Showing results by narrator "Nikki Massoud" in All Categories

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming 'lion women.'

From legendary science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp. With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artefact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past.

Ren came to Nadežra with a plan. She would pose as the long-lost daughter of the noble house Traementis. She would secure a fortune for herself and her sister. And she would vanish without a backward glance. She ought to have known that in the city of dreams, nothing is ever so simple. Now, she is Ren, con-artist and thief. But she is also Renata, the celebrated Traementis heir. She is Arenza, the mysterious pattern-reader and political rebel. And she is the Black Rose, a vigilante who fights alongside the legendary Rook.

Renata Virdaux is a con artist who has come to the sparkling city of Nadezra - the city of dreams - with one goal: to trick her way into a noble house and secure her fortune and her sister's future. But as she's drawn into the aristocratic world of House Traementis, she realises her masquerade is just one of many surrounding her. And as corrupted magic begins to weave its way through Nadezra, the poisonous feuds of its aristocrats and the shadowy dangers of its impoverished underbelly become tangled - with Ren at their heart.

When the fae king of Naenden returns home to his palace only to find that his human queen has committed treason by conspiring to assassinate him, he has the queen executed and decrees that once every mooncycle, he’ll marry a human woman from the kingdom, only to execute her the following morning. Unless one woman offers herself as a sacrificial bride for the rest.

The When Swords Fall Silent anthology showcases the imaginations and talents of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, with each tale centered around one or more characters burdened with a bloody task they will see to completion no matter the cost. Every story takes you for a vicious ride through a world of shadow and death, each as unique in perspective and execution as the contracts carried out within.

Following the untimely death of their parents, Anne, Beatrix, and Violet Quigley have made a business of threading together the stories that lie at the bottom of their customers' teacups. Days at their teashop are filled with fortune-telling intertwined with the sound of clinking china and the scent of cinnamon shortbread. When the Council of Witches comes calling with news that the city Diviner has lost her powers, the sisters suddenly find themselves being pulled in different directions.

It is said that the Neverseen King comes for a bride every hundred years. I thought it was only legend—until he came for me. I am one of twelve assassins forced to compete for the hand of our unseen king, who I'm beginning to doubt is even human at all. Why he needs a bride, much less one who wields a blade isn't any of my business. All I'm trying to do is get out of here with my life and my heart intact. I don't want to care about the mysteries I begin uncovering about the king, about why he never shows his face, about his palace that turns into a nightmare after dusk.

There’s never a good time to bump into your ex – so Maya Bashir is shocked when she comes face to face with her old flame Sam Holland, who is wearing nothing but a tiny apron, working as a naked butler at her friend’s Christmas party. Having driven home for the holidays after losing her boyfriend, flat and job – and dreading her father’s inevitable disappointment that she still doesn’t have a fifty-year-plan – perhaps Sam is exactly the distraction Maya needs. But as sparks begin to fly, Maya doesn’t know if she can let Sam back into her heart so easily.

Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare. These audiobook editions make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.

Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family. Ester’s path leads her to the king’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice and a creature that will never return her love.

In Nadezra, peace is as tenuous as a single thread. The ruthless House Indestor has been destroyed, but darkness still weaves through the city's filthy back alleys and jewel-bright gardens, seen by those who know where to look. Derossi Vargo has always known. He has sacrificed more than anyone imagines to carve himself a position of power among the nobility, hiding a will of steel behind a velvet smile. He'll be damned if he lets anyone threaten what he's built.

Trapped in an arranged marriage to a man she does not love, Nehal dreams of attending the Weaving Academy. There, she can take control of her powers, bending any water to her will. Her husband, indifferent and secretive, is in love with another woman, a poor bookseller named Giorgina. Giorgina has her own secret. She is an earthweaver with dangerously uncontrollable powers. Her only solace comes from meetings with the Daughters of Izdihar, a women's rights group fighting for freedom. They come from very different means, yet Nehal and Giorgina have more in common than they think.

We are so used to hearing that ‘love is blind’, ‘you will know when you meet the one’ and that love should be ‘unconditional’. However, are these idioms the best way to secure successful lasting relationships? Or might we have been given the wrong handbook for love? Dr Sara Nasserzadeh invites us to re-examine our beliefs and empowers us with six core principles – Attraction, Respect, Trust, Shared Vision, Compassion, Loving Behaviours – to create and sustain meaningful relationships through a new paradigm of love: The Emergent Love Model.

Using a simple seven-step system, financial coach Jessie Susannah Karnatz - a.k.a. the Money Witch - provides an easy-to-follow method to take control of your money with clarity and confidence.

Don’t be intimidated by Shakespeare. These audiobook editions make the Bard’s plays accessible and enjoyable.

Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections—a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.