Showing results by narrator "Elisabeth Ashby" in All Categories

Instead of mentors, they got monsters. That's what Xerak, Vereez, and Grunwold think when three strange creatures shimmer into being within the circle of Hettua Shrine. Their conclusion is reasonable enough. After all, they've never seen humans before. As for Margaret Blake, Peg Gallegos, and Tessa Brown—more usually known as Meg, Peg, and Teg—they're equally astonished but, oddly enough, better prepared. Age and experience have accustomed them to surprises.

Eighteen-year-old Jewel, reliving her memories, finds herself suddenly thrust into the pas,t living in the world of mortals. Only this life and this version of herself is different. Yet, one thing stays the same, she finds herself in the path of Anubis, an Egyptian god. She needs him even though it could cost her everything. But Anubis just sees her as an annoying complication to his quiet life he just can’t have - at least that’s what he tells himself. Even as he is drawn to the beautiful, dangerous goddess.

This compelling and compassionate mystery takes place in the quirky island town of Key West, Florida, where 21-year-old Jillian Dougherty, a newly graduated Boston nursing school student away from home for the first time, finds herself completely absorbed into the island's homeless population. Meet the island inhabitants that live under the bridges, behind the hedges, and on the edge of sanity in this tourist-island mecca.

In a community full of supernatural powers, 18-year-old Jewel longs for a life of normalcy. But nothing in her life is ordinary. And suddenly she discovers she's more abnormal than she ever realized - complete with a past she never knew existed. Once a goddess from ancient Greece, Jewel is the main reason everyone has their special abilities.

What could possibly go wrong in a wealthy matriarch's country home when her dilettante son, his restless wife, and his widowed brother live there together? Strong Passions, rooted in the beguiling times of Edith Wharton's "old New York," recounts the true story of a tumultuous marriage.

In the company of the "inquisitors," Xerak, Grunwold, and Vereez, the three newly appointed mentors rediscovered the Library of the Sapphire Wind, and, within it, revelations that transformed the young people's pasts into a vast tangle of lies and half-truths. But there are still questions to be answered. Before they are done, Meg the retired librarian, Teg the archeologist-turned-mage, and the multi-talented, ever surprising Peg will deal with kidnappings, betrayal, arcane artifacts, romantic intrigues, and the inescapable reality that past lives cast long shadows.

Pregnant at fifteen after gleefully losing her virginity to pansexual neighborhood strongman Francis Anthony Mozzarelli, she is robbed of her baby by a pack of nefarious nuns and her embittered papa has her sterilized without her consent (legal in 1935). With the help of a besotted Francis and her top-secret meatball recipe, a devastated Bella embarks on a riotous quest through Depression-era Coney Island sideshows, the tawdry world of peek-a-boo striptease routines, a queer mob marriage, and a tasty collection of wisdom-filled recipes to find her lost child, herself, and maybe even true love.

No one is at all sure what a book wraith might be, but whatever it is definitely has the battered tomes in the Library of the Sapphire Wind very worried indeed. Figuring out what a book wraith could be is hardly the least of the challenges that the newly formed House of Rough Diamonds will face as the motley assortment of members-including three women who are literally "out of this world"-attempt to secure ownership of the Library.

Wanda's multiple affairs are revealed within the context of a twisted game that sends everyone in search of golden keys that just might unlock their ability to use matchmaking powers. This game has many rewards that could elevate you to great success while at the same time this game has many risks that can degrade you into grand failure. Are you sure that the key that you have will unlock a magnificent world of pleasantries or an unpredictable world of wickedness?

In the late 1960s, Patsy Channing, a stunningly beautiful young woman, was suspended from the venerable Mississippi State College for Women for breach of conduct. The resulting scandal reached all the way to the Columbus courthouse, and the press ate it up. But Patsy's story starts long before that, living with a preoccupied and troubled mother in Memphis, Tennessee. Music becomes her ticket out and a vehicle for the one thing she covets most—a chance to be crowned Miss America. In Confessions of a Southern Beauty Queen, Julie Hines Mabus provides a peek into that world.

Negative, broken, lie-filled sentences fill your head as you work, play, and go about your life. These scripts are sidelining you, maligning you, harming you. What if there were another way? What if your life didn't have to be defined by what others say? Or even by what you say to yourself over and over? What if you knew that beauty and life are yours to be found and you finally danced in the freedom that awaits you? There is more for you, friend—so much more.

The Trebors are in more danger than ever before. The tribe is divided, Mt. Bor spits fire as its caverns boil, and the Borian Sea holds a secret of its own. When the malpeds flew away with seeds from the great tree, scouts are sent to retrieve them, but the power of the seeds is so great they grow immediately into a field of fledgling trees. Within days, the tribe is divided between those seeking a new way of life in the field nestled at the foot of Mt. Bor, and those choosing to stay with the great tree.

Caroline McAlister, college professor and lifelong skeptic, is reeling from the loss of her father and her marriage. Her once promising career has come to a standstill. When her father bequeaths the family cabin to her, it comes with a ghost who haunted her childhood. When she discovers a century-old journal in the attic, she awakens the voice of Carson Quinn. The journal reveals Carson's love for the same hollow that enthralled Caroline growing up. A little sleuthing uncovers rumors that the kind, curious boy in the journal grew up to murder his brother.

Peace reigns in the Land of Bori. Growth springs from the earth as the great tree pushes its power through its mighty roots. But there's a noise at the edge of the forest. It darts into the dark. A voice calls to the Trebors. Come and play with us. Come and play with us. But when Ebert decides to follow what lurks in the forest, he has an unexpected encounter. The malpeds have returned. Pitter pat. Pitter pat. Their tiny legs run their rhythm. Pitter pat. Pitter pat. Look what we can do, they say. We are changed, they say. Can this be true?

Bori is ravaged, the earth scorched, homes destroyed. Stella longs for the days of peace, where Trebors danced and sang, where her tree home held all she needed. Now devastation surrounds her and worse yet, her father is missing. He didn't make it home before the storm ripped through the land. The devastated forest calls Stella to journey into it, to look for her father, and face down whatever hides in its deep crevices. But a shifting shape of evil lurks nearby and threatens to destroy everything she knows and loves.

A Southern white writer, educator, and activist, Lillian Smith (1897-1966) spoke out all her life against injustice. In Killers of the Dream, her most influential book, she draws on memories of her childhood to describe the psychological and moral cost of the powerful, contradictory rules about sin, sex, and segregation—the intricate system of taboos—that undergirded Southern society.