Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Magical Realism

A rich Scottish industrialist, Thomas Wrenfether, impulsively embarks on a mad scheme to build a paddlesteamer out of dubiously sourced European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.

Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taught to sail by Samuel, her best friend—and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea. Immediately drawn in by the stranger's charm, Luce is plunged into a world of glittering balls and faerie magic, seduction and brutality.

When Caitlin inherits a significant sum of money on her fortieth birthday, she decides to break the habits of a lifetime and throw caution to the winds. She's about to tell her husband Paul that they're leaving London on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Eat Pray Love their way around the world, only ... she doesn't tell Paul that, because before the candles are lit, he tells her that he's very much in love with someone else. After a drunken night trying to console herself, Caitlin books tickets to Australia - anything to get as far away as possible.

1650: The Black Forest, Wurttemberg. Fifteen years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their father and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people recovering in the aftermath of a brutal war. Greta has a secret, though: the witch's grimoire, secreted away and whispering in her ear, and the recipe inside that makes the most sinfully delicious—and addictive—gingerbread. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven's arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal. Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they will finally be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects. On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog.

Richard III is trapped in the afterlife, waiting with his guide, Raven, for an angel to take his soul to Heaven. Though he's been between worlds for hundreds of years, up in the real world it's 2013 and Molly Stern has a broken heart from losing her father and a recent breakup. Leaving London, Molly goes home to seek solace from her Aunt Peggy and Uncle Frank in Oxenbridge. But there are strange noises in the basement of her childhood house and nothing feels right, not even between Peggy and Frank.

Our protagonist, an unnamed junior at a prestigious university in Kyoto, is on the verge of dropping out. After rebelling against the dictatorial jock president of the film club, he and his worst and only friend, the diabolical creep Ozu, are personas non grata on campus. For two years, our protagonist has made all the wrong decisions, and now he's about to make another mistake. He and Ozu are preparing for revenge—a fireworks attack at the film club's welcoming party for new members.

A mysterious stranger shows up at Riccardo’s apartment with some news: his grandmother Perihan has died, and Riccardo has inherited her villa in Milan along with her famed butterfly collection. The struggling writer is out of options. He’s hoping the change of scenery in Milan will inspire him, and maybe there will be some money to keep him afloat. But Perihan’s house isn’t as opulent as he remembers. The butterflies pinned in their glass cases seem more ominous than artful. Perihan’s group of mysterious old friends is constantly lurking. And there’s something wrong in the greenhouse.

During a scorching August in Kyoto, our protagonist and his worst friend, Ozu, are locked in a glaring contest in a four-and-a-half-tatami-mat room. Ozu has spilled Coke on the air conditioner’s remote control—the only AC in Shimogamo Yusuisuiso, their famously shabby sweatbox of an apartment building. Vengeful and despairing, our protagonist discusses countermeasures with his secret crush, the reliably blunt Akashi, when Tamura, a strange young man with a bad haircut, appears.

Grace Burrows knows her seventieth birthday celebration is going to be an enchanting affair. And she can't wait to immerse herself in an evening surrounded by family and her closest friends, to waltz across the dance floor as she used to and reminisce over shared memories gathered across the decades. But it's also the evening she'll have to finally reveal a secret that she knows will devastate her family—her time left with them is too short to be fair...

As a terrible pandemic rages through the country, a young girl, Teo, leaves her small village and sets off into the forest, in search of a cure for her sister who is infected with the pox. Her father Merdocai has surrendered himself to the evil Marquis to be experimented upon for the Greater Good; and with her mother long-dead, all Teo has to keep her going is the love of her sister, her father and her friend Rodrigo, a stuttering poet. As Teo ventures deeper into the forest, she encounters creatures and teachers who hold the answers to all the questions she has about who she is.

With the stroke of a pen, twenty-three-year-old Ivy Radcliffe becomes Lady Hayworth, owner of a sprawling estate on the Yorkshire moors. Ivy has never heard of Blackwood Abbey, or of the ancient bloodline from which she’s descended. With nothing to keep her in London since losing her brother in the Great War, she warily makes her way to her new home.

1954: In the quaint town of Mendol, Oklahoma, Bailey Dowery is a Black dressmaker for the wives and daughters of local oil barons. She earns a good living fitting designer gowns and creating custom wedding dresses for the town’s elite. But beyond her needle and thread lies a deeper talent, one passed down from her mother: the gift of insight. With just a fleeting touch or brush against the skin, Bailey has sudden flashes of intuition.

Set in an unnamed slum in contemporary Argentina, Eartheater is the story of a young woman who finds herself drawn to eating the earth - a compulsion that gives her visions of broken and lost lives. With her first taste of dirt, she learns the horrifying truth of her mother's death. Disturbed by what she witnesses, the woman keeps her visions to herself.

When Eli leaves the cramped Bulgarian apartment he shares with Elizabeth, his more organized and successful wife, he discovers that he now inhabits her body. Not only have he and his wife traded bodies, but Elizabeth, living as Eli, has disappeared without a trace. What follows is Eli’s search across Europe and to America for his missing wife—and a roving, no-holds-barred exploration of gender and embodied experience.

Emerson Wilde has built the life of her dreams. Youngest Chamber of Commerce president in St. Cyprian history, successful indie bookstore owner, and lucky enough to have her best friends as found family? Done. But when Emerson is attacked by creatures that shouldn’t be real and kills them with what can only be called magic, Emerson finds that the past decade of her life has been...a lie. St. Cyprian isn’t your average Midwestern river town — it’s a haven for witches.

Aften penning a short story for her best friend, Alice learns she has a unique gift—that people find their true love after reading her writing. As word spreads of her ability and requests flood in, Alice decides to embrace this new calling—to be a love scribe. But not everyone’s love story unfolds as expected. And while Alice tries to harness her extraordinary gift, she is summoned by an elderly woman named Madeline to her isolated mansion in the woods. As Alice struggles to write a story for Madeline, her most challenging assignment yet, she’s forced to confront her own guarded heart.

Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. This time has to be different, so she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is the secret source of their healing power. When a deal for Laila to acquire a piece of caul falls through, she is heartbroken, but when the child is stillborn, she is overcome with grief and rage. What she doesn't know is that a baby will soon be delivered—by her niece, Amara—and delivered to the Melancons to raise as their own.

Margo Everson sees the call out for the cookbook club and knows she’s found her people. Recently dumped by her self-absorbed husband, who frankly isn’t much of a loss, she has little to show for her marriage but his "parting gift"—a dilapidated old farm house—and a collection of well-loved cookbooks. Aja Alexander just hopes her newfound friends won’t notice that that every time she looks at food, she gets queasy. It’s hard hiding a pregnancy, especially one she can’t bring herself to share with her wealthy boyfriend and his snooty mother.