shows are half burlesque, half gladiator match. But the stranger is no stranger to this particular ghoul. Both women are undercover in their own way. And both have something to lose if their connection comes to light.

Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

The demon Vitrine—immortal, powerful, and capricious—loves the dazzling city of Azril. She has mothered, married, and maddened the city and its people for generations, and built it into a place of joy and desire, revelry and riot. And then the angels come, and the city falls. Vitrine is left with nothing but memories and a book containing the names of those she has lost—and an angel, now bound by her mad, grief-stricken curse to haunt the city he burned.

A corporate aristocracy descended from Africa rules a colony on a distant planet. Life here is easy—for the rarified and privileged few. The aristocrats enjoy a powerful cybernetic technology that extends their life spans and ensures their prosperity. Those who serve them suffer under a heavy hand. But within this ruthless society are agents of hope and change. In a secret underwater laboratory, a separatist cult has created a threat to the aristocracy. The Primes are highly intelligent, manipulative products of genetic engineering, designed to lead a rebellion.

Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers. She’s spent a decade treating California’s most depraved predators and unlocking their motives - predators much like the notorious Bloody Heart serial killer, whose latest teenage victim escaped and then identified local high school teacher Randall Thompson as his captor. The case against Thompson as the Bloody Heart Killer is damning - and closed, as far as Gwen and the media are concerned. If not for one new development.

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block - her neighbor, Theo. But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear.

Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart is a beautiful collection of over 150 prayers, poems, and meditations on prayer, community, and the joys and rituals of life by one of our greatest spiritual leaders. Thurman, a spiritualist and mystic, was renowned for the quiet beauty of his reflections on humanity and our relationship with God.

Mickie Lambert creates “digital scrapbooks” for clients, ensuring that precious souvenirs aren’t forgotten or lost. When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie honors the old woman’s last wish and begins curating her peculiar objets d’art. A music box, a hair clip, a key chain - twelve mementos in all that must have meant so much to Nadia. But these tokens mean a lot to someone else, too. Mickie has been receiving threatening messages to leave Nadia’s past alone.

Ten years after graduation, a group of friends plan a reunion in a remote house in upstate New York. It isn't a bachelor party, as they've led one of their friends to believe, but instead an intervention for an escalating drug addiction. They lost one member of their friendship group in college, and they'll do anything to make sure that doesn't happen again. But from the moment they arrive, something doesn't feel right.

Veronica and Ryan Hartley are the envy of Auburn Drive. When the exclusive neighborhood hosts its annual progressive dinner party, the couple’s perfection is on display. The neighbors are obsessed—entranced by the “it” couple’s movie-star looks and smoldering gazes. But is the perfect pair too good to be true?

Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can’t refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she’s determined not to ruin their opportunity.

A loving wife and a mother of three accomplished children, forty-six-year-old Trudy Marino has an uncomplicated life—until she’s blindsided by her husband’s affair. But in Trudy’s close-knit neighborhood, she’s not alone in navigating the sudden surprises in a woman’s life. Her neighbor Roberta has just lost her husband of sixty-two years and struggles with bittersweet memories and grief. Roberta’s granddaughter Jade is a divorcée who has taken up a cathartic new hobby to get over her cheating ex. And there’s Shannelle, whose creative aspirations are fracturing her marriage.

Some truths are carefully concealed; others merely forgotten. In this spellbinding collection, seven acclaimed fantasy authors create characters who venture into the depths where others fear to tread. But when forbidden knowledge is the ultimate power, how far can they go before the darkness consumes them?

Lust. Revenge. Greed. Hunger. Desire doesn’t care if you’re at the bottom of the ladder or the top of your game. Six masters of psychological suspense craft tales about people crossing moral lines in pursuit of their deepest desires. In these short stories, even the most mild-mannered characters can spin out of control when passion is at play. Hold on tight—there’s no turning back.

Salo is dead—and the world he left behind is at war. In the midst of their grief, Salo’s closest clan members begin to experience strange phenomena: visions visit one, while seizures plague another. The clan’s new mystic divines that an arcane signal from the far west is calling, so they set out toward the desert—and encounter a caravan of travelers following the same mysterious call.

In the elite world of luxury real estate, it is often kill or be killed, something agent Andi Hart knows all too well—and after recent events, she’s ready to set her own rules. So when her boss challenges the team to find a buyer for a glitzy Malibu beach house, with a prize commission of a cool $1 million, she knows it’s her ticket to a new life. But she’s not the only one who not only wants but needs the money. Each of her four colleagues has secrets they’re eager to hide—secrets $1 million would go a long way in concealing.

Salo’s queen has finally accepted his desire to be a mystic despite taboos concerning men’s use of magic. But her acceptance is not support; it is strategy. Under a disguise of the queen’s making, Salo enters Jungle City as a pilgrim to the Red Temple, only to find a magical barrier barring his entrance. Left at the mercy of the warring political factions that run the city, Salo faces a series of obstacles wrought by an unseen hand, knowing he cannot return home without completing his pilgrimage. But Isa, King of the Saire clan, has her own plans for Salo.

Without question, Fawn Birchill knows that her used bookstore is the heart of West Philadelphia, a cornerstone of culture for a community that, for the past twenty years, has found the quirkiness absolutely charming. When an amicable young indie bookseller invades her block, Fawn is convinced that his cushy couches, impressive selection, coffee bar, and knowledgeable staff are a neighborhood blight. Misguided yet blindly resilient, Fawn readies for battle.

When patrolman Brandon Hall comes upon a broken-down car on a Colorado highway, he finds a young girl in a bloodied nightgown at the wheel. In the back seat, the brutalized body of a teenage boy. The girl will say only one word: Hurt. When the girl is admitted to the hospital, the doctor on call is Brandon’s ex-wife, Olivia Blake. For Olivia and Brandon, the traumatized Jane Doe opens a floodgate of memories. It’s been four years since they shared their own tragedy—the unsolved disappearance of their eight-year-old daughter, Carly, and the end of their marriage.