Showing results by narrator "Gabra Zackman" in All Categories

A striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To listen to these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish.

Olivia Mann has started over. After a rough divorce, she’s back in Christmas Grove with her dream job of running an enchanted inn. This season she’s hosting the cast of a popular television show while they film a holiday special. Everything is looking up, until her chef has an accident and is out of commission for three months. After struggling to find a replacement, she has no choice but to hire Declan McCabe…the man she hoped to never see again.

For The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries, writer and anthologist Michael Sims did not summon the usual suspects. He sought the unfamiliar, the unjustly forgotten, and little-known gems by writers from outside the genre. This historical tour of one of our most popular literary categories includes stories never before reprinted, features rebellious early “lady detectives," and spotlights former stars of the crime field—Austrian novelist Auguste Groner and prolific American Geraldine Bonner among them.

Choosing a profession begins with imagining yourself in a career. Now New York Times best-selling author Virginia Morell dives into the adventures of a marine biologist team, allowing a much needed, in-depth look into the field. Becoming a Marine Biologist explores how successful marine biologists curated their careers and what they suggest to young people today who feel called to protect our oceans by studying the sea and its inhabitants.

Ruthanna Emrys’ Innsmouth Legacy, which began with Winter Tide and continues with Deep Roots, confronts H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos head-on, boldly upturning his fear of the unknown with a heart-warming story of found family, acceptance, and perseverance in the face of human cruelty and the cosmic apathy of the universe. Emrys brings together a family of outsiders, bridging the gaps between the many people marginalized by the homogenizing pressure of 1940s America.

Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan presents a stunning retrospective of the first 10 years of the author’s work. It is a compilation of more than 200,000 words of short fiction, including many of her most acclaimed stories as well as some of the author’s personal favorites; several previously uncollected, hard-to-find pieces; her sci-fi novella, The Dry Salvages; and a rare collaboration with Poppy Z. Brite.

Bridgette Connor is a woman on the edge. Her career is in tatters, her relationship is doomed, and after an ill-fated pregnancy she terminates against her better judgement, she does the one thing she's always done best. She runs. Her car careens off the road, leaving her battered, bruised, and beaten. It is then that she meets the woman who will change her life. When the bloodied and broken Bridgette Connor collapses at her door, Alexis does the one thing she's always done best. She helps.

The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, ravenous yearning: the hunger to be held, and seen, and known. And the terror, too: to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be recognized as the monstrous thing you are. In these lush, strange stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores human longing in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.

The picture of classical antiquity most of us learned in school is framed in certain ways - glossing over misogyny while omitting the seeds of feminist resistance. Many of today's harmful practices, like school dress codes, exploitation of the environment and rape culture, have their roots in the ancient world. But in Antigone Rising, classicist Helen Morales reminds us that the myths have subversive power because they are told - and read - in different ways.

In a time when magic rules the sea, she only trusts her sword. Abbey has always been an outsider in Holdgate. While the people of her adopted city dominate the seas with their weather-controlling storm magic, she prefers the work in her father's blacksmith shop - besting any foolish enough to question her skills with a sword.

When their coup of Metzger's Menagerie is discovered, Delilah and her fellow cryptids find their newly won freedom brutally stripped away as they are sold into The Savage Spectacle, a private collection of "exotic wildlife". Specializing in ruthless cryptid cage matches, safari-style creature hunts, and living party favors, the Spectacle's owner, Willem Vandekamp, caters to the forbidden fetishes of the wealthy and powerful. At the Spectacle any wish can be granted - for the right price. But Vandekamp's closely guarded client list isn't the only secret being kept at the Spectacle.

Reclusive forensic artist Macy Sheridan agrees to work one final case she hopes will solve the mystery that's haunted her for years. The only things blocking her from achieving her goal are a perfect facial reconstruction and Detective Leigh Monroe, a woman who reminds her of the past and challenges her future.

Lily Easton is a witch who makes a living writing satire for an advice column in Befana Bay’s weekly newspaper. Although she pretends to be jaded in love, it turns out, she’s a romantic at heart. It’s just too bad that she’s fallen for Braxton Kirkwood, a man who’s sworn off love. Frustrated by her lack of love prospects, Lily throws herself into work. But when half-a-dozen witches in Befana Bay start taking Lily’s obviously bad advice, it soon becomes clear her pen is poisoned and is compelling the witches to stalk her favorite eligible bachelor, Braxton Kirkwood.

Rockwell “Rocky” Rhodes has spent years fiercely protecting his California ranch from the LA Water Corporation. It is here where he and his beloved wife Lou raised their twins, Sunny and Stryker, and it is here where Rocky has mourned Lou in the years since her death. As Sunny and Stryker reach the cusp of adulthood, the country teeters on the brink of war. Stryker decides to join the fight, deploying to Pearl Harbor not long before the bombs strike. Soon, Rocky and his family find themselves facing yet another incomprehensible tragedy.

Shannon Ansell didn’t mean to make a bet with Brian Knox. It sort of just happened. Now, she’s agreed to date him for six weeks, the one man she knows she shouldn’t. Six dates in six weeks. She can do that and still keep her heart intact, right? Wrong. Because the only thing she can’t resist more than a good bet is Brian Knox.

When the storm clouds gather, only the bravest answer the call. Abbey and Dustin head to the Storm Wall to investigate a series of Barskall attacks. They arrive in the midst of a battle and discover an unlikely ally. They soon learn of a powerful weapon they can use to stop Dahlia and her seafaring pirates... If they can find it in time. The search will take them deep into enemy territory where their only hope for survival is the resourcefulness of their small but feisty crew.

Makeda , Supreme Archdomina of House Balaash, is known throughout the Iron Kingdoms for her leadership of the mighty Skorne Empire, but it was not always so… Before the coming of the Skorne Empire into the west, Makeda was little more than the second child of a great house, but through her will, determination, and adherence to the code of hoksune, she rose above all others. For the first time the secrets of both Makeda and her people are revealed in the tale of their epic struggle for honor and survival in Instruments of War.

State Secrets: Secret Service agent David Goddard never expected to spend his Christmas surveilling the president's cousin. But after weeks of studying her, he finds that Holly Llewellyn's life continues to remain a mystery. Tangled in the controversy swirling around them, David wonders, is it her secrets that fascinate him…or Holly herself? The Five Days of Christmas: Morgan Trayhern's toughest mercenary, Colt Hamlin, is looking to lie low this Christmas, but he may just have a change of heart when his matchmaking boss puts him in the path of Montana's prettiest widow.

When Celeste Lamontagne receives a wedding invitation from her ex, she's furious. The only thing worse than being cheated on? Seeing your ex and the girl she cheated with get married. Less than a year later. And as part of a two-week long Mediterranean cruise. But they say the best revenge is a life well lived, right? Not for Celeste, it isn't. It's arranging an elaborate fake relationship with someone to make your ex jealous. Lane Bishop is the perfect someone to do just that. Impulsive to the extreme, she loses her job right in front of Celeste.

Orphaned overnight as a teenager, she drops out of school and drifts into the bad company of two criminals her brother brings home. As the four of them plot a fantastical crime, Bianca learns she can drift even lower... Electric and tense with foreboding, A Little Lumpen Novelita - one of the last novellas Roberto Bolaño published – delivers a fractured fairy tale of taking control of one's fate.