Showing results by narrator "Liza Ross" in All Categories

America. The 1960s. Stuck on a remote farm with her awful aunt, twelve-year-old orphan Ruth spends every night gazing at the stars, dreaming of adventure. One night she spots a flying saucer blazing across the sky…before crash-landing in a field. When the spaceship opens and reveals a mysterious alien, all Ruth’s dreams come true. But does this visitor from another planet have a giant secret?

Cloud Atlas features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified dinery server on death row; and Zachry, a young Pacific islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation.

The pampered daughter of a wealthy Georgian plantation owner, sixteen-year-old Scarlett O’Hara soon realises that young men can’t resist her charms, despite her forthright manners and her refusal to embrace her mother’s ladylike ways. She enters into an early marriage, but when the war between the Union and the Southern States breaks out and she is left a young widow, Scarlett’s life is turned upside down, and she finds herself embroiled, together with the world surrounding her, in a long struggle for survival.

When two girls are abducted and killed in Missouri, journalist Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to report on the crimes. Long haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half sister she barely knows - a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town.

When forensic pathologist Lucy Trask stumbles across a mutilated body in her local Baltimore park, its face unrecognisable, her sole concern is that it might be her old school teacher Mr Pugh. But the victim is actually another man from her past. Who killed him and why he was left for Lucy to find is unclear but what appears to be a number "1" burned into his back indicates that this corpse won't be the killer's last victim. When a second branded body is discovered, Detective JD Fitzpatrick and Lucy are forced to ask themselves how many more lives are at risk.

Moments of change, chance encounters, twists of fate that create a new way of thinking or being: The stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be. The collection includes four powerful pieces, "autobiographical in Feeling", set during the time of Munro's own childhood, in the area where she grew up.

Nell - funny, brave and so much loved - is a young woman with adventure on her mind. As she sets out into the world, she finds her family history hard to escape. For her mother, Carmel, Nell's leaving home opens a space in her heart, where the turmoil of a lifetime begins to churn. And across the generations falls the long shadow of Carmel's famous father, an Irish poet of beautiful words and brutal actions.

Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger.... That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklin, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered.

Mindfulness meets execution...at work. The wisdom of 13 Eastern sages, augmented by modern research on workplace influence, is the basis for profound yet practical advice on getting things done without force. The Art of Quiet Influence shows anyone how to use influence, a key mindfulness principle, to get things done. Through the classic wisdom of 13 Eastern sages (especially the Buddha), relevant insights from influence research, and anecdotes and advice from 25 contemporary experts, Davis lays out a path for becoming a 'mainspring,' an unobtrusive yet powerful influencer.

When a glamorous redhead wishes to locate the son she put up for adoption 32 years ago, it seems like easy money for PI Kinsey Millhone. But it becomes apparent this mystery woman has something to hide. Meanwhile, the widow of Kinsey's old friend, Pete Wolinsky, needs help with her IRS audit. This seemingly innocuous task takes a treacherous turn when Kinsey finds a coded list. It soon leads her to an unhinged man with a catalogue of ruined lives left in his wake.

After her husband's sudden death over 10 years ago, Kate Waithman never expected to be lucky enough to find another love of her life. But now she's planning her second walk down the aisle to a perfectly nice man. So why isn't she more excited? When she starts seeing Patrick, her late husband, in her dreams, she begins to wonder if she's really ready to move on....

This novel anthology, is to mark the 10th anniversary of the "Realms of..." novel anthologies. There have been eight Forgotten Realms anthologies (see below) and Wizards of the Coast are inviting FR fans to select which short stories from those anthologies should be included in this new collection. A new short story by R A Salvatore is to be included in the collection.

When a young woman named Sabrina disappears without a trace in Kansas, private investigator V.I. Warshawski knows she must act fast. But when she discovers Sabrina close to death in a drug house, the locals don't take kindly to her - and Sabrina's mother becomes suspicious. V.I. finds herself under the sharp gaze of the FBI - and the men running the county's opioid distribution. And when a dead body surfaces a few days later, V.I. is pitched headlong into a battle between the locals - with roots that date all the way back to the American Civil War.

A unique a thriller from James Patterson. Frannie O'Neill is a young and talented veterinarian living in Colorado. Plagued by the mysterious murder of her husband, David, a local doctor, Frannie throws herself into her work. It is not long before another bizarre murder occurs and Kit Harrison, a troubled and unconventional FBI agent, arrives on her doorstep.

On the eve of a recurring catastrophic event known to extinguish nations and reshape continents, a troubled orphan evades death and slavery to uncover her own bloody past - while a world goes to war with itself. In the frozen kingdom of Saiduan, invaders from another realm are decimating whole cities, leaving behind nothing but ash and ruin.

On her way home from an all-night surveillance job, V.I. Warshawski's dogs lead her on a mad chase that ends when they find a badly injured teen hiding in the rocks along Lake Michigan. The girl only regains consciousness long enough to utter one enigmatic word. V.I. helps bring her to a hospital, but not long after, she vanishes before anyone can discover her identity. As V.I. attempts to find her, the detective uncovers an ugly consortium of Chicago power brokers and mobsters who are prepared to kill the girl before VI can save her.

On a clear day, you could see America from Edinburgh's Castle Rock - or so said Alice Munro's great-great-great-grandfather when he had had a drink. Then, in 1818, he left and sailed to the New World with his family. This is the story of those shepherds from the Ettrick Valley and their descendants. They were a Spartan lot: showing off was frowned upon, and fear was commonplace, at least for females. But opportunities present themselves for two strong-minded women in a ship's close quarters.

When V. I. Warshawski is asked to find a man who’s been missing for decades, a search she thought would be futile turns lethal. Old skeletons from the city’s racially charged history rise up to force her back – a nun who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. dies without revealing crucial evidence, and the elderly sisters who hired her are also keeping important information to themselves. Then V.I. finds that her family is keeping secrets of its own. Afraid to learn that her adored father might have been a bent cop....

1979: four teenage boys from an elite private school sexually assault a classmate - and film the attack. Not long after, the tape goes missing, and the suspected thief, a fellow classmate, is murdered. In the investigation that follows, one boy turns in evidence for the state, and two of his peers are convicted. 1989: one of the perpetrators, Fritz McCabe, has been released from prison. Unrepentant and angry, he is a virtual prisoner of his parents - until a copy of the missing tape arrives with a ransom demand.

One of the most popular female sleuths in modern crime fiction, Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski is a strong, smart, independent heroine in a male-dominated world. She tracks down corrupt businessmen, ruthless blackmailers and cold-blooded murderers - while trying not to get killed herself. Included in this collection are the first four best-selling V.I. Warshawski novels from Sara Paretsky - plus a short story featuring the hard-boiled PI, read by Buffy Davis.