Showing results by narrator "Deborah Balm" in All Categories

Lord Gabriel Phel at last holds his dream in his grasp—and faces losing everything. He’s finally won the love of his wife, familiar, and mother of his child, and she offers him a heartfelt commitment he can truly believe in. Together they’re building a true house, one with a growing family of friends and allies that can help them stand against their enemies. And he’s learning to master his magic, to use it as the powerful tool and weapon it should be. But old and new enemies array themselves to take it all away.

Lady Veronica Elal has been freed from her tower—and entered a life of servitude. It doesn’t matter that her wizard master has odd ideas about circumventing Convocation tradition and making their relationship equal. Nic prides herself on her practicality, and that means not pretending her marriage is full of hearts and flowers. Besides, she understands that, despite her new husband’s idealism, they face obstacles so great the pair of them could be crushed to nothing, even without dashing themselves brainless trying to fight the Convocation.

After receiving a most unexpected personal invitation for a weekend of leisure and celebration, Miss Victoria Parker leaves London for the country seat of the Duke of Everton. Although unsure as to why a lowly spinster such as she would be invited anywhere by a duke, Victoria's trusted assistant, James Kensington, assures her it must concern her late father’s accounting firm, which she secretly runs.

Velina has escaped the workhouse on the hunt for one thing: the witch who can grant her wish to live a normal life. Born with silver hair and noticeably pointy ears, she's passed from workhouse to workhouse since she can remember—shunned for her mysterious heritage. But the witch’s cottage she finds at the edge of the wood is abandoned, and as soon as she starts making herself at home, someone else comes calling: a noble with a wish of his own. With the promise of his coin, she agrees to help him when she starts noticing something strange about the cottage.

Jadren El-Adrel knows he’s a mess. He’s a cobbled-together monster pretending to be a wizard, still unable to master the magic that makes him pretty much immortal and is useless for anything else. Though he’s tried to learn to work with his familiar, Seliah, he’s still terrified to discover what might happen if he gives himself full access to the depths of her powerful magic. Some questions should never be answered.

A riveting account of major ransomware attacks and their devastating consequences, revealing how exposed we really are—and how we can protect ourselves. Imagine opening your computer only to find every document and every program locked. All you can see is a red screen with a countdown timer...

After escaping to the garden for a reprieve from the stuffy ballroom, Miss Evelyn Trainor bumps into a handsome stranger through a hedge. When he boldly requests an introduction, she lies and tells him a fake name, Lady Eve, positive she’ll never see him again. But when she returns to the country for Christmas and finds her handsome stranger—the Duke of Alverton—has moved in next door for the holidays, she does what she must to guard her secret. For he has declared the importance of titles and cannot find out she is a commoner.

Award-winning youth activist Katie Hodgetts founded The Resilience Project after a period of burnout from climate activism. In this book she empowers young adults to navigate a changing world by building up resilience through rest, community, connection, and celebration. Drawing on her own...

Welcome to Soldark, where those who dare can ignite their destiny. Meet four women of the city of Soldark, as they forge their own paths through the seasons. Mae. The seamstress down on her luck, but chasing her destiny. Verity. The clockmaker's daughter, who gets in over her head after a theft. Caz. The plucky journalist looking for her big break. Aurelia. The ambitious inventor who’ll do anything for her family’s prosperity.

Aurelia Sundon has always wanted to join the Inventor’s Union, and now she has her chance: the prestigious union will accept submissions on Christmas Day—the only problem is, that’s four days away. She thinks she’ll have her invention ready in time to present. Except Aurelia’s old love and current rival Frederick shows off his entry: an incredible clockwork creation that creates snow. And then, of course, Frederick’s invention goes out of control.

Soldark. A city of mystery and mechanisms. Once a year, the elite of Soldark host an elaborate midsummer masquerade ball, and Verity Pennington has always dreamed of attending. But as a clockmaker’s daughter, Verity hardly has time for such things. When a rival mechanist steals valuable plans from her father’s shop, everything changes. Verity finds out the thief will attend the masquerade, and she vows to get in, but it won’t be easy. A maze of mechanical masterpieces. A ticking clock. Can she unmask the thief and save her family’s reputation?

Soldark. A bustling city where dreams come true. That’s what seamstress Mae Wright hopes, anyway. But when she moves into her new shop premises, everything goes wrong. She loses all her money while saving her runaway dog, and none of her sewing equipment arrived in transit. A handsome yet reclusive theater director named Des offers her a job mending costumes, and she can’t help but accept. Mae enters the backstage life: full of chaotic costume changes, quirky actors, and friends who become like family.

Waking in paradise with no memory of who she is, can Agent Harris piece together the true picture and retrieve her skills before it’s the last thing she ever sees?

It’s 745. The kingdom is split between the two eldest sons of Charles Martel. Carloman, the oldest, has the support of the king and the church, while Pippin refuses to bend the knee. Civil war is imminent.

After a grueling training exercise in the Scottish mountains, Agent Carrie Harris is called to a place hidden from all civilization. Ill-prepared and under-equipped, she discovers a secret world filled with gruesome evidence of events she can’t comprehend.

When Lady Seliah Phel wakes from a drugged sleep to find herself abandoned by her newly bonded wizard, she vows revenge—and to hunt him down. Tracking him through the familiar wilds of the marshlands of her home is the easy part–learning to use her nascent magical skills is something else entirely. So is facing the vast, uncaring society of the Convocation in a time of brewing war.

On what seemed like an ordinary morning, Carrie finds herself in the crossfire of a violent bank robbery. As the horrible scene plays out before her experienced eyes, she must find a way to survive the encounter, and save the day.

Murder and mayhem abound in this thrilling return to the 1930s as a young woman uncovers her own connection to the power and magic of her ancient Egyptian ancestors.

With the help of her niece, Moli, and two strangers, James and Kiza, the group must travel through time to collect nine wonders from history in just nine days. Only then can they hope to save the world from Pandorai, a murderous AI bent on destruction, along with its two maniacal henchmen-resurrected Adolf Hitler and Dr. Shiro Ishii.

Moli has never seen a dragon, but she'd imagined one many times. Following the death of her father, a museum curator and historian, her need to escape from the real world has never felt so acute. Travelling from China to London to attend the funeral, Moli takes the opportunity to visit her father's last exhibition, "The Lost Dynasty of Rouran". The trip reveals Moli's connection to an ancient khanate and, unexpectedly, opens the door to another realm.