Showing results by narrator "Kate Rudd" in All Categories

When Alice's aunt Polly, The Pie Queen of Ipswitch, passes away, she takes with her the secret to her world-famous piecrust recipe. Or does she? In her will, Polly leaves the recipe to her extraordinarily fat, remarkably disagreeable cat, Lardo...and then leaves Lardo in the care of Alice.

Living with her aunt in poor, rural Preston, Pennsylvania, 13-year-old Ellen Watson loves books and music and is completely oblivious to her own beauty. But her extraordinary looks arouse envy and malice in the female townspeople - and lust in the males. Hired as a housemaid in the palatial home of the village mayor, Ellen soon catches the attention of his son, Jeremy Porter, who captures her heart in turn. He offers to send her to school, and four years later he proposes marriage. As the years pass, Ellen's life parallels the hopes, dreams, and fears of a no-longer innocent nation.

When an elf is kidnapped by a nefarious gang, Raine must use her magical abilities and team up with some unlikely allies in order to rescue her friend.

Denver psychologist Kismet Knight counsels vampires. Her life changed forever when she discovered a preternatural underworld and became involved with gorgeous eight-centuries-old Devereux, the powerful leader of a vampire coven. Still adjusting to her new role as an expert on all things paranormal - as well as her unexpected notoriety and new clientele - Kismet schedules what she believes is simply another radio interview.

Gui is a professional cleaner at A Fresh Start, scrubbing away the unpleasant layers of memory that build up on the personal objects of his customers. Memory-blind himself, he can’t feel those wounds. Clara can, and she prefers them irretrievable. Until her sister, Beatrice, ultrasensitive to memory, raises one that could change Clara’s mind. For Gui, the past is gone. For Clara and Beatrice, deciding what to remember reaches to the heart of their shared history.

The New York City-State wakes up and their world has been shaken to its core. The Enforcers have been scattered, but they aren't finished. This vampire is but a bump in their road to keeping the city-state in the hands of the CEOs. The Weres are involved. Some leave, some stay, and new alliances are made and an old one broken. However, in the end, it always comes back to heart and determination.

When her sister is found dead in a Baltimore hotel room, reporter Val Ritter’s world is turned upside down. An empty pill bottle at the scene leads the police to believe the cause of death is suicide. With little more than her own conviction, Val teams up with Terry Martin, a retired detective who has his own personal interest in the case, to prove that something more sinister is possible.

Returning to find most of the colony slaughtered, Nickie flies into a rampage and goes off to kill the Skaines who did this. Then, at her darkest hour, she learns a valuable lesson about herself, and the true nature of retribution. Meanwhile, her Aunt Tabitha works on her own unique methods for cleaning up the universe. With Ryu beside her, she mis-adventures herself and her Tontos through the seedy underside of Karkat to get their man.

Dark magic has infiltrated the school of necessary magic. Spies stalk the halls. Traitors whisper lies to impressionable freshmen and devious wizards distract with charming smiles. If Alison and her friends can’t see past the friendly masks of their fellow students to the dark purpose they hide, it’s not just the school that will be destroyed. But the forces of evil should have kept one thing in mind before targeting Alison Brownstone.

When Nickie accidentally activates her special functions and finds herself with a stolen ship full of hostile Skaine, she has no choice but to figure out what to do with the cards she has been dealt. A by-product of her activation, her internal computer system also finds her Aunt Tabitha’s diary in her memory banks. In these accounts, Nickie finds a long-desired link back to her favorite aunt, whose recounted stories help them both to accept the trauma they’ve survived.

Alison, the Drow princess, can’t even make it back to the School of Necessary Magic for her junior year without tripping across trouble hunting for her. Underground bullet trains, battles with dark magic, growing dragons, Louper tournaments, school dances, and job fairs. Growing up magical can be tough on a social life. Thank goodness she’s got her friends beside her.

Advice about food can be confusing. There's usually only one thing experts can agree on: some ingredients - often the most enjoyable ones - are bad for you, full stop. But as Aaron Carroll explains, these oversimplifications are both wrong and dangerous: if we stop consuming some of our most demonized ingredients altogether, it may actually hurt us.

For this vampire, it's time to die...a second time. Valerie understands that to take the fight to those who are attacking in New York, she needs to leave the spotlight. Both for the city, and for herself. Her enemies are relentless in their attacks to get to her. Since they have relocated to the Chicago City-State area, that is where she must go. Only one problem - she will be running into the militaristic force called the FDG. She'll need to either work with them, or stay off their radar to take out the CEOs. She hopes.

Tormented by the fate she condemned her mother to, and by the lies she's forced to tell to cover it up, Adele scours Storm-ravaged New Orleans for the truth about her family's magical past. But every turn leads her back to the one person she's determined to forget: Niccolò Medici. Not even the multitude of enchanted locks on the attic door trapping Nicco within can break their connection.

The city has changed, but not always for the better. Some love her, some hate her, but the one thing that is causing the city problems is Valerie herself. As a lightning rod, she needs to get out of the public's eye and allow the emotions to cool without her presence.

A hungry, stray dog is the last thing Cara Butter needs. Stranded in Georgia with only her backpack and a few dwindling dollars, she already has too much baggage. Like her twin sister, Hana, who has broken Cara's heart one too many times. After a lifetime of family troubles, and bouncing from one foster home to another, Cara decides to leave it all behind and strike out alone - on foot.

Avery Sparks is a master at controlling chaos - and she gets plenty of opportunities as fire chief and head of emergency management in her hometown of Chance, Nebraska. The only thing she can't seem to control are her feelings when she's around Jake Mitchell, the man who was her first everything the night of their high school graduation. But Jake was so quick to leave Chance - and Avery - behind that she swore she'd move on.

A simple blink is all it takes to yank Pru from the car with her dad into a world of hurt. She awakens in 2305 to find herself pinned under what's left of CHRONOS headquarters, thanks to a recent terrorist attack. Their prime suspect? Her mother, Katherine Shaw. And everyone wants to know how Pru got her hands on a CHRONOS key.

I-Day is near at hand, and soon the Fangborn will reveal themselves to humankind. As a member of this secretive race of werewolves, vampires, and oracles, will archaeologist Zoe Miller be prepared? Still grappling with the newfound powers she gained after opening Pandora's box, Zoe shares the responsibility of protecting "Normal" humans. Having long preferred to keep to the shadows, she knows the pending revelation of the Fangborn will set the world on fire.

New to a small town, Jackie and Paula envision a quiet life for their kids: a young adopted son and two teenage foster children, including the troubled Star. However, they quickly butt heads with their neighbor, Clementine, who disapproves of their lifestyle and is incensed when Star befriends her spirited horse, Comet. Haunted by past tragedy and unable to properly care for Comet, Clem nevertheless resents the bond Star soon shares with the horse.