Showing results by narrator "Robin Miles" in All Categories

For decades, Della Brown has tried to forget her service as a US Army nurse in Vietnam. But when she receives a letter from a fellow combat nurse, once her closest friend, all the memories come flooding back: Della's nightmarish introduction to the Twelfth Evacuation Hospital, where every bed held a patient hideously wounded in ways never mentioned in nursing school. The day she learned how to tell young men they were about to die. The night her chopper pilot boyfriend failed to return from his mission.

At a Caribbean resort built atop a former slave plantation, Myrna works as a maid by day; by night she trespasses on the resort's overgrown inland property, secretly excavating the plantation ruins that her island community refuses to acknowledge. Rapt by the crumbling walls of the once slave owner's estate, she explores the unspoken history of the plantation - a site where her ancestors once worked the land, but which the resort now uses as a lookout point for tourists.

Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb.

In a captivating collection of poems, Roxane Orgill steps into the frame of Harlem 1958, bringing to life the musicians' mischief and quirks, their memorable style, and the vivacious atmosphere of a Harlem block full of kids on a hot summer's day.

Nettie Lonesome made a leap—not knowing what she'd become. But now her destiny as the Shadow is calling. A powerful alchemist is leaving a trail of dead across the prairie. And Nettie must face the ultimate challenge: Side with her friends and the badge on her chest or take off alone on a dangerous mission that is pulling her inexorably toward the fight of her life. When it comes to monsters and men, the world isn't black and white. What good are two wings and a gun when your enemy can command a conspiracy of ravens?

In 1798 Daniel Dickinson, a young Quaker, sets out with two horses, a wagon full of belongings, his five children and a 15-year-old orphan wife. When Daniel suddenly trades a horse for a young slave, Onesimus, it sets in motion a struggle in his conscience that will taint his life forever and a chain of events that lead to two murders and the family's strange relationship with a runaway slave named Bett.

Cassie McGonegal and her niece, Brigid, work upstairs in the factory rolling cigars by hand. Meliah Amey Ravenel works in the basement, where she stems the tobacco. While both white and black workers suffer in the harsh working conditions of the factory and both endure the sexual harassment of the foremen, segregation keeps them from recognizing their common plight until the Tobacco Workers Strike of 1945.

In 1809, at the age of 18, Henriette Faber enrolled herself in medical school in Paris - and since medicine was a profession prohibited to women, she changed her name to Henri in order to matriculate. She would spend the next 15 years practicing medicine and living as a man. Drafted to serve as a surgeon in Napoleon's army, Faber endured the horrors of the 1812 retreat across Russia. She later embarked to the Caribbean and set up a medical practice in a remote Cuban village, where she married Juana de León, an impoverished local.

In 1959 Cuba, Natalia San Martín was nothing short of a princess: sheltered, pampered, and courted by her very own prince, a childhood friend turned lifelong love. All that changed on the fateful New Year's Eve when Fidel Castro and his followers seized control of the country, with tragic consequences for not only the island but Natalia herself. Five years later, in 1960s New York, she's known as Natalie Martin - living a life that's bleak but thankfully anonymous.

Ping Fu knows what it’s like to be a child soldier, a factory worker, and a political prisoner. To be beaten and raped for the crime of being born into a well-educated family. To be deported with barely enough money for a plane ticket to a bewildering new land. To start all over, without family or friends, as a maid, waitress, and student. Ping Fu also knows what it’s like to be a pioneering software programmer, an innovator, a CEO, and Inc. magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

When the Dragon Ships began to tear through the trade lanes and ravage coastal towns, the hopes of the arichipelago turned to the Windspeakers on Tash. The solemn weather-shapers, with their eyes of stone, can steal the breeze from raiders' sails and save the islands from their wrath. But the Windspeakers' magic has been stolen, and only their young apprentice, Shina, can bring their power back and save her people.

A song, a pressed flower, and the sound of two girls' voices recovered from a burned wooden beam by using a brand-new laser technique to read a charred surface like the grooves of an old 78 rpm record. These are the clues that archaeologist Digger Morgan discovers while working on a routine dig at a Maryland plantation. Who were the girls? When was the fire? The answers all lead to 1920s jazz pioneer Kit Jeffers, whose voice mysteriously appears on Digger's computer and whose existence remains haunted by a singular tragic event.

Ifi and Job, a Nigerian couple in an arranged marriage, begin their lives together in Nebraska with a single, outrageous lie: that Job is a doctor, not a college dropout. Unwittingly, Ifi becomes his co-conspirator - that is until his first wife, Cheryl, whom he married for a green card years ago, reenters the picture and upsets Job's tenuous balancing act.

In this encouraging and empowering audiobook, Deidra Riggs calls listeners to accept God's invitation to join him in making a difference right where they are, regardless of their current life stage. She shows listeners that they were created with a purpose and with the capacities to fulfill that purpose. And she reminds them that it's not up to us to fix the world, but it is up to us to join God - and the rest of his people - in his redemptive work.

Two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist Bernice L. McFadden has also been twice honored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. One of Library Journal's 25 Key Indie Fiction Titles, this heartbreaking tale follows two damaged but hopeful souls as they struggle to find love despite the ravages of their pasts.

Light Atonement takes listeners on a spiritual journey, one that is as enlightening as it is unusual. Ariyana, the narrator of this journey, describes her transition from life as a wife, mother, and successful entrepreneur to a spiritual traveler who develops the capacity to move through alternative universes, to communicate with angels, and to heal the sick. More than anything else, she emerges from this journey with knowledge that can provide comfort and guidance for all listeners.

Twenty-something Ceseli Larson is mourning the recent death of her cherished father. His passing comes as she prepares to undertake a planned but harrowing expedition to the lost ruins of Axum. Axum, capital of an ancient kingdom and the possible resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, was also once the famous home of the Queen of Sheba. Ceseli hopes to uncover its long-forgotten archaeological mysteries.

The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances - of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir.

From "Trench Town" to "Half Way Tree" to "Norbrook" to "Portmore" and beyond, the stories of Kingston Noir shine light into the darkest corners of this fabled city. Joining award-winning Jamaican authors such as Marlon James, Leone Ross, and Thomas Glave are two "special guest" writers with no Jamaican lineage: Nigerian-born Chris Abani and British writer Ian Thomson.

This short story is from the anthology Mitigated Futures. Twelve science fiction stories about the oncoming future, each of them representing a possible glimpse of what could be just around the corner... or much further down the corridor. These stories previously appeared in places like Clarkesworld Magazine, The Year's Best SF, Subterranean Magazine, and in various anthologies. They deal with the future of war, our climate, and technology's effect on our lives.