Showing results by narrator "Gail Shalan" in All Categories

Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life—working hard all day and partying all night—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She'll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths. Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he's offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Life is busier than ever for Innkeeper, Dina DeMille and Sean Evans. But it’s about to get even more chaotic when Sean's werewolf mentor is kidnapped. To find him, they must host an intergalactic spouse-search for one of the most powerful rulers in the Galaxy. Dina is never one to back down from a challenge. That is, if she can manage her temperamental Red Cleaver chef; the consequences of her favorite Galactic ex-tyrant's dark history; the tangled politics of an interstellar nation, and oh, yes, keep the wedding candidates from a dozen alien species from killing each other.

Moving four times in five years has honed air force wife Ellie Avery's packing and unpacking skills. But moving with a newborn daughter and husband Mitch in tow, during a heat wave, is enough to make her turn to chocolate for comfort. And when Ellie finds a local environmentalist dead on the side of the road, her instincts tell her this was no accident.

When 12-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She’s alone - left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned. With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten.

Hunter Gray and Lainie Mayes were each other’s first, last and only love. Until tragedy and their feuding families drove them apart. Eleven years vanish when Hunter learns that Lainie has gone missing in the Colorado mountains. Now the former army pilot must pull off his most perilous mission. Can he rescue Lainie and uncover the truth before the woman he loves is once again lost to him…this time forever?

A stranger is trespassing in Celeste Turner's backyard, moving through the shadows around her shed. It could be a harmless backpacker seeking temporary refuge, but experience has taught Celeste to be extra wary. Not wishing to draw unwanted attention, she cannot turn to the police. Celeste is an outsider to this region of rural Florida, and all the locals see is a "city girl" who swooped in to secure her inheritance. But Celeste needs her new life to work, so she must confront her intruder. To her surprise, she finds out that her unwanted guest is a young backpacker named Daisy.

Colin has spent all summer solving mysteries with his friend Nevaeh. But they’ve only ever dealt with other people’s mysteries—ones that are safe for Colin to think about. He’s still stuck on the mystery surrounding his own father, who his mother refuses to talk about and he can’t remember meeting. Then one morning Colin finds a shoebox on his porch with a note on top: “Your father wanted you to have this.” Inside the box is a key. This new clue makes Colin even more determined to find out the truth about his dad and why his parents split up when he was a baby.

Abigail and Amanda may have married brothers, but they have almost nothing else in common (and really, they never did get along very well). After their husbands both pass away within a year of one another, they have no reason to interact. Their connection drops to an awkward phone call on birthdays and an exchange of holiday cards.

1867, Richmond, Virginia: Though she wears the same low-cut purple gown that is the uniform of all the girls who work at Worsham's gambling parlor, Arabella stands apart. It's not merely her statuesque beauty and practiced charm. Even at seventeen, Arabella possesses an unyielding grit, and a resolve to escape her background of struggle and poverty. Collis Huntington, railroad baron and self-made multimillionaire, is drawn to Arabella from their first meeting. Collis is married and 30 years her senior, yet they are well-matched in temperament, and flirtation rapidly escalates into an affair.

When actress and model Allison Langley leaves her former rockstar husband in the middle of the night, it’s all her Oak Hill neighbors can talk about. But the gossip comes to an abrupt halt when five-year-old Billy Barnes goes missing on his walk home from kindergarten. Billy’s mother, Rachel, blames herself for being at work and letting her only child walk alone. Cassidy, Billy’s teenage babysitter, was also late to arrive on the afternoon he disappeared and blames herself for his disappearance.

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of A Woman Is No Man returns with a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian-American women, the meaning of a fulfilling life, and the ways our unresolved pasts affect our presents.

Liz Lewis has tried everything to be what people want. But she’s always been labeled different from everyone else in the world of wilderness expeditions—that is, if anyone notices her at all. Her marriage to popular adventure guide Tobin Renner-Lewis is a sinkhole of toxic positivity where she’s the only one saying no. In a mountain resort town built around excitement, introverted Liz gets…spreadsheets. When she gets mistaken for a server at her own thirtieth birthday party and her last line of communication with Tobin finally snaps, Liz vows to stop playing a minor character in her own life.

Twelve-year-old Lidia is outside her grandfather's house when planes fly overhead, bearing the Nazi cross on each wing. Before the bombs hit the ground, Lidia realizes her life is about to change forever. Poland has fallen under German occupation, and her father makes the brave decision to join the Polish army to fight against the Nazis. Lidia wants to follow him into war, but she's far too young, and she's needed by her mother and brother. After her family returns to Warsaw, Lidia continues to play the piano, but she also wants to aid the Jewish people held captive in the Warsaw Ghetto.

No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall. When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?) Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans! Again!

Amanda Saddler has lived a long and happy life. She's not ready to die or anything melodramatic, but she's long since given up on finding her fairytale ending. But when her adoptive granddaughter Emery picks up a box that was delivered to her doorstep, some new stories from the past come to light. Amanda Saddler may have spent her life pining for her neighbor, Jed Brooks, but that's not the only man she ever knew.

Welcome to a very special issue of Weird Tales. This issue celebrates the Bram Stoker Awards, the “Oscars” of the horror trade. They are presented every year by the Horror Writers Association (horror.org), a group founded in 1985 (and incorporated in 1987) by a collective of masters of that genre, including Joe R. Lansdale, Karen Lansdale, Robert McCammon, and Dean Koontz. This issue is packed with short stories, flash fiction, poems, and an essay—all written by past winners of the Bram Stoker Award.

Not to brag, but Brynn Whittaker is basically killing her senior year. She's got the looks, the grades, and a thriving "flirt coach" business that will help pay for her ultimate dream school: Stanford University. But when a highly incriminating video goes viral after the first rager of the year, Brynn finds herself at the center of a school-wide scandal of catastrophic proportions.

Spring, 2011. When thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern goes down onto the subway tracks to retrieve her dropped phone—and nearly gets hit by a train—the last thing she wants is sympathy from her estranged dad, Ethan. A recovering addict and felon, now living in California, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But when news of Jolie’s accident reaches him, Ethan comes to fear she’s in more serious trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home.

During one unforgettable year in their twenties, best friends Emma, Fern, Carolina, and Andi make a pact to embrace whatever life throws at them, inspiring Fern to write a memoir detailing their escapades and the magical power of saying Yes. But fast forward twenty years and they have reached their bandwidth of responsibilities. Fern is a full-time writer struggling to pay the bills. Carolina is a fitness-obsessed workaholic. Andi is a disillusioned human rights lawyer. And Emma is a stressed-out divorcée in the thick of planning her daughter’s wedding.