Showing results by narrator "Julia Whelan" in All Categories

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.

Peter watched his new family drive away, certain it was the last time he'd ever see them. But sometimes plans go awry in the best way. Now, the plan is to get back to them. But sometimes plans go awry in the worst way. Sometimes the only plan is to believe it will be all right, even when it's almost impossible to believe.

The Storys are the envy of their neighbours: owners of the largest property on their East Coast island, they are rich, beautiful and close. Until it all falls apart. The four children are suddenly dropped by their mother with a single sentence: you know what you did. They never hear from her again. Years later, when 18-year-old cousins Aubrey, Milly and Jonah Story receive a mysterious invitation to spend the summer at their grandmother's resort, they have no choice but to follow their curiosity and meet the woman who's been such an enigma their entire lives.

One morning, Eveleth 'Evvie' Drake got up, packed her suitcase, and got ready to leave her life - and her perfect husband - behind. But before she walked out of the door, she received a phone call asking her to come to the hospital. That day, Evvie's new life as a widow began. Now wrestling with her guilt and grief, Evvie has found her independence, but not the way she planned. Unable to leave the house she once dreamed of escaping, it's clear to her best friend Andy that Evvie needs a change. And Andy might just have the answer....

Elloren Gardner and her friends were only seeking to right a few wrongs when they rescued a Selkie and freed a military dragon. The last thing they expected was to be thrust into a realm-wide underground resistance against Gardnerian conquest. While the Resistance struggles to fight back against the harsh rulings of the Mage Council, more and more Gardnerian soldiers descend upon the University…led by none other than Lukas Grey, now commander of the nearby military base. Though Elloren tries to keep him at arm's length, Lukas is determined to tie himself to her.

Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in LA alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet.

You can spot the girls who will have it easy. I don't even have to describe them for you. You can spot the girls who will get by on smarts. You can spot the girls who will get by because they're tough, or athletic. And then there's me. A deeply moving portrait of a girl in a world that owes her nothing, and has taken so much, and the journey she undergoes to put herself back together. A story you won't be able to look away from.

Newly exposed as the Black Witch of Prophecy, Elloren Gardner Grey is on the run, not knowing if she’ll find friends or foes. With her fastmate, Lukas Grey, either dead or in the hands of High Mage Marcus Vogel, Elloren knows the only chance of turning the tide of the coming war is to seek allies who will listen long enough not to kill her on sight.

1980, Pass Christian, Mississippi: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wetsuit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His divelight illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flightbag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how?

Daphne believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it - the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she'd spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favourite Los Angeles restaurant, there's only a name: Jake.

Angela’s reset bought us a new chance, but with the event set to repeat itself, can she and Vaughn save their comrades? In Houston, Director Randal McCree races against the clock as he frantically struggles to save a scrabbled-together team. The survivors will have to join forces if Angela is to enact her plan to take the battle to the enemy.

Elloren Gardner hides the most powerful secret in all Erthia — she is the Black Witch of Prophecy, and destined to triumph…or be used as the ultimate weapon of destruction. Separated from everyone she loves, isolated and hunted, Elloren must turn to the last person she can trust — her fastmate, Commander Lukas Grey. With the Mage forces of Gardneria poised to conquer all of Erthia, Elloren has no choice but to ally with Lukas and combine their power to keep herself out of the hands of Gardnerian leader Marcus Vogel…the holder of the all-consuming Shadow Wand.

In this dark and gritty collection - featuring short stories from Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and Rob Thurman - nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil.... Unfortunately, that's exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line.

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 1532. London, 1837. Boston, 2019. Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots. One grows high and one grows deep and one grows wild. And all of them grow teeth.

When Holly Winseed wakes up in a hospital room, her memory compromised and a new identity imposed on her, a team of government agents wastes no time stating their objective. With intent to infiltrate and defeat the terrorist group ICON, the agents tell Holly that she is now a Provisional Replica and has one week to hunt down and kill her Original for the murder of her husband, Jonathan. If she succeeds, she’ll assume her Original’s place in society. If she fails, her life will end.

In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more insatiable: her beautiful mother.

Black Witch of prophecy Elloren Gardner Grey has unleashed her powers and embraced her legacy as a Dryad and guardian of the Forest. But the losses — of life, of love — have been almost too great to withstand as the Shadow continues to devour the world. With only a tattered shred of hope remaining, the Bearers of the Wand of Myth must battle their way back to each other to mount a final stand. But Elloren and her allies are not only facing Mage Vogel’s advancing forces, the armies of the Eastern Realm will stop at nothing to see the Black Witch struck down.

The Edgar-winning short story from the author of Gone Girl. A young woman is making a living, faking it as a cut-price psychic working at Spiritual Palms (with some illegal soft-core sex work on the side). She makes a decent wage - mostly by telling people what they want to hear. But then she meets Susan Burke. Susan moved to the city one year ago with her husband and 15-year-old stepson, Miles. They live in a Victorian house called Carterhook Manor, built in 1893.

The Fall siblings live in hot Northern California wine country, where the sun pours out of the sky, and the devil winds blow so hard they whip the sense right out of your head. Years ago, the Fall kids’ father mysteriously disappeared, cracking the family into pieces.

From midwifing new lambs to harvesting basil, Jessica Gigot invites the listener into her life on a small farm and the uncommon road that led her there. Fascinated by farming and the burgeoning local food movement, she spent her twenties wandering the Pacific Northwest, interning at small farms and doing graduate work in horticulture, always with an eye towards learning as much as she could about how and why people farm.