Showing results by narrator "Gail Shalan" in All Categories

Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.

It was full dark when I snuck out of the castle to meet you. You wore those ripped black jeans and your new friend’s boots, with sleet from the forest still in the grooves. You moved awkwardly in your new clothes because you were still creating yourself, like one of your drawings. We drank vanilla cola from glass bottles and listened to a song about how fast the night changes over and over.

Roan King. The uncrowned king of Barnett University. He's like a freaking celebrity around here. It's totally ridiculous. People, by which I mean grown women, actually stalk him on the internet. And around campus. Apparently, he's God's gift to both football and the ladies (I'm using that term loosely). All he has to do is smile, and girls fall right onto their backs before spreading their legs wide. I've heard that he's already plowed his way through half the female population at Barnett.

Three best friends. Two crumbling estates. And one trip that changes everything. When three barn besties escape for a girls’ trip to Ireland, they expect a lot of fun. They don’t expect to want to stay… forever. Natalie was always the responsible one, the organized one, the together one. But when she inadvertently leaves one day early for their vacation and comes home pink-cheeked with embarrassment, the last thing she expects to find is her husband. . .in their bed with another woman. Luckily, they don’t notice her, and she takes the trip as a time-out to figure out what to do.

Charlie Porter is a force to be reckoned with, both on and off the hockey rink. When she accidentally starts a brawl after a game, she’s suspended from school, meaning no hockey this season—and no chance to play in front of college scouts. Alexa Goldstein’s pairs skating partner was hurt in the fight, and with only four months until their next competition, pickings for a replacement are slim. So she strikes a deal with Charlie—skate with her at the competition well enough to place, and her Olympian mother will use her formidable connections to get Charlie in front of scouts at D-1 schools.

Two women - strangers - board a plane. Different lives, different purposes for their trip. Three days later, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man. They say they've fallen for handsome stranger Trent McCarthy and are running away with him. And then the texts go cold, the red flags go up, and the woman are declared missing. Who's telling the truth? Who is this Trent, and what has he done with these women? Or, what have they done with him? . . .

Two dead students. A coded reference to Shakespeare. And the promise of darker things to come. Near a small college campus, a student is found strangled in an abandoned barn on the outskirts of town. She's been posed to look like a painting of Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the scene taunting the police with a message they don't understand.

Twelve-year-old Lidia is outside her grandfather's house when planes fly overhead, bearing the Nazi cross on each wing. Before the bombs hit the ground, Lidia realizes her life is about to change forever. Poland has fallen under German occupation, and her father makes the brave decision to join the Polish army to fight against the Nazis. Lidia wants to follow him into war, but she's far too young, and she's needed by her mother and brother. After her family returns to Warsaw, Lidia continues to play the piano, but she also wants to aid the Jewish people held captive in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Having narrowly averted an (under)world war, Cat Crawfield wants nothing more than a little downtime with her vampire husband, Bones. Unfortunately, her gift from New Orleans’ voodoo queen just keeps on giving—leading to a personal favor that sends them into battle once again, this time against a villainous spirit.

With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera. A born witch, she’s discovered that she can capture the souls of the dead on film. Her supernatural skills don’t go unnoticed by the enigmatic Josef Svoboda. He’s recruiting a team of sorcerers to infiltrate the front lines, where the bloodshed of combat has resurrected foul creatures. Petra’s unique abilities will be needed against the most dangerous enemies of all—those ever present, undead, and unseen.

Lilith Thorne, forty, rarely sees the light of day. She has spent the past three years in total isolation at Guthrie Hall. She doesn't see anyone, her groceries are delivered to the front gate. She adores her house and takes comfort in her routine, eating the same carefully prepared meals day after day. And yet, she is lonely, and posts an ad on Craigslist for a companion. Eighty-year-old Beverly Smith answers the ad. Fiercer than her age will allow people to believe, the two women couldn't be more different. Where will this extraordinary friendship lead the two women?

A small town where pickup trucks rule, the farmer's market is bigger than the grocery store, and just about everyone goes to church on Sunday is the last place Henley Warren expects to find herself three months after her grandmother's death. But Gran left a list of things she needed Henley to do after she died, and fulfilling those wishes means spending a summer in the same place her mom fled from when she was only seventeen years old. With each task that is ticked off the list, events are set in motion that uncover secrets surrounding Henley's life.

Relocating with her 5-year-old son to a new city after an ugly divorce, Melissa Burke isn’t looking for a new relationship right away—only distance from her ex, and space to rest and heal from the emotional scars of a broken marriage. But an unexpected relationship is exactly what she finds at a friend’s dinner party when she meets Thomas Danver, a charming widower who asks for her number at the end of the night. Intrigued, Melissa learns from her neighbors that Thomas is a dedicated father of two girls, one of the most respected pediatricians in the city—and an exonerated murderer.

Raised in a conservative Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur. Now, she has a good job at the local college, and balances that with raising her two daughters and taking care of their home. Yara knows that her life is more rewarding than her mother’s–so why doesn’t it feel like enough?

Amanda and Abigail Brooks didn’t even want a ranch. They should be pleased the secondary beneficiary is trying to take it away. But now they’ve been in Birch Creek for a while, and they’ve started to put down roots. They won’t give up without a fight—even if the odds of winning are bleak. Donna Ellingson started on the wrong side of things, but she’s eager to rectify past mistakes. But when helping one widow harms the other, none of the choices she’s presented with are clear.

Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn't dampen her excitement.

On a sun-kissed Greek island, a charming taverna and guest house lies empty. Tucked amongst lemon trees and wildflowers, the taverna was Cressida's dream - a place to host and delight people with her irresistible Greek food - until her husband died and she could barely keep going. But sometimes fate has other plans, and when a young American woman named Jory St. James arrives on the island in the dead of night, she somehow becomes Cressida's first guest.

Like every other being in our world, fantastical creatures have been forced to adapt to the climate, industrial, and cultural changes of the modern era. Countless formerly common creatures including akeki and cave trolls have been driven out by urban sprawl and climate change while others, like ether sprites and brownies, have been able to thrive in abundance, creating homes in city environments.

A year ago, beloved cheerleader Stella Blackthorn vanished without a trace. Devastated, her younger sister, Iris, launched her own investigation, but all she managed to do was scare off the police's only lead and earn a stern warning: once she turns eighteen, more meddling means prison-level consequences. Then, a year later, the unthinkable happens. Iris's ex-girlfriend, Heather, goes missing, too - just after dropping the polarizing last episode of her true crime podcast all about Iris's sister. This time, nothing will stop Iris and her sleuthing agency from solving these disappearances.

Seventeen-year-old Mara is dead—mostly. Infected with a virus that brought the dead back to life and the world to its knees, she wakes up in a facility to learn a treatment for the disease has been found. No longer a Tick, Mara is placed in an experimental resettlement program. But her recovery is complicated by her destination: she’s sent to live with the best friend she hasn’t seen since the world ended—and since their first and only kiss.