Showing results by narrator "Chelsea Stephens" in All Categories

Despite her success setting a self-supported Fastest Known Time record on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, Heather “Anish” Anderson still had such deep-seated insecurities that she became convinced her feat had been a fluke. So two years later she set out again, this time hiking through mud, rocks, and mountain blazes to crush her constant self-doubt and seek the true source of her strength and purpose. The 2,189 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, did not make it easy.

Hot on the heels of her 2018 This Is Horror Award–winning short story collection Spectral Evidence, critically horror author Gemma Files compiles fifteen more of her most startling recent nightmares—a creepily seductive downward spiral of dark poetry and existential dread, entirely suitable to the slow apocalypse going on all around us. So take your mind off your troubles and send it somewhere the rules still operate, if only to punish those who violate them.

When magic returns to Gloamington, the town holds a Spring Awakening Festival. It should be an opportunity to celebrate. Instead, it becomes the perfect stage for murder. When the mayor is found dead at the festival, Malcolm Fawkes and Ella Bloom find themselves hunting a killer among the celebrating crowd. The sheriff calls it an accident but the great detective knows better.

The dead are rising from their graves. Somewhere beneath the land of Terrassia, something stirs from its ages-old slumber. Leighandra Evenstar planned to attend the resulting summit of nations simply to chronicle the problem and the suggested solutions. Soon, however, she finds herself wrapped up with a group of young heroes intent on making solutions rather than talking about them. They are an odd assortment - humans, an elf, and one of the wolf-like luranar - and yet Leighandra finds purpose in the unity of peoples and nations.

When Ella accepts a mysterious job in the picturesque town of Gloamington, all she wants is six weeks of peace and a place to call home. Instead, she finds herself assistant to Malcolm Fawkes, a renowned paranormal detective with no memory of hiring her—or much of anything else.

Siren Callypso Lillis still wears the physical reminders of her time as Karnon’s captive, even after reuniting with soulmate Desmond Flynn, the King of Night. Not only that, but mounting evidence suggests the Thief of Souls, the being responsible for the disappearance of countless fae warriors, is still out there. Invited to an annual Solstice celebration, Callie and Des journey to the Kingdom of Flora to continue their investigation. But under the bright lights and striking blooms of the realm, new complications arise, ones that no amount of bargaining can undo.

For Callypso Lillis, the fae magic that now runs through her veins is equal parts curse and good fortune. While it bonds her to Desmond Flynn, her soul mate and the King of Night, it also leaves her newly vulnerable to the Thief of Souls, who wants to break the Otherworld … and Callie along with it. But it’s not just the Thief whose shadow looms over the fae realms. Des’s father, the previous King of Night, has returned from the dead, and he wants revenge on the son who sent him to the grave in the first place.

Formally trained pastry chef Chloe Barnes is opening a cannabis bakery. When her beloved grandmother falls ill, Chloe returns to quaint Azalea Bay, to start over in the most satisfying way possible—concocting delicious edibles with her quirky Aunt Dawn. Combining French luxury and THC, Baked by Chloe will take pot brownies to another level...until a creepy past acquaintance rehashes old drama and shockingly turns up dead—landing Aunt Dawn as the number one murder suspect.

Callypso Lillis is a siren with a very big problem, one that stretches up her arm and far into her past. For the last seven years she’s been collecting a bracelet of black beads up her wrist, magical IOUs for favors she’s received. Only death or repayment will fulfill the obligations. Only then will the beads disappear. Everyone knows that if you need a favor, you go to the Bargainer. He’s a man who can get you anything you want … at a price. And everyone knows that sooner or later he always collects. But for one client, he’s never asked for repayment. Not until now.

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation but which haunts the Signalman. In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea, a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible - the Children of the Next Level - and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming, and they will help to usher it in.

Kari and her allies have seen numerous miracles in recent months, from the glorious rebirth of a friend to the unprecedented alliance of many peoples from across Terrassia and beyond. Now, all the pieces are in place, the military campaign known as The Phoenix Ascension ready to be put into motion. All hope - not just on Terrassia or even Citaria as a whole, but on her sister worlds of Irrathmor and Mehr'Durillia as well - now rests on the execution of this plan. Failure will mean the end of the last chance of liberating Mehr'Durillia and the deaths of the final defenders of Citaria.

The arrival of the Malor spacecraft proved, once and for all, that humanity is not alone in the universe...the path of destruction it left behind showed that aliens are not always friendly. Remaining on Earth, Sydney and Brian must now face the aftermath of the Malor invasion. When a mysterious stranger shows up on Sydney's doorstep in the middle of the night, she's drawn into an urgent mystery: There has been a massive increase in alien abductions around the globe, despite the breakdown of Malor technology - and someone powerful is trying to keep it quiet. 

A sparkling and steamy Sapphic romance, Fly with Me by Andie Burke is filled with sharp banter and that sweet, swooping feeling of finding “the one” when and where you least expect it. A one-way ticket to love or a bumpy ride ahead? Flying-phobic ER nurse Olive Murphy is still gripping the...

What a long, strange trip it's been for Chloe. After her dream of becoming a Parisian pastry chef—and a wife—crashed and burned, she returned home to the seaside town of Azalea Bay, California and opened a cannabis cafe. Despite some residents' misgivings about how such a business may affect the community's reputation, Baked by Chloe has become a popular destination for tourists and locals alike. Nothing mellows out people like sweet edibles and frothy drinks with a dash of CBD.

I was five when the dragons first appeared...and the lights went out for good. Now, 18 years after the cataclysmic appearance of the four great dragons over Mount Fuji, humanity shares a shattered Earth with the Fey - fairies, elves, and other supernatural creatures. Trust is short, magic is common, and each day is a struggle for survival in the Awakened World of 2053. I'm Angie Ritter, a former army mage who can't cast spells anymore. I have some issues. I'm working on them.

Mix aristocrats with magic—murder is inevitable. When wealthy Londoners take over Gloamington, it's time to spill the tea. But that's not all that gets spilled. Murder has a way of ruining every tea party. Hotel Beaufont is hosting the wedding of the century until the bride turns up dead...

When a new girl, Becky Rusett, joins the Evermore Publishing team, she'll start to realize no office setting is as safe as it appears. The secrets, lies, and underhanded dealings of the publishing house are unsettling enough—but now some sinister events are putting the entire office in real danger. Decades before Evermore Publishing existed, a group of five meanspirited children terrorized a young child in a small town. The Fab 5, as they were called, set off the chain of events that would lead to the horrific events at Evermore. 

One hundred and ten years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind nine insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom.  

Immediately following the Malor invasion, Malia and Jaden Kwan have left Earth with the Othali, seeking a habitable planet in the distant reaches of the galaxy. But as they approach Mars, the ship's engines fail. Entering orbit to make repairs, they discover evidence of ancient, technologically advanced life down on the surface. Malia and Jaden join the team going down to investigate.

A rundown apartment in Koreatown. A Los Angeles winter. A strung out, worn out, wrecked, and used government agent is scraped up off the pavement, cleaned up, and reluctantly sent out into battle one last time. Ellison Nicodemo has seen and done terrible things. She thought her only remaining quest was for oblivion. Then the Signalman comes calling. He wants to learn if she can stop the latest apocalypse. Ellison, once a unique and valuable asset, can barely remember why she ever fought the good fight.