Showing results by narrator "Xe Sands" in All Categories

A year after her death in a burning barn, Dancy Flammarion now finds herself in a Hell of her own creation. A new evil haunts the sun-scorched back roads and ghost towns of the American South - murderous twins who command a legion of ghouls. Once again, Dancy must face down demons, those who walk the world unchallenged and those in her own shattered mind.

Connor Rye seeks solace on remote Whitaker Island. When his first quiet evening ends with a blow to the head, it’s clear that nothing - and no one - is as it seems. Still haunted by his sister’s murder, he’s buried himself in work while trying to hold his family together. Now, when he has a minute to breathe, he knows better than to get involved with a stranger, but it might be too late to keep his distance.

An irreverent and deeply moving comedy set in New York about friendship, fertility and fighting for one's sanity in a toxic workplace. Jen has reached her early 30s and has all but abandoned a once-promising painting career when, spurred by the economic crisis, she takes a poorly defined job at a feminist nonprofit. The foundation's aim is to empower women, but staffers spend all their time devising acronyms for imaginary programs, ruthlessly undermining one another and stroking the ego of their boss, the larger-than-life celebrity philanthropist Leora Infinitas.

In Brooklyn Bones, a crime of the past comes much too close to home when Erica Donato’s teenage daughter, Chris, finds a skeleton behind a wall in their crumbling Park Slope home. Erica - a young widow, overage history PhD candidate, and product of blue-collar Brooklyn - is drawn into the mystery when she learns that the skeleton is of an unknown teenage girl and that it was hidden there within living memory. Erica and Chris are both touched and disturbed by the mysterious tragedy in their own home.

Three women, from coast to coast and in between, open their mailboxes to the same intriguing invitation. Although leading entirely different lives, each has found herself at a similar, jarring crossroads. Right when these women thought they’d be comfortably settling into middle age, their carefully curated futures have turned out to be dead ends.

Pine Valley librarian Livvy Harmon has big dreams, which include marrying Dr. Slade McKinney. Trouble is, he’s kissed her only once in their four months of dating, and it wasn’t all that great. But Livvy isn’t ready to give up yet on hooking such an amazing man, even though Slade seems to have time for everyone but her.

As a teenager, for a moment, Ella Fitchburg found love—yearning, breathless love—that consumed both her and her boyfriend, Jude, as they wandered the streets of New York City together. But her life was unexpectedly upended when she was accused of trying to murder Jude’s father, an imperious superior court judge, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. When she learns she’s pregnant shortly after sentencing, she reluctantly decides to give up the child. Ella is released after serving six years. While she is desperate to turn the page on a new life, she can’t seem to let go of her past.

From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her.

Rette was born on a small dairy farm in southern Wisconsin—land with wide pastures bordering on forest and a cold, clear trout stream rimming its edge. From the beginning her parents could see that she was odd, different from other children in the way that she was always listening, often with her ear pressed to a tree or flat to the ground, hearing the sounds of roots at work in the earth, listening to the thoughts of the animals.

In the 1960s and 1970s, complaints about a "Jewish literary mafia" were everywhere. Although a conspiracy of Jews colluding to control publishing in the United States never actually existed, such accusations reflected a genuine transformation from an industry notorious for excluding Jews to one in which they arguably had become the most influential figures. Josh Lambert examines the dynamics between Jewish editors and Jewish writers; how Jewish women exposed the misogyny they faced; and how children of literary parents have struggled with and benefited from their inheritances.

Despite the angry scars she carries from her childhood training, Zoe Lorel has reached a good place in her life. She has her dream job as an elite operative in an international spy agency and found her true love. Her world is mostly perfect—until she is sent to abduct a nine-year-old. The girl is the only one who knows the riddle that holds the code to unleash the most lethal weapon on earth—the first ever "invisibility" nanoweapon, a cloaking spider bot. From Malta to the Italian Alps to England, Zoe races to save not only the child she has grown to care about, but also herself.

Vanished tells the stories of women and girls in upstate New York who are often overlooked or unseen. The characters range from an aging art professor whose students are uninterested in learning what she has to teach, to a young girl who becomes the victim of a cruel prank in a swimming pool, to a television producer who regrets allowing her coworkers into her mother’s bird-filled house to film a show about animal hoarding because it will reveal too much about her family and past. Humorous and empathetic, the collection exposes the adversity in each character’s life.

After her husband Alan’s decades of financial fraud are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Ignoring a steady stream of calls from Norfolk State Prison, she tries to cleanse herself of all connections to her ex-husband. She tells herself that he, not she, committed the crimes. Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he ruined demand restitution.

In an empowering, accessible, and inclusive guide, herbalist Marie White shows listeners of all genders how to enhance sexual and reproductive health through plant medicine. A must-have for those looking to revitalize intimacy with the special touch of medicinal herbs—and a few selected seaweed and fungi—The Intimate Herbal includes tried-and-tested protocols rooted in an intersectional, non-binary approach to holistic health, herbal healing, and supporting the body through physical stress.

Lexi Stewart’s lineage extends to the founders of the MacInnes legacy in faraway America. A year has passed since she was widowed much too young, but she’s floundering, so she accepts an invitation to escape her beloved Scotland for a needed respite. Surely a visit with her Texas relatives and a stay at Castle MacInnes will put her back to rights. There’s just one problem: Logan Jameson. The handsome personal trainer is getting everyone in Magnolia Bloom on a fitness kick, and he's determined to make her believe she’s not too old or too heavy to find love again.

Welcome to Magnolia Bloom, where hearts heal and magic happens...in a castle...in East Texas. Magnolia Bloom Beginnings is a compilation of three origin novellas about some of the amazing women who created the magic of Magnolia Bloom. This collection includes Welcome to Magnolia Bloom, Love at Last in Magnolia Bloom, and Sunrise in Magnolia Bloom.

Diane Williams, an American master of the short story who will "rewire your brain" (NPR), is back with a collection in which she once again expands the possibilities of fiction. These stories depict ordinary moments - a visit to the doctor's office or a married couple's hundredth dance together - but within the quotidian, Williams delivers a lifetime of insecurities, lusts, rejections, and revelations, making her work equally discomfiting and amusing.

Lexi Stewart is a descendant of Alyssa MacInnes, one of the powerhouse women who created the MacInnes legacy. Lexi is lost. A young widow…well, young in her own eyes…Lexi's coming to terms with the fact that true passion was never in her cards - and certainly isn’t in her future. She’s equally sure she has nothing in common with Alyssa, her impressive ancestor, or Dara Doyle, the Irish spitfire who captured the oldest MacInnes son’s heart a century ago. Still, it’s a lovely story, one she’d love to live herself - but it’s a tale meant only for dreams.

Kiki MacInnes has burned more than a few bridges in her time. Now, as a recovering alcoholic, she’s dedicated to helping others avoid addiction. She can only hope her temporary role as the new châtelaine for Castle MacInnes will help her stay on the straight and narrow, too. But even if she’s somehow able to redeem herself for the mistakes of the past, could all the people she’s hurt ever forgive her? Could the handsome small-town pastor, who has her longing for a Christmas miracle?

The MacInnes sisters, different in every way…except for how much they need each other Alyssa’s country music career was a dream come true. But lately, something’s off. The words, the notes, the passion…they’ve abandoned her. Now, it’ll take some serious soul searching - and maybe a little help from her family - to rediscover her muse and figure out what to do next. Bailey won’t be denied what she wants. Not ever again. And, she’ll do whatever it takes to make sure her daughter reaches her full potential, too.