Showing results by narrator "Emily Woo Zeller" in All Categories

There is no easy path for a woman aspiring to power. A concubine at the palace learns quickly that there are many ways to capture the emperor's attention. Many paint their faces white and style their hair attractively, hoping to lure in the One Above All with their beauty. Some present him with fantastic gifts, such as jade pendants and scrolls of calligraphy, while others rely on their knowledge of seduction to draw his interest. But young Mei knows nothing of these womanly arts, yet she will give the emperor a gift he can never forget.

Inara Erickson is exploring her deceased aunt's island estate when she finds an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. As she peels back layer upon layer of the secrets it holds, Inara's life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein, a young Chinese girl mysteriously driven from her home a century before. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core - and force her to make an impossible choice.

I gasp as my body curls toward Brennus like a flower to the sun, for the pleasure of it. He holds me close to him. His nose grazes the length of my neck. He breathes me in. I feel the roar and rush of my heartbeat. I'm his toy; his energy streams into me. He winds the invisible key in my back, and the euphoria ratchets and coils inside of me.

Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused—and convinced he'd been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob.

Air Command pilot Nova Whiteside is assigned to a remote outpost to guard the construction of a tethered orbiter, Skyranch Twelve, against rebel sabotage. The difference between the well-ordered Union air fields and this dusty garrison is made painfully clear when she runs afoul a brutal commander of ground troops. When she is trapped behind enemy lines in a bloody uprising, she meets Djari, a civilian whose trust in the governing Union is shattered by what he has witnessed.

An immense asteroid field is on its way to deliver a torrent of pathogens into this galactic sector, guaranteeing the destruction of any civilization in its path. Cyann, astrobiologist and Human-Delphian hybrid, is eager to join the research expedition dispatched to investigate. Before they depart, she is called upon by the secretive members of a Delphian sect who believe that the elusive Tughan Wai, a supernatural creature of their own making, plays a part in this calamity.

Brooklyn, 2095. Seventeen-year-old Riley Taylor longs to escape the crushing poverty of the slums. Stuck with her best friend in a totalitarian police state, their only hope of freedom is joining the military. But when Riley gets ripped away from him in their first brutal combat, she’s shocked to discover why so many recruits come home in coffins.

His body is as chiseled as Adonis. His lips are as sculpted as David. And his ego is the size of the Guggenheim. You know the type: wolfish smile and the gravity of a black hole - the kind of man who sucks all the air from the room the second he enters it. My cocky boss thinks this internship was wasted on me, and he doesn’t hesitate to let me know. But he’s wrong, and I’m going to prove it to him. If I can stay away from his devil lips, that is....

In a cyberpunk future where water is scarce, rice is one of the first casualties. The recipe for printing natural-tasting, healthy, synthetic rice is a closely guarded corporate secret that a young hacker seeks to steal, for very personal reasons.

China, 1937: When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, 19-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than 100 students, faculty, and staff must walk 1,000 miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by hunger, cold, and the constant threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the student refugees who are at risk: Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure, a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.

The year 2099. Riley Taylor has defeated the terrorist group the Champions and is now faced with a different sort of enemy: the State. Trouble is, there isn’t one single person to blame for the way life in America is now, and instead of confronting a foe, she must root out the evil in the system piece by piece, law by insidious law. To do this, Riley will need the help of the Volunteers. But rebuilding her crew from scratch will not be an easy task, and taking on the government will require a team of specialized allies.

Chloe Wang is nervous to introduce her parents to her boyfriend, because the truth is, she hasn’t met him yet either. She hired him from Rent for Your ‘Rents, a company specializing in providing fake boyfriends trained to impress even the most traditional Asian parents. Drew Chan’s passion is art, but after his parents cut him off for dropping out of college to pursue his dreams, he became a Rent for Your ‘Rents employee to keep a roof over his head. Luckily, learning protocols like “Type C parents prefer quiet, kind, zero-PDA gestures” comes naturally to him.

It's summertime for supervillains! Or maybe not, because for Penelope Akk, there is still one foe she has yet to defeat: her own reputation as Bad Penny. It's been a fun ride: fighting adult heroes, going to space, and inspiring the rest of her school to open up about their own powers. Sooner or later, that ride has to end, and with school out of the way Penny is hatching a mad scheme to end it on her own terms. Will that go smoothly? Of course not. Penny's left too many unsolved problems behind her already, like ghosts, crazy friends, and angry little girls from Jupiter.

The theft of the drug lord Carrera’s Faction Seal has set Osmark’s empire-to-be ablaze with the hunt for Abby and Otto’s heads, but her quest to discover the truth about the ultra-rare item won’t wait. There are only days left until Earth’s destruction, and the Faction Seal plays some role in Osmark’s plan to rule over Viridian Gate Online, the immersive VRMMO game turned humanity’s lifeboat. With nowhere left to turn in Harrowick, Abby and Otto have no choice but to flee to the rebel undergrounds of Alaunhylles....

Acclaimed, award-winning author Linda Sue Park has placed a young half-Asian girl, Hanna, in a small town in America's heartland, in 1880. Hanna's adjustment to her new surroundings, which primarily means negotiating the townspeople's almost unanimous prejudice against Asians, is at the heart of the story. Told from the viewpoint of Hanna, the novel has poignant moments yet sparkles with humor, introducing a captivating heroine whose wry, observant voice will resonate with listeners.

Tunguska, Roswell, the Bermuda Triangle, the Mary Celeste... For hundreds of years, the danger posed by colliding worlds has been ignored as a crackpot theory, until now, and now it's too late.

Here I stand, clutching a bouquet of pale pink roses behind the doors of a Las Vegas chapel, and at the end of the aisle is the absolute last man I imagined would be waiting for me. Thomas Bane. Best-selling author. Notorious bad boy. Savagely handsome, dark as sin, chiseled as stone. And, somehow, my soon-to-be husband. Marry him, and I’ll land my dream job. Save him, and I’ll walk away with everything I’ve ever wanted. All I have to do is remember it’s all for show. None of it is real, no matter how real it feels.

Faolan Kelly’s grandfather is dead. She’s alone in the world and suddenly homeless, all because the local powers that be don’t think a young man of seventeen is mature enough to take over his grandfather’s homestead…and that’s with them thinking Faolan is a young man. If she revealed that her grandfather had been disguising her for years, they would marry her off at the first opportunity. The mayor finds a solution that serves everyone but Faolan: He hires a gunslinger to ship her off to the Settlement, a remote fort where outcasts live under the leadership of His Benevolence Gideon Dillard.

It’s been three months since the Patriarche was beheaded, leaving behind no known heir. Now, the planet of Laterre is unrecognizable. General Bonnefaçon has cleaned up the streets, fed the hungry, and restored peace while the next leader is decided upon. From the outside, Laterre seems to be flourishing. But dangerous rifts threaten to shatter the planet from within.

World famous glass artist Sophie Giombetti is headed to Ireland to grab a new lease on life. She’s put her divorce behind her and wants a supportive community to raise her daughter. The quaint town of Caisleán, where she’s agreed to design a major installation at the local arts center, more than fits the bill. Best of all, she’s sure the verdant Irish hills will give her new inspiration.