Showing results by narrator "Emily Woo Zeller" in All Categories

After unwittingly helping her mother poison King Louis XIV, 17-year-old alchemist Mirabelle Monvoisin is forced to see her mother's Shadow Society in a horrifying new light: They're not heroes of the people, as they've always claimed to be, but murderers. She herself included. Mira tries to ease her guilt by brewing helpful curatives, but her hunger tonics and headache remedies cannot right past wrongs or save the dissenters whom her mother vows to purge.

Los Angeles is booming. Money is pouring in. Buildings are going up. But someone is killing architects. Detective Sam Carver journeys through sins scattered across the City of Angels, where hipsters, homeless, immigrants, producers, politicians, movie stars, and cops collide in mysterious ways. Every move Carver makes is anticipated by the killer, Dylan Cross. She has hacked his computer and knows his diaries and secrets. She sees in him a kindred and damaged spirit, a man who can understand her crimes, heal her scars, and love her.

Here I stand, clutching a bouquet of pale pink roses behind the doors of a Las Vegas chapel, and at the end of the aisle is the absolute last man I imagined would be waiting for me. Thomas Bane. Best-selling author. Notorious bad boy. Savagely handsome, dark as sin, chiseled as stone. And, somehow, my soon-to-be husband. Marry him, and I’ll land my dream job. Save him, and I’ll walk away with everything I’ve ever wanted. All I have to do is remember it’s all for show. None of it is real, no matter how real it feels.

Mo Meng is reminded of that fact once again as the Nameless Restaurant faces a new challenge. Magic and its old wielders are returning to the world. For the restaurant, wards of anonymity and camouflage are fading, leading to the arrival of new customers. And some older friends. What started as a way to pass the decades and feed a few customers has become actual work. The world is changing, and to face it, the Nameless Restaurant, along with its proprietor and patrons, will need to embrace the change with a good meal and new friends.

You think you know what is right and what is wrong? Then tell me if this man should die. He is my enemy. He is to be my end. He is the one I love. I have spent my life in shades of gray. I have died and returned to a world of color. I have fought an angel and lived. I have kissed the Prince of Ravens. I have faced the Lord of Night and made him kneel. I was accepted into the Four Orders, and I created the fifth. I freed the Shadow of Rome. I sat upon the Twilight Throne.

Valerie Dearborn wants a life as light and fluffy as cotton candy, but it's more like a puffer fish: pointy, unusual, and - if not prepared exactly right - deadly. In London for graduate school, Val knows she's finally free. Her father and ex-almost-boyfriend are back in California and she's out of the Vampire hunting biz for good. Or is she? She draws the attention of Lucas, a 1600 year old Vampire, and King to his kind. He's also wicked hot.

Middle school supervillain Penny Akk has defeated every challenge thrown against her. She has bested heroes, villains, weirdos who can't make up their minds, robots, aliens, friends, rivals, enemies, natural disasters, secret admirers, and her own shyness. Now she has only one opponent left. Her own super power... and the other Penny who stole it.

Sent back in time to Victorian England to stop the invention of a deadly weapon, Helen Foster knows the job looks too easy: All she has to do is go to an auction, buy the weapon plans, and destroy them, and she'll save millions of people back in her own time. And even if she spends the rest of her life as a spinster stuck in the English countryside with a plethora of cats, changing the future is worth it.

After many months pretending to be someone else, Riley is devastated to learn that Alex has been brainwashed, and his new mission is to kill her; it is only her fake identity that is saving her from his wrath. The sadistic leader of the Champions, Damien, is finally dead, but his violent orders to his following Champions still remain, putting both Riley and Alex in constant peril. Will Riley survive if Alex finds out the truth about her? And can he handle learning the truth about himself?.

My name is Gillian and I have three problems: A fallen tree through the roof of my family’s remote island cottage. A sister trying to sell said cottage out from under me. A dead body in the living room. Sadly, it’s not my sister’s. Actually, make that four problems: my ex, Amanda, just showed up uninvited. Apparently, she’s a spy, undercover to investigate the luxury wine auction hosted by my conniving sister.

While at a casino to celebrate her birthday, Jess Clarke proposes a pact to her reserved sister, Liz, and their childhood friend Chloe: the three women will say yes to any adventure that comes their way. Jess is mourning her recent divorce, so the other two reluctantly agree. Twelve hours later, they awaken to the shocking consequences of their behavior.

Lakshmi, called Lucky, is an unemployed millennial programmer. She likes to dance and have a drink or two, and she makes art on commission. Fifty bucks gets you high-resolution digital images of anything you want (orcs, mermaids, cos-playing couples in sexy boudoir scenes) and a nice frameable print. Lucky's husband, Krishna, is an editor for a greeting card company. Both are secretly gay.

A severed left hand is found in a minivan abandoned on a dry riverbed. When Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force lieutenant Reiko Himekawa and her team join the investigation, the hand is quickly identified as belonging to building contractor Ken'ichi Takaoka, and from the amount of blood spilled in the van, it is presumed that he was killed. However, searches fail to turn up the rest of the body, and the mystery deepens when a childhood friend shown a photo of the victim declares, "That's not Takaoka".

You think you know the path to victory? Then tell me how you'll win. Will you buy triumph with gold and favors? Will you marshal armies and trade in blood? Or will you be the hand in the dark, your fingers on the strings? Whatever you decide, know this: If you put the innocent at risk, you will answer to me. I am the keeper of secrets and the teller of lies. I am the shadow of death and the bringer of light. I will become a Knight of the First, and the Orders will crumble.

This year, the girls are everywhere but home for the holidays. From a tropical cruise to a ski trip to Switzerland, it promises to be a Christmas to remember. Becca, Megan, Emma, Cassidy, and Jess have plenty of reading material to bring on their trips, too, because the book club is tackling the Betsy-Tacy series before their next meeting on New Year's Eve.

Helen Foster was saved from a watery grave by her BFF from the future and knows she's lucky to be alive. Sadly, she's not so lucky in love. Her blackmailed benefactor, Edward Clifton, the duke of Somervale, thinks she's dead. And Helen has to make sure it stays that way. But as Helen and her best friend, Mary, get charged with a new mission - save the Prince of Wales from assassination - avoiding Edward will be the least of her problems.

Twenty-five-year-old Ivy Rowan rises from her sickbed after being struck by the great influenza epidemic of 1918, only to discover that the world has been torn apart in just a few short days. But Ivy's lifelong gift - or curse - remains. She sees the uninvited ones - ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked for and unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death.

After a lot of swearing and only a little nookie, Valerie Dearborn has decided to make a change. No more lusting after Lucas the hot but emotionless vampire king who can't commit. Instead she's going to make it work with Jack. After all, not only is he breathing, but he's the love of her life...isn't he?

Kimi’s Obaachan, her grandmother, had always been a silent presence throughout her youth. Sipping tea by the fire, preparing sushi for the family, or indulgently listening to Ojichan’s (grandfather’s) stories for the thousandth time, Obaachan was a missing link to Kimi’s Japanese heritage, something she had had a mixed relationship with all her life. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, all Kimi ever wanted to do was fit in, spurning traditional Japanese cuisine and her grandfather’s attempts to teach her the language.

He plays the bass with expert fingers. He plays women with intoxicating charm. And he’ll play me with the ease of a virtuoso. Who better to teach me to play than the master himself? I’m his model student, front row, pencil sharp. Pick-up lines? I’ve got them. Free drinks? By the dozen. Kissing? Let me grab my chapstick. But the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is that there’s so much I don’t know - like why his touch sets off a chain reaction straight to my nethers…or how I’m certain each kiss is the best I’ll ever have…until the moment his lips take mine again.