Showing results by narrator "Cris Dukehart"

When I first landed a bartending job at the local guild, I didn't know a thing about magic. These days, I'm practically an expert on the different magical classes, but there's one nobody ever talks about: Demonica. Turns out they have a good reason for that. My guild is strictly hellion-free, because who wants to risk life and limb to control the biggest bullies on the mythic playground? Well, some people do, and now, a demon has been loosed in the city. 

Broke, almost homeless, and recently fired. Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig. It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview - to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right? I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they...offered me the job? It turns out this place isn't a bar. It's a guild. 

After the devastating loss of her husband in Iraq, Morgan Dane returns to Scarlet Falls, seeking the comfort of her hometown. Now, surrounded by family, she's finally found peace and a promising career opportunity - until her babysitter is killed and her neighbor asks her to defend his son, Nick, who stands accused of the murder.

Young mother Chelsea Clark leaves the house for a girls' night out...and vanishes. Her family knows she would never voluntarily leave her two small children. Her desperate husband - also the prime suspect - hires Morgan to find his wife and prove his innocence. As a single mother, Morgan sympathizes with Chelsea's family and is determined to find her. She teams up with private investigator Lance Kruger. But the deeper they dig, the deadlier their investigation gets.

When a retired sheriff’s deputy is shot to death in his home, his troubled teenage stepson, Evan, becomes the prime suspect. Even more incriminating, the boy disappeared from the scene of the crime. Desperate to find her son, Evan’s mother begs PI Lance Kruger for help. She knows her son is innocent. Kruger and defense attorney Morgan Dane want to believe that too, but the evidence against the boy is damning. Just as the trail goes cold, another deputy vanishes.

Three months ago, I landed a job as a bartender. But not at a bar - at a guild. Yeah, the magic kind. I'm not a badass mage like my three smokin'-hot best friends. I'm not a sorcerer or an alchemist, or even a wussy witch. I'm just a human, slinging drinks like a pro and keeping my non-magical nose out of mythic business. Seriously, I know my limits. So why am I currently standing in a black-magic ritual circle across from a fae lord?  

Haley Powell wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the night before. When she sees a man lying in the backyard, stabbed to death, she has only one terrified thought: What have I done? Agreeing to take the case as a favor to her PI friend Lincoln Sharp, Morgan must scale a mountain of damning circumstantial and forensic evidence to prove her client innocent. Haley couldn’t appear more guilty: her bloodstained fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and she has no alibi. But Morgan can’t shake the feeling that this shocked young woman has been framed.

Private investigator Lance Kruger was just a boy when his father vanished twenty-three years ago. Since then he's lived under the weight of that disappearance - until his father's car is finally dredged up from the bottom of Grey Lake. It should be a time for closure, except for the skeleton found in the trunk. A missing person case gone cold has become one of murder, and Lance and attorney Morgan Dane must face the deadly past that's risen to the surface.

What makes stepmothering so hard? And why are we, as people and a culture, so hard on stepmothers? How can we make it easier? Stepmonster is a truly unique and groundbreaking book for women with stepchildren, men with kids who repartner, adult stepchildren, and anyone who cares about them. It is a comprehensive, cross-cultural, research-based reconsideration of stepfamily dynamics - from the perspective of the stepmother.

When I found myself facing down the scariest black-magic felon in the city, practically daring him to abduct me, I had to wonder exactly how I ended up here. It all started when I accidentally landed a job as a bartender - but not at a bar. At a guild, populated by mages, sorcerers, alchemists, witches, and psychics. Good thing this lame-o human is adaptable, right? Then my favorite guild members - three sexy, powerful, and intermittently charming mages - asked for my help.

Eric Warden knows that half-Shifter wildcat Iona is passing for human, living without a Collar in the human world. He also knows that if she does not acknowledge her Shifter nature and her mating hunger, it could kill her. Iona finds the mysterious and dangerous Eric, a wildcat and leader of his Shiftertown, haunting her dreams, but she vows never to take the Collar, fearing backlash against her mother and sister for hiding the fact that she's Shifter. But Eric is a compelling Shifter male, and Iona's hunger calls to him.

The Allies have solidified their hold on the Large Magellanic Cloud and turn their sights on the Inner Stars and Perseus Arm. With forces spread thin, they must depend on superior technology and quantum entanglement communication to retain their edge. But their enemies have not been idle. Ascended AIs move to destroy Tangel, as Garza and the Orion Widows strike out at both Tangel and Airtha. Deep in the Transcend, Justin readies his new stasis ship for an assault on Vela, and the League of Sentients dithers on whether to join the fight.

He doesn't have a name. He doesn't have a clan. The humans who held him prisoner for 40 years have taken them away. He knew nothing but captivity until nearly a year ago, when he was released into the light. Now Tiger lives in the Austin Shiftertown, where he struggles to belong and searches for an identity. Carly Randal thinks her fabulous life is complete - until her car breaks down on the side of the road and the only one around to help her is a wild-looking Shifter. Tiger takes one look at Carly and knows instantly that she will be his mate. As Carly is drawn into Tiger's Shifter world, she risks everything she has for that forbidden something she still wants.

Lorenda Lawson has built a safe, sheltered life for her two young sons since their father was KIA several years ago. She has a beautiful cottage and a support network of family and friends. No one in Red River suspects that her marriage to Cam was ever less than perfect. Nobody, that is, except the gorgeous ex-SEAL who's shown up after a long absence: Cam's notorious twin brother, Mitchell.

Cormac has been moving from one Shiftertown to the next in search of a mate. Now he's in southern Nevada, where a beautiful, unmated bear Shifter greets him - with a shotgun in her hands. Nell is a hot-tempered mother of two cubs, and she doesn't take kindly to new Shifters showing up in town without her consent - even one with a sexy smile and brilliant blue eyes. But when her sons are endangered and she desperately needs help protecting them, Cormac proves he's worthy of her trust as well as her desire.

When a female Shifter comes to town seeking refuge, Feline Shifter Sean Morrissey claims the new arrival and finds a beautiful woman who looks him straight in the eye without fear, stirring the mating frenzy within him. To relocate to a new Shiftertown, half-Fae, half-Shifter Andrea Gray must accept a new mate. But Andrea's intense attraction to Sean is something shen ever expected - a perilous complication for a woman with a troubled past.

The unspooling of Toni Lee Wells' Tiffany and Wild Turkey lifestyle begins with a trip to the Luckett County Jail drunk tank. An earlier wrist injury sidelined her pro tennis career, and now she's trading her tennis whites for wild nights roaming the streets of Rose Hill, Georgia. Her wealthy family finally gets fed up with Toni Lee's shenanigans. They cut off her monthly allowance but also make her a sweetheart deal: Get a job, keep it for a year, and you'll receive an early inheritance.

Kaitlyn Parker has no problem being the invisible girl, which is why she finds herself hiding in various cabinets and closets all over her college campus. Despite her best efforts, she can't escape the notice of Martin Sandeke - bad boy, jerkface bully, and the universe's hottest, wealthiest, and most unobtainable bachelor-who also happens to be Kaitlyn's chemistry lab partner.

Leda Pierce has survived the gods' first test and gained entry into the Legion of Angels, but the fight is far from over. Someone is poisoning the supernaturals of New York. Suspecting witches, the Legion sends in Leda to investigate. To save the city, she will need magic she doesn't have - and gaining that magic might just kill her. Now her survival depends on accepting help from the darkly seductive angel Nero, but that help comes with a price she cannot afford to pay.

In the sequel to Significance, Maggie learns much more about all the strange things that have happened to her and has to face many new ones. She learns something about herself: she is something that the clans have been waiting for.