Showing results by narrator "Alyssa Bresnahan" in All Categories

My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertilizer. This is Susie Salmon. Watching from heaven, Susie sees her happy suburban family devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with their terrible loss alone.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman, trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's carer and her day job as a secretary at the prison. When the charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted and unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship.

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can be collected only one unit at a time from individual people.

When his cousin Jamie arrives at the police station with the body of his wife and the bald confession that he's killed her, Cam immediately places him under arrest. The situation isn't as clear to Cam's wife, Allie. While she is devoted to her husband, she finds herself siding against Cam, seduced by the picture James paints of a man so in love with a woman that he'd grant all her wishes. Even the one that meant taking her life.

Every novella by Ursula K. Le Guin, an icon in American literature, collected for the first time - and introduced by the legendary author - in one breathtaking volume. Ursula K. Le Guin has won multiple prizes and accolades, from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud awards. She has had her work collected over the years but never as a complete retrospective of her longer works.

It's a normal night in August. Literature professor Arne and artist Tove are with their children at the resort in Sørlandet. Their friend, Egil, a driver by day, is staying in a cabin nearby. Kathrine, a priest, is on her way home from a seminar; the journalist Jostein is out on the town; and his wife, Turid, who is an assistant nurse, has a night shift. Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears in the sky. No one, not even the astronomers, knows for sure what kind of phenomenon it is. 

When Harper and Tolliver are hired to find a missing grandson, they learn that several teenage boys have disappeared from Doraville. Harper soon finds the eight bodies buried in the half-frozen ground, but as she becomes part of the investigation, she learns more than she cares to about the dark mysteries and long-hidden secrets of Doraville: knowledge that could make her the next victim to end up in an ice-cold grave.

When Lilia Albert was a child, her father appeared on the doorstep of her mother's house and took her away. Now, haunted by an inability to remember much about her early childhood, Lilia moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers and eluding the private detective who has dedicated a career to following close behind. Then comes Eli.

When she was 15, Harper Connelly was struck by a bolt of lightning. Now she can find dead people. It took time, but now Harper's made a life for herself, with a career, and a lover - her step-brother, Tolliver. But when ghosts from the past start making themselves known Harper’s happiness is shattered. Tolliver's father is back, her lost sister has been sighted.... Problem is, now someone wants Harper dead.

Elemental witch Abigail Drake, third daughter in a magical bloodline, was born with a special affinity for water and the power to communicate with dolphins. Off the coast of Sea Haven, California, she has spent her entire life swimming among the sleek aquatic mammals, studying their fascinating ways. But then her idyll is shattered when she witnesses a gruesome murder along the shore.

During the lawless Ages of Chaos, when the ruling families of Darkover ruthlessly inbred their laran-gifted offspring to gain powerful talents, a baby was born to the lord of Aldaran. This child, born on a dark and thunder-filled night, was possessed of a terrifying and uncontrolled talent: Dorilys, heiress to her father’s domain, could unwittingly call forth lightning, even while still a fretful child. 

Romilly was an independent tomboy from a noble family, contrary to the social demands of Darkovan women. That was bad enough, but when Romilly’s father arranged her marriage to a nobleman she found repulsive, she rebelled. Disguising herself as a boy, she fled into the deep forests. Living off the land was not nearly as difficult for Romilly as for most people, for she possessed a rare and highly treasured gift — telepathic communication with hawk and horse. 

Waking on her tenth birthday, Ellen finds a silver crown on the pillow beside her. She wonders who might have given it to her. But before she can find out, her house goes up in flames, and her family disappears. Forced on a cross-country quest, Ellen flees deadly agents who want to grab the power of the silver crown for themselves.

Lili St. Crow’s darkly exhilarating Strange Angels novels have won a devoted readership. In the third book of the series, Crow’s unusual heroine, Dru Anderson, has been through the ringer, what with a missing mother, her father turning all undead on her, and forces of evil that just won’t seem to let her be. On the run from a predator with a taste for her blood, Dru can count on help from Graves and Christophe—but they just might do more harm than good as they battle for her affections.

A college class gets more than it bargained for when Harper gives a demonstration of her uncanny talent. Instead of just finding one body in an old grave, she finds two: the original occupant and a recently deceased girl whom Harper had tried, and failed, to find two years previously. To dispel suspicions about her innocence, Harper sets out to find the killer - only to find yet another body in the same grave.

This tale of healers with “talents” is the sixth in a series of stories featuring the psychically talented members of the Hyllis family. Hundreds of years after a plague induced apocalypse collapsed civilization back to iron and horsepower, the Hyllises have a genetic tendency to inherit “talents”. Eva Hyllis and her ancestors became healers because their talents let them feel inside their patients. This helps them diagnose the underlying causes of many illnesses. In this audiobook, they set out on a treacherous journey to treat Eva’s sister who’s dying of cancer.

It's taken a long time and a little heartache, but Annie Sutton is finally following her dream of living on Martha's Vineyard. She fell in love with the island's singular beauty while using it as a setting for two of her novels. In her cozy rented cottage on Chappaquiddick, she's settling in for her first Vineyard winter - complete with a fierce nor'easter on the way, forecast to bring high winds and deep snow. But the blizzard also brings something unexpected to Annie's front porch: a basket, encircled by a ribbon, containing a baby girl. The note reads: "I named her Bella, after my grandmother. Please help her, because I can't."

Hundreds of years after a plague-induced apocalypse collapsed civilization back to iron and horsepower, the Hyllises have a genetic tendency to inherit “talents” such as telekinesis, teleportation, and telepathy. Though they aren’t powerful talents, they help the Hyllises diagnose and treat the underlying causes of many illnesses in their role as healers. In this book, their town of Clancy Vail is struck by the plague. In order to save thousands of lives, they must master and use the knowledge of epidemiology contained in their copies of the ancients’ books.

One of seven daughters in a line of extraordinary women, stunning Hannah Drake has been the elusive object of affection for Sheriff Jonas Harrington for as long as he can remember. If only she was driven by a passion other than her career. But Jonas isn't the only one with desires for Hannah. From the shadows has emerged a vengeful figure who stalks the beauty, intending to destroy her. Can her sisters’ special powers keep her from harm, and will Jonas catch the elusive assailant?

For a group of four New York friends, the past 10 years have been defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade. Now at 40, with their kids growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they intended. Illicit affairs, money problems, issues with children and husbands all rear their heads, and the friends wonder if it's time for a change.