Showing results by narrator "Tavia Gilbert" in All Categories

In the twenty-first century, a wave of political, cultural and technological change has capsized our old certainties and assumptions, creating both opportunity and danger. As people lose their faith in old institutions and elites, radical voices at the margins and the grassroots are disrupting the status quo. This is the time of the outsider – the protester, the populist, the hacker. Some of these outsiders have sown chaos, like Donald Trump, and others have provided inspirational leadership, like Volodymyr Zelensky. But all have grasped this precarious moment to make something new.

Master vampire Ian is unrepentant, shameless...and every shade of wicked. He’s made one too many enemies in his two centuries of existence, including Dagon, a demon who now lays claim to his soul. Ian’s only chance to escape Dagon is to join forces with a Law Guardian, but he's never been able to abide by the rules for long.

Historically, major women artists have been excluded from the mainstream art canon. Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture, Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of 15 brilliant female artists in this smart, feisty, educational, and enjoyable book.

He is Spade, a powerful, mysterious vampire who has walked the earth for centuries and is now duty-bound to protect this endangered, alluring human—even if it means destroying his own kind. Denise may arouse his deepest hungers, but Spade knows he must fight his urge to have her as they face the nightmare together, because once the first crimson drop falls, they will both be lost.

The necromancers have finally resumed their assault on the Allied Lands, sending a mighty army across the Desert of Death and into the Kingdom of Tarsier. Countless farms, villages, and towns have already been destroyed as the host makes its way northwards, striking deep into the kingdom's most vulnerable lands. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, thousands more will be killed when they are sacrificed for power. If the necromancers win the coming battle, it may be the beginning of the end.

Veritas spent most of her life as a vampire Law Guardian. Now, she’s about to break every rule by secretly hunting down the dark souls that were freed in order to save Ian. But the risks are high. For if she gets caught, she could lose her job. And catching the sinister creatures might cost Veritas her own life.

Ivy thought that she and Adrian had conquered their fates. Yet with thousands of innocents still trapped in the demon realms, she's determined to locate the final hallowed weapon and harness its unparalleled power to free them. But the last relic nearly put Ivy in the grave - there's probably no coming back from this one. Adrian's dark lineage has made him the most powerful of his kind, yet even his incredible abilities might not be enough now. Instead, the treacherous fate he has fought so hard to escape might be the only way he can save Ivy.

A hotshot real estate developer arrives in Sully's Landing, touting his plans to build a tacky amusement arcade smack dab in the middle of the tasteful cliffside town. No one in Sully's Landing can stand the gaudy developer, but it's still a shock when he ends up murdered. It's even more shocking when Liza's friend Doug emerges as the chief suspect. Melanie and Liza put on their sleuthing caps yet again and set out to clear Doug's name. 

America has made mental illness a crime. Jails in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago each house more people with mental illnesses than any hospital. In this revelatory book, journalist Alisa Roth goes deep inside the criminal justice system to tell how and why it has become a warehouse where inmates are denied proper treatment, abused, and punished in ways that make them sicker. Through intimate stories of people in the system and those trying to fix it, Roth reveals the hidden forces behind this crisis and suggests how a fairer and more humane approach might look.

With the arrival of six senior reading group members at the Merry Ghost Inn, the long-awaited grand opening week has finally begun for Melanie West and her grandmother Liza. All is well with the Oregon coast-side B&B until Melanie's dog, Max, finds the dead body of one of their guests.

The post of Head Girl of Whitehall looks fantastic on anyone's resume. It places the lucky winner on equal terms to the staff, granting them authority, power, and responsibility that no other student can even dream of possessing. Naturally, Emily doesn't want it. But when she returns to Whitehall for her sixth and final year, she discovers that the staff has elected her to the post - and refusal isn't an option. Reluctantly, she starts to carry out her new duties, unaware that deadly enemies are waiting in the shadows, preparing themselves to strike at her when her back is turned.

Leila's psychic abilities have been failing her, and now she isn't sure what the future holds. If that weren't enough, her lover, Vlad, has been acting distant. Though Leila is a mere mortal, she's also a modern woman who refuses to accept the cold-shoulder treatment forever - especially from the darkly handsome vampire who still won't admit that he loves her.... Soon circumstances send Leila back to the carnival circuit, where tragedy strikes.

Fraa Erasmus is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the "Saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities, and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs, bloody violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community.

Paige has spent the past four years of her life training to fight and kill vampires. Her desire for revenge is the only thing that's kept her going, so when she's forced into hiding with Ian, she's determined to believe he's nothing but another monster in need of beheading. The more time they spend together, the more she begins to question what she's always believed about vampires. Unfortunately, if she lets him in, she'll have to admit that what she's fought so hard for may be nothing but a lie.

Today both reality and entertainment crowd our fields of vision with brutal imagery. The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the 20th-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away? Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel.

In 1956, Kitty Cunningham disappeared on the way to the Starlite Drive-In. Now the first real evidence of foul play is coming to light in the ghostly realm—and it links directly to a modern crime. Only a sleuth with one foot in the past can solve the mystery and make things right.

Revered artist Kim Lord is about to unveil her most shocking show yet: Still Lives, a series of self-portraits in which she impersonates the female victims of America's most famous homicides, from Nicole Brown Simpson to the Black Dahlia. As celebrities and rich patrons pour into LA's Rocque Museum for the opening night, the attendees wait eagerly for Kim's arrival. All except Maggie Richter, museum editor and ex-girlfriend of Greg Shaw Ferguson, Kim's new boyfriend. But Kim never shows up to her party, and the crowd's impatience slowly turns to unease. 

Emily is a teenage girl pulled from our world into a world of magic and mystery by a necromancer who intends to sacrifice her to the dark gods. Rescued in the nick of time by an enigmatic sorcerer, she discovers that she possesses magical powers and must go to Whitehall School to learn how to master them. There, she learns that the locals believe she is a "Child of Destiny" - someone whose choices might save or damn their world, a title that earns her both friends and enemies.

Chicago private investigator Kira Graceling should have just kept on walking. But her sense of duty refused to let her ignore the moans of pain coming from inside a warehouse just before dawn. Suddenly she finds herself in a world she’s only imagined in her worst nightmares.

After a tragic accident scarred her body and destroyed her dreams, Leila never imagined that the worst was still to come: a terrifying ability to channel electricity and to see a person's darkest secrets through a single touch. Leila is doomed to a life of solitude ... until creatures of the night kidnap her, forcing her to reach out with a telepathic distress call to the world's most infamous vampire. Vlad Tepesh inspired the greatest vampire legend of all - but whatever you do, don't call him Dracula.