Showing results by narrator "Kara Bartell" in All Categories

Black Heart, Ivory Bones showcases 20 beguiling tales for the child who was and the adult who is, penned by 20 of the most creative artists in contemporary American literature. Here dissected are the darker anatomies of the timeless, seemingly simple stories we have long loved. Here wonder and truth have serious bite.

Twin sisters Kelsey and Michelle Maxfield look identical - but they couldn't be more different. Kelsey is the captain of the dance team and loves her cute college boyfriend, Davis. Michelle is a free-spirited artist and flits from one guy to the next, the latest a soldier recently deployed to Afghanistan. Despite their differences, Kelsey and Michelle can't live without each other - until, in an instant, everything changes.

Twenty-five years ago, a group of five high schoolers trekked through the High Sierra. Now, two of them - lesbian Kath and straight Adele - come back to repeat their journey and renew their friendship. In chapters that alternate between the women's voices, they reveal their pasts, their thoughts, and their reactions both to the scenery and to each other. For Kath, the sublime topography of the Sierra is inspiring and invigorating. Adele is more trepidatious.

After seven years in prison, Duncan Malone has returned home to Washita, Texas, to reclaim his land that now belongs to strangers. But his homecoming isn't a warm one; his mother lies in a catatonic state, and the residents of Washita aren't taking well to a murderer living amongst them. Franki Taylor is seven-months pregnant, alone, and forced to run her grandfather's farm as he succumbs to pneumonia.

For one woman, the dark is a dangerous place to be, and it's the one place she cannot escape. Arizona auto mechanic Cadence Moran is no stranger to darkness. She was blinded in a horrific car accident eight years ago that also took the life of her three-year-old niece. She knows she was only partially to blame, but that doesn't make the loss any easier to bear. She's learned to get by, but there are still painful memories.