Showing results by narrator "Saskia Maarleveld" in All Categories

The Bahamas, 1941. Newly widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the duke and duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines.

It's not easy pretending to be dead - especially when it feels as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. Between an unfulfilled prophecy, the demon-occupied Lowlands, the continuing power of murderous Aifric Moncrieffe - not to mention her constant yearnings for Byron - Integrity Adair has a lot to worry about. Still, how hard can it really be to save Scotland, maintain her morals, get the guy, and keep her sense of humor?

#1 New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr brings his“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. Doerr and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, winnow down twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Integrity Taylor has regained possession of her ancestral lands - and inherited a whole host of new problems. The specter of what really happened to her parents is casting a shadow over everything, while Fomori demons are being sighted up and down the Highlands. It doesn't help that Aifric Moncrieffe still seems determined to see her dead, and emerald-eyed Byron remains stubbornly blind to his father's true nature. Integrity is determined to stay in control of her own destiny, however, even if it means confronting the darkness across the Veil yet again.

Caitlyn and her friends have returned to Jude’s Sorcerous Academy, but all is not well in the school. The Great Houses of Shallot are on the verge of going to war, and the conflict is spilling into the school; in the background, powerful and secretive forces prepare to finally reveal their plans to reshape the world. Caught in the middle, torn between her family and her friends - and burdened with a secret she dares not share - Cat must unlock the secret of the Zero Equation...or watch helplessly as her family, friends, and school are destroyed by war.

Cabaret dancer Sylvie Devereux and Sheikh Arkim Al-Sahid have never seen eye to eye - not from their first antagonistic meeting to their last intoxicating kiss. And certainly not when she publicly stops his convenient society wedding to her beloved sister! Now Arkim wants revenge on the sinful seductress who cost him the respectable reputation he needs.

A remarkably candid biography of the remarkably candid - and brilliant - Carrie Fisher. Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge is an empathic and even-handed portrayal of a woman who - as Princess Leia, but mostly as herself - was a feminist heroine, one who died at a time when we need her blazing, healing honesty more than ever.

With a dad who disappeared years ago and a mother who's a bit too busy to parent, Emmy is shipped off to Wellsworth, a prestigious boarding school in England, where she's sure she won't fit in. But then she finds a box of mysterious medallions in the attic of her home - medallions that belonged to her father...who may have gone to Wellsworth.

Set before the events of Solo: A Star Wars Story! Han and Qi'ra don't have a lot in common other than not having a lot. They're street kids on the industrial planet Corellia, doing whatever it takes to get by, dreaming of something more. They each jump at a chance to prove themselves in the perilous world of Corellia's criminal underbelly, only to discover they are on the same mission for the same unscrupulous boss. When the job goes disastrously wrong, Han and Qi'ra are on the run.

Ever since her sister became a man-eating spider and slaughtered her way through town, nineteen-year-old Ness has been terrified—terrified of some other Nightmare murdering her, and terrified of ending up like her sister. Because in Newham, the city that never sleeps, dreaming means waking up as your worst fear.

Jeanie’s whole world is turned upside down. Not only has she lost her beloved brother, but with no family left in Washington, she is ripped from everything she knows, including Maddox, the boy she could be learning to love. Twenty years later, Jeanie is in England. She keeps her demons at bay by drinking too much, sleeping with a married man, and speaking to a therapist she doesn’t respect. But her old life catches up to her when Maddox reappears, claiming to have tracked down her dad.

Sutton and Ethan Montclair's idyllic life is not as it appears. They seem made for each other, but the truth is ugly. Consumed by professional and personal betrayals and financial woes, the two both love and hate each other. As tensions mount, Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her. Ethan finds himself the target of vicious gossip as friends, family, and the media speculate on what really happened to Sutton Montclair.

Three of the most powerful necromancers in the Blighted Lands have banded together into an unstoppable force, one capable of breaching the Craggy Mountains and laying waste to the lands beyond. If they cannot be stopped, they will tear the Allied Lands apart. Nothing will survive. And so Emily, the Necromancer’s Bane, is called upon once more to stand in defense of her adopted homeland and stop the necromancers in their tracks. Her presence may be the only thing keeping the Allied Lands from shattering as the war turns hot once again.

On a peace mission, desperately trying to hammer out a settlement that will keep the radicals and reactionaries from starting yet another civil war, Emily is attacked by Marah, a young woman rescued by her enigmatic master and turned into a living weapon to start the chaos. Seeing something of herself in the girl, Emily takes her as an apprentice both to give her a better chance at life and to use her to track down her master, who appears to have plans of his own...

Half-werewolf, half-Aedh Risa Jones is beginning to believe that the only way to find the keys she’s been searching for and save her friends is by dying. And when Wolfgang Schmidt, the lover of her boss at the vampire council, is found dead, her worst fears are confirmed. With the first portal of hell permanently open, the energies of the dark path are leaching into the world. Searching for Schmidt’s killer and the keys at the same time, Risa and reaper Azriel track a shape-shifting spider spirit capable of changing her form into a seductive woman. But when they finally find the second key, the Aedh Lucian snatches it and disappears.

In the aftermath of the struggle, long-held grudges are boiling over and conflicts are breaking out. The monarchs want to settle border disputes, the aristocrats want to impose their will on monarchs and peasants alike, the commoners want freedom and justice, and the magical communities want to rule all or else separate themselves from the mundanes. And most of this chaos is being orchestrated by Emily’s mentor, the sorcerer Void. He believes the only path to salvation for the Allied Lands is to make himself the undisputed ruler of the world.

At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.

Eight years ago, Grace McMullen broke Sutton Whitlock’s heart when she walked away. But it was only to save him from the baggage of her own troubled past. Now all she wants is to make sure he’s okay. Only everything she learns about him online says otherwise. According to his social media accounts, he placed roots in her hometown, married a look-alike, and even named his daughter Grace. He clearly hasn’t moved on. In fact, it’s creepy. So Grace does what any concerned ex-girlfriend would do: She moves home…and watches him.

Abducted by Mohawk Indians at 14 and renamed Burning Sky, Willa Obenchain is driven to return to her family's New York frontier homestead after many years building a life with the People. At the boundary of her father's property, Willa discovers a wounded Scotsman lying in her path.

It’s been five years since Summer Marks was murdered in the woods. Everyone thinks Mia and Brynn killed their best friend. That driven by their obsession with a novel called The Way into Lovelorn the three girls had imagined themselves into the magical world where their fantasies became twisted, even deadly. The only thing is: They didn’t do it. On the anniversary of Summer’s death, a seemingly insignificant discovery resurrects the mystery and pulls Mia and Brynn back together again, and the girls must confront what really happened in the woods all those years ago.