Showing results by narrator "Lauren" in All Categories

Golden Age Hollywood - a city overflowing with gossip, scandal, and intrigue. Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary temptress. So when the film's mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.

There might be no rest for the wicked, but there’s no rest for the exhausted, either. We’ve barely survived one fight, and we have another blade at our throats. Strike that. Three blades. I can see only one possible chance at surviving the three evils we face, no matter how much I might hate it. I have to make my peace with one of them and pray that they will help me take down the other two, before we turn on each other.

He knew she was shattered by some event she kept hidden under lock and key. The clues on her body failed to reveal her secrets - unlike scars on his body that clearly publicized his. The clock was ticking, giving him only a short time to uncover the true meaning of the flower branded into her flesh. Because if she got back on that plane, he knew it would be forever.

Erin Hamilton follows Dante Gabriel back into hell - the underground compound where he was held for a decade - to confront the woman who held him captive. Finally unmasked, she seems to hold Dante under her influence. Erin has faith in Dante’s strength and determination, though, especially when the mysterious Vampyre Texts reveal their first secret. Dante struggles to regain his control, even as he grows stronger and the darkness rises within him.

It's the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York, shimmer in a heat wave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery. Noting Ruth's perfectly made-up face and provocative clothing, the empty liquor bottles and love letters that litter her apartment, the detectives leap to convenient conclusions, fuelled by neighbourhood gossip and speculation.

The Spice Girls gave a generation their first glimpse of the power of friendship, of staying true to yourself, of sheer bloody-mindedness. And the girl power generation went on to kick-start a new conversation around gender equality. We may have grown up asking What Would the Spice Girls Do?, but their particular brand of feminism is as relevant today as it was 20 years ago - we still need that fun and fearlessness, we still need accessible and all-embracing equality...we still need a zig-a-zig-ah.

She cheated. He cheated. Everybody cheated. This erotic collection contains all four stories in the An Affair With series, plus a bonus story - "How an Affair Begins".

Lioness shifter Scarlett Milan hates that she wants her boss more than her next breath. All she thinks about is how his black-rimmed glasses and bow tie are sexier on him than any other man. But since he’s human, she’s afraid she could break him, even kill him, during a night of wild sex. Knox Daniels, wimpy bean counter, has lusted after Scarlett since the moment he met her. The fact she’s his best friend’s little sister has stopped all dirty thoughts. Well, almost. After he breaks up with his girlfriend, getting his hands on Scarlett is the first thing on his to-do list.

Ashley Kelly is your typical American teenager - or she would be if it wasn't for the cluster bomb that crippled her. Seven years after the invasion, over a hundred million Americans have been displaced by the war, with millions more dead. Ash has spent seven years learning to walk again, and she'll be damned if she's going to lie down for anyone, human or otherwise.

I have a special power, the ability to calm a berserker, but I’ve been warned never to use it. My mother said, “If you see a berserker in a rage…not your monkeys, not your circus. Get the hell away. They’re too dangerous, and you’ll lose your freedom.” But the thing is…we’re flying 30,000 feet in the air in a speeding aluminum cage, and there’s a berserker raging out in the aisle beside me. Security won’t be able to hold him. And if he gets a taste of blood, he’s going to rampage through the entire plane, leaving a path of death and destruction, including me.

1918. Timid Emmaline Balakin lives more in books than her own life. That is, until an envelope crosses her desk at the Dead Letter Office bearing a name from her past, and Emmaline decides to finally embark on an adventure of her own—as a volunteer librarian on the frontlines in France. 1976. Kathleen Carre is eager to prove to herself and to her nana that she deserves her acceptance into the first coed class at the United States Naval Academy. But not everyone wants female midshipmen at the Academy, and after tragedy strikes close to home, Kathleen becomes a target.

A new school means a fresh start. So long Ronnie Smith, invisible tomboy, and hello Veronica, popular new hottie. This is my chance to finally be seen...and kissed. The only problem? I'm not the only one from my old school who's transferred to Briarwood High. Drew Remi is here, too, and he's still the same wildly popular baseball star. He's also the only person who can ruin my new life. But he can only rat me out if he recognizes me.... So, why am I so upset when he doesn't have a clue who I really am?

To stand at the side of an elemental as their familiar is a gift given to few familiars. Yet here I stand with my thirteenth - Larkspur, child of the earth. I do not want this charge, for all my previous have ended in deaths I could not prevent. I am not sure my heart can take another loss of one bonded with me. Larkspur’s strength and heart call to me as only one other elemental's had, and I cannot deny the need to protect her and to shield her from all pain.

Jonathan Strahan, the award-winning and much lauded editor of many of genre's best known anthologies, is back with his 11th volume in this fascinating series, featuring the best science fiction and fantasy. With established names and new talent, this diverse and ground-breaking collection will take the listener to the outer reaches of space and the inner realms of humanity with stories of fantastical worlds and worlds that may still come to pass.

Sweet Naomi Byler cooks meals for the guests at The Peony Inn, where Amish sisters and owners of the inn Esther and Lizzie love her like a granddaughter. She’s as happy there as a young woman can be, considering that her fiancé, Thomas, has left her to court someone else. She knows she’ll get over the love of her life in due time, but she is beginning to assume marriage will never be a part of her future.

At age ten, Riley Lambert watched helplessly as her sister was abducted from her bedroom. Fifteen years later, she's channeled the pain of her past into a career as an FBI profiler. Riley devotes her life to bringing violent criminals to justice...and secretly uses government resources to search for her sister, who was never found. When Riley gets a call from the only man who's ever swept her off her feet with a killer two-step and dangerous smile - ex-Navy SEAL Thayne Blackwood of Singing River, Wyoming - it stirs up dark memories.

After generations of plotting, the Lennixes - and their bloodthirsty dragon allies, the Raptors - are terrifyingly close to establishing a brutal dragon regime on Earth, just like they did centuries ago. Now, it's up to Allie, Joss, and Sirin to protect Lysander while searching for a secret source of lost dragon magic, the only force powerful enough to stop the Raptor. But when their search takes them to one of the largest cities on Earth, the new friends must decide what's more important: finding the missing treasure or guarding the most important secret in the world.

In the summer of 1925, the winds of change are particularly chilling for a young woman whose life has suddenly become unbalanced. Devastated by her mother’s death and a cruel, broken engagement, Sadie Halloran learns that her great-aunt Marguerite, a renowned artist now in the throes of dementia, needs a live-in companion. Grasping at newfound purpose, Sadie leaves her desolate Kansas City boardinghouse for Blackberry Grange, Marguerite’s once-grand mansion sitting precariously atop an Arkansas bluff.

Settling into her new life as the only Diplomatic Spy trainee, Seraphina Waters is blindsided by crisis from every side. Phina uses her unique skills to make a shocking discovery. Drawing on her friends and her own inner strength, Phina has to move fast in order to save an entire species from extinction. Each day that passes brings death one step closer...not just for those she hopes to save, but for herself.

You don’t have to believe in ghosts for the dead to haunt you. You don’t have to be a murderer to be guilty.... 'This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths, but perhaps all of them were murders. It's a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So let's just call them deaths and say I was involved. This story could be told a hundred different ways.'