Showing results by narrator "Aven Shore" in All Categories

Death is not the end. But the hells might just end Evelyn's story. They're a strange, dangerous place, and as it turns out, the hells have connections to the Titans . . . and the system itself. Sapphire wants something out of them. The worlds are falling apart at the seams. In the madness, all Evelyn knows is a handful of truths. She will advance. She will survive. She will kill. And she will DEVOUR.

Evelyn has advanced leaps and bounds beyond anyone in the Crowned Islands, but in the world outside, she's still near the bottom of the food chain-a mere Category 0 in a world where the monstrous Titans outclass her ten-thousandfold. And unfortunately for her, it seems as if there are even more people out here who want her dead.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Upon awakening in an abandoned lab, Evelyn is empowered by a system that grants her bloody magical powers in exchange for finishing missions and consuming her enemies. She knows one truth: no matter the cost, she will advance. She'll manipulate allies and spread demonic corruption with a smile if that's what it takes to level up. Her first mission is to escape the lab's other newly born creations. But once she steps foot into the world outside of the lab, she must contend with people who forbid her existence and who will work to eradicate those with her powers from the face of the planet.

Tully Makker is a tough young woman from the wrong side of the tracks and she is not always easy to like. But if Tully gives friendship and loyalty, she gives them for good, and she forms an enduring bond with Jennifer and Julie, schoolfriends from very different backgrounds. As they grow into the world of the seventies and eighties, the lives of the three best friends are changed forever by two young men, Robin and Jack, and a tragedy which engulfs them all.

In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat.

Cults prey on the very attributes that make us human: our desire to belong, to find a deeper meaning in life, to live everyday with divine purpose. Their existence creates a sense that any one of us, at any time, could step off the cliff’s edge and fall into that daunting abyss of manipulation and unhinged dedication to a misplaced cause. Perhaps it’s this mindset that keeps us so utterly obsessed and desperate to learn more, or it’s that the stories are so bizarre and unsettling that we are simply in awe of the mechanics that make these infamous groups tick.

When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, drenched to the bone in the bitter cold and able to speak barely a word of English.

Never question a mother’s intuition. My water isn’t supposed to break while there’s a storm raging, when my husband isn’t on the island, and as the power flickers out. Darkness covers the cabin as I cling to my belly. I never imagined it happening like this. Trained as a midwife, I know I can deliver my daughter.

Based on her research into her grandfather's past as an adopted child, Julia Park Tracey has created a mesmerizing work of historical fiction illuminating the darkest side of the Orphan Train.

From best-selling author James Raffan comes an enlightening and original story about a polar bear’s precarious existence in the changing Arctic, reminiscent of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce.

Gertrude Stein held a unique position at the center of the modernist movement. She was a novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in America, she moved with her family to Paris where she ran a Paris salon frequented by many famous historical figures, such as Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henri Matisse, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis.

Every choice has a consequence. Charlotte Thompson knows it all too well. On the run from her past, she hopes to start over in her new home. To keep her secret safe, she must avoid getting close to anyone. The last thing she wants is to get involved with the town's notorious bad boy.

Humans would sell their souls for it. Immortals would steal souls to keep it. Infinite life is too seductive and powerful to resist. But, immortality is more like a bad drug habit than a gift. Immortals can't give it up because they don't know how to face death after living for so long. You see, living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, you have your pros, but it's the cons that can make an Immortal wish for a death that will never come. Anala Geil is a Hunter. She is bound by the rules of the Society. The rules are few, but they are strong.

Ellinor, a thirty-five-year-old media consultant, has not been feeling herself; she's not been feeling much at all lately. Far beyond jaded, she picks through an old diary and fails to recognize the woman in its pages, seemingly as far away from the world around her as she's ever been. But when her coworker vanishes overnight, an unusual new task is dropped on her desk. Off she goes to meet the Norwegian Postal Workers Union, setting the ball rolling on a strange and transformative six months.

In the distant future most of the human race has fled a ravaged Earth to find new life on other planets. For those who stayed a lawless society remains. Technology has been renounced, and saints and sinners, lawmakers and sheriffs, travelers and gunslingers, abound. What passes for justice is presided over by the High Sheriff, and carried out by his cruel and ruthless Deputy.

Kink is a dynamic anthology of literary fiction that opens an imaginative door into the world of desire. The stories within this collection portray love, desire, BDSM and sexual kinks in all their glory with a bold new vision. The collection includes works by renowned fiction writers and is edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell.

In One Size Fits None, Anderson follows diverse farmers across the United States: A South Dakota bison rancher who provides an alternative to the industrial feedlot; an organic vegetable farmer in Florida who harvests microgreens; a New Mexico super-small farmer who revitalizes communities; and a North Dakota midsize farmer who combines livestock and grain farming to convert expensive farmland back to native prairie. The use of these nontraditional agricultural techniques show how varied operations can give back to the earth rather than degrade it.

Paisley Sutton hates to see an old barn falling down, so when she has a chance to take in a crew of friends to salvage timbers, she goes in with gusto. But when they find the bones from a decades-old murder, Paisley begins to wonder if maybe some things should just be let go to ruins. Maybe some secrets need to stay buried. If Paisley decides to salvage more than just wood and reveal the murderer, will she be the next body buried in a barn?

Weaver and fiber artist Edith “Pen” Meyer knew her friend Sandy Merritt’s relationship with a married man was wrong. She had even urged Sandy to take out a restraining order against Kenneth Carpenter. Which was why her call to Sandy on February 23, 2005, seemed to come from out of the blue. During it, she told Sandy to drop the restraining order and get back together with Ken. Pen was never seen again. One man stood to gain from Pen’s disappearance: Ken Carpenter. But evidence was bleak: no blood, no DNA, no body. Until detectives found notes hidden....