Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Family & Relationships

Tanya has been working at her tavern, the Smiling Snake, since she was able to see above the bar. She broke up her first fight at age eight. By the time she was a teenager, she could run the place with her eyes closed. And now, at seventeen, she’s confident enough that she’d never let anyone take advantage of her—whether it be a drunkard or captain of the Queen’s guard. But when her guardian dies, she might lose it all: the bar, her home, and her purpose in life.

After Zahra Paracha makes a decision at odds with her beliefs, her mother forces Zahra to make an impossible choice about her future. So Zahra runs away. A train and a plane ride later, she finds herself in New York, where she relinquishes her past in favor of a new future. There, she must learn who she is without the marionette strings of control in her mother’s hands. There, she must learn who she wishes to become.

For over a century, the Blackwells have protected the town of Hollow Cliff from vengeful spirits. Seventeen-year-old Nev is ready to take over for her ailing grandmother as the town’s witch protector—unlike her mother, who left when Nev was a child and never looked back. When a stranger arrives at Blackwell House of Spirits to fill a tour guide opening, Nev reluctantly offers him the job. Nev doesn’t trust Cal. He knows more than he’s letting on about Blackwell House—and about Nev herself.

The ship was built for one thing: to carry the delegations of two warring nations into neutral waters, where the heads of state would sign a peace treaty and end the war that has been raging for a generation. When it goes down, a pair of survivors—Cora, daughter of a Duran newspaper reporter, and Vivienne, lady’s maid to an Ariminthian princess—wash up on a remote island. At first, it seems like they have nothing in common—not even whether or not they want to be rescued. But the arrival of a pirate ship brings them to the realization that they do have a shared purpose: peace.

Rat Evans knows that they shouldn’t have made a deal with Isola, a shadowy raven knight older than the stars and more powerful than the strongest arcanists. They know Isola can’t be trusted, know that promising to go with her once all of this is over was a mistake. But they’d needed to make sure their friends were safe—that Harker was safe, even though they’re still not sure if he’s a friend or a rival or something more complicated. And even if Isola’s been keeping him locked away at the tower for almost two months.

GLORY IS FAMOUS FOR TWO THINGS: businesses that front for seedier—if not illegal—enterprises, and the suicides that happen along the Indigo River. Mars is desperate to escape the “bed-and-breakfast” where her mother works as a prostitute—and where her own eventual fate has been decided—and she wants to give her little sister a better life.

Four girls are forced to spend the summer together when their moms reunite at their childhood lake house. Always-sunny Skyler is a softball star who’s hiding how bad her joint pain has gotten. Always-stormy Scarlett, Skyler’s twin, would much rather be hanging out with her boyfriend back home. Amelia Grace just wants to escape her conservative stepdad after he caught her kissing a girl. And homeschooled social-media star Ellie is just excited at the chance to make some friends IRL.

Pedro and Daniel are Mexican American brothers growing up in 1970s Ohio. Their mom doesn’t like that Pedro is a spitting image of their darker-skinned father, that Daniel plays with dolls, that neither boy loves sports like the other kids in their neighborhood. Life at home can be rough—but the boys have an unshakable bond that will last their entire lives.

Twins Bianca and Leila could not be more different from each other. Being both Argentinian and Iranian in a small town has always been hard, but with Leila shunning her heritage and Bianca embracing it, the two walk very different paths. They run in different circles of friends and barely talk anymore. Leila’s a homebody who loves to craft and plans on marrying her high school sweetheart. Bianca’s more antiestablishment and plans to get out of Dodge as soon as humanly possible. But on their eighteenth birthday, the neighbor’s barn mysteriously burns down.

Inez is missing, but missing things can always be found. Mae knows this as fact, even though the police investigation has come to a standstill, even though her parents are moving on. But when she goes to clear out her older sister’s studio, Mae finds a mess of research and an old white canvas set in an ornate gold frame. The closer Mae gets to the canvas, the more difficult it becomes to pull her eyes away from its mottled surface. Its heavy layer of white paint. The peeling top corner she’s tempted to pull to see what’s beneath. But she doesn’t. Not yet.