Showing results by narrator "Laurel" in All Categories

I’ve been on the run ever since my father sold me out to the mob with promises that I could repay his debt. But no one can hide from the mob forever. When they find me, they give me two options - pay back my father’s debt or sleep with the fishes. My only shot is to rob the most powerful man in the city - the famed Garreth Locke. I get more than I bargained for - including the knowledge that magic is real, and Garreth is a freaking werewolf. Soon, I’m swept up into an insane world of wealth and magic that I had no idea existed.

They are beings with no flaws, divine creatures with power sparking at their fingertips. A race so exceptional that it feels almost forbidden to think about them, especially for someone like me. I’m Rosadette Campbell, a seventeen-year-old girl who has nothing in common with those divine, worshiped beings. No, I’m a human - at least, that’s how we refer to ourselves. We pretend not to hear the litany of degrading slurs other races use to describe our kind. We were the dominant species once, but now we’re considered little more than rats.

On a near-abandoned research base in an Arctic ice field, a skeleton crew works to ensure the centre doesn’t collapse amid treacherous storms. Officially, Trieste Grayling arrives in order to explore and film a sunken shipwreck for a documentary film; privately, she's working through a complicated grief. Trieste soon realises she's not the only one who was attracted to this intense isolation in order to escape her ghosts.

You know that saying, to hell in a hand basket? That's where my life is headed. Three days ago, the Vampire Court learned about my forbidden FireSoul magic. It's basically a death sentence. Except they've made me a deal. I have to pass a series of trials, designed to test my magic and my loyalty. If I survive, I become an ally of the Court, which would be awesome. Problem is, the trials are as deadly as a hungry hellhound and I can't trust my partner, the sexy hybrid-vampire Ares.

In the city of Magic's Bend, I protect what's mine. To the world, I'm a feeble Conjurer. To my closest friends, I'm a dangerous Magica with unexplainable powers given to me by a dragon. The downside? If anyone discovers what I am, I'm dead. So I lay low - kicking ass with my weapons, not my magic. Things go to hell when I witness the murder of a powerful vampire ally and become the key suspect. Soon, I'm hunted by the sexiest, strongest supernatural I've ever met. I've got three days to catch the real killer. It will take my forbidden magic to succeed.

Professional quarterback Austin Riley has always been smitten with his childhood "enemy," Sommer Hayes. Having known each other their entire lives, the majority of their relationship exchanges have been sneers, insults, smirks, and jeers. Now, 10 years have passed since he last stepped foot in his hometown. Austin and Sommer run into each other again only to discover that they both share the same secret: their hatred toward one another was merely a cover-up for the true feelings they'd kept hidden.

For five long years, I’ve wanted just one thing - to find my sister Rowan. Her disappearance tore a hole in my life. Now I’ve found her - but she’s a captive of the same Rebel Gods who hunt me. They’ve enchanted her to follow their every whim, which will make rescuing her nearly impossible. But I’ll do anything it takes, including infiltrating an ancient Celtic war camp. I’ll even join the death fights in their arena.

Finally, I know what I am. A DragonGod. I’ve been gifted with the magic of the Viking gods. Except my new powers are devouring each other. If I don’t fix this soon, I’ll have no magic left - and no magic means no soul. To save myself, I must go on a quest through the realms of the Viking gods. It’ll be the most dangerous adventure of my life, taking me past monsters and deadly worlds. Fortunately, the Celtic war god, Cade, is at my side, along with my friends and allies.

Destiny Fisher is ready to move past the guilt and shame of losing a fiancé to the war in Afghanistan 12 years ago. She never should’ve said yes to his proposal in the first place, and she's been plagued by her choices for more than a decade. She was his biggest regret. Trent Dawkins has been married to the army ever since he walked away from his brother's funeral...and from the woman he loved. Delta Team Three is his family. Destiny has avoided him for all these years. Does seeing him remind her of his brother? Can the two of them face their demons and move forward?

Celina Dontal just escaped 18 months of captivity at the hands of Alexander Boyarov and his crew, members of the brutal Red Houzi Clan. That should have been the hard part. It was only the beginning. When she tried to contact her younger sister, Jenny, Celina received shocking news. The one person in the universe that Celina loved and lived for was missing, and no one could tell her what happened. Fool Me Once, a standalone novella, is the second story in Jamie McFarlane's Privateer Tales.

In the city of Solantha, mages rule absolute, with shifters considered second-class citizens and humans something in between. No one outside the mage families are allowed to have magic, and anyone born with it must agree to have it stripped from them to avoid execution. Sunaya Baine, a shifter-mage hybrid, has managed to keep her unruly magic under wraps for the last 24 years.

In the tangled bog city of Nannandry, Priloe Sharpe's life is worth only what his pick-pocketing skills can buy him. The entire planet of Grunholtz is now one big colonization failure and run completely by rival gangs. Hope of a better life is nonexistent - until the day off-worlders show up in the marketplace with a shiny piece of tech, which Priloe artfully snags. In a race for his life, Priloe must save his sister and somehow leave the planet, risking everything for a new life in the cloud city of Leger Nuage.

Bracken Casey. Our hometown’s playboy. My brother’s best friend. The man I love. He doesn’t do girlfriends. He doesn’t do commitments. And he doesn’t see me as anything more than his best friend’s little sister. Until one night changes everything. A drunken kiss leads to a drunken screw. Now he can’t keep his hands off of me, and I can’t say no. Rules are set: No one can find out. It can’t lead anywhere. But rules were always meant to be broken. And that’s exactly what we are doing. Breaking them all. Something bad is bound to happen.

Patricia Highsmith - author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr Ripley - had more than her fair share of secrets. During her life, she felt uncomfortable about discussing the source of her fiction and refused to answer questions about her private life. Yet after her death in February 1995, Highsmith left behind a vast archive of personal documents - diaries, notebooks and letters - which detail the links between her life and her work.

Laurel Braitman spent her childhood learning from her dad how to out-fish grown men, keep bees, and fix carburetors. Diagnosed young with terminal cancer, he raced against the clock to leave her the skills she’d need to survive without him. This was one legacy. Another was relentless perfectionism and the belief that bravery meant never acknowledging your own fear. By her mid-thirties Laurel is a ship about to splinter on the rocks, having learned the hard way that no achievement can protect her from pain or remove the guilt and regret her dad’s death leaves her with.

I never asked for my tiara. My dreams were always bigger than a palace. They're as big as the world. Being fourth in line for the throne should have guaranteed me freedom. I thought I was one step from walking away forever, but a long-forgotten rule forces me to run instead. I refuse to marry a Duke and bear an heir to save our titles. I trust my brothers to find a way to save my future, but first, I need to save myself. Only, I never expected to meet danger...and Kannon Adams along the way.

Aging isn’t easy. But it can still be filled with joy—maybe even more joy than we expect. Alive Until You’re Dead offers a Zen approach to aging. Zen teacher and writer Susan Moon’s stories explore being present with what is, not turning away from what’s difficult, wishing for and working for the wellbeing of others, and being willing not to know what’s next. Moon writes of her most personal vulnerabilities in the service of connecting with everyone. These field notes from an old human being invite us to feel more alive in the final stretch, whatever it holds.

My mates and I got what we wanted — we found Rhys’s sister. We should be celebrating, but the danger is far from over. Our welcome into the Lost Pack was frosty at best, and tensions between old and new blood threaten to boil over. Crammed too close together, trapped by our fear, we’re hardly better off here than we were at Strand.

Prince Hywel has called all the bards of Wales to him for a music festival to mark the third anniversary of his rule over Ceredigion. He has invited all the lords of Wales too, including his father, his uncle, and his neighbor to the south, King Cadell. But with the highborn also come the low: thieves, spies, and other hangers-on. And when a murderer strikes as the festival starts, Gareth and Gwen are charged with discovering his identity - before the death of a peasant shakes the throne of a king.

Time travel to medieval Wales. Journey to a medieval world of princes and castles with the first four books in the After Cilmeri series: Daughter of Time (prequel), Footsteps in Time (book 1), Winds of Time (1.5 novella), and Prince of Time (book 2).