Showing results by narrator "Nicole Parnell" in All Categories

Magic doesn't exist in the human world. As far as I know. But when I fling a fireball at a bully, my horrified mom dumps me at Crystal Wing Academy, a place straight out of my favorite fantasy books. They tell me I'm an Outling, a wizard born from non-magical parents. Mom's human. Dad? I don't exactly know who he is....

After destroying a power-sucking slake before he killed my friends, I'm feeling stronger and more confident than ever. Donovan and I are together, I'm pulling in more threads than before, and I have new abilities I'm excited to master. So what if I might be flunking Magical Creatures & How to Tame Them - not everything comes easy, right? Then I stumble over a dead girl - one of eight Outlings at the Academy - and she's marked with an zero and a seven, it's clear someone's copycatting the Outling murders that took place 100 years ago.

After defeating the nightlace vine eager to kill every Outling on campus, I'm feeling kinda cocky. But nothing ever goes smoothly for me, does it? Let's start with the good news first: I've not only figured out how to ride an aldakor, but I've also convinced the naiad living in the moat that I can be trusted. You might say I've got an in with magical creatures. And I've found a new best friend who's awesome, even if she's keeping secrets.

In Boomers, essayist Helen Andrews addresses the Boomer legacy with scrupulous fairness and biting wit. Following the model of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, she profiles six of the Boomers' brightest and best. She shows how Steve Jobs tried to liberate everyone's inner rebel but unleashed our stultifying digital world of social media and the gig economy. How Aaron Sorkin played pied piper to a generation of idealistic wonks. How Camille Paglia corrupted academia while trying to save it.

Dominion ghosts epitomize the height of terran evolution and physical conditioning. Augmented by technologies that harness their innate psionic potential, these lethal operatives use telepathy and other superhuman powers to isolate and destroy the enemies of the Dominion. But when the hunters become the hunted and ghosts start disappearing without a trace, even the most dangerous human soldiers in the Koprulu sector have something to fear.... 

Now at the fresh age of 42, I’m looking for a new start, a new book, and even new love—something I’m hoping to find with the local blacksmith named Leo. Leo seems to be all contradictions: hulking but shy, soft-spoken yet enormous, boyish yet in his mid-40s. What I’m not planning on, however, is that the little cottage I’ve moved into, called Bluebells, is haunted!

Lady Christiana Tremaine lives in the kingdom of Vesance, but ever since her father remarried, her stepmother - Lady Tremaine - has stripped her of everything befitting her station, has reduced her to that of a maid, and forced her to answer to the slur of Cinderella. Though the life of drudgery is horrid, she carries hope circumstances will change, especially when she remembers dancing with the prince who stole her heart. A chance meeting with that same man strengthens her resolve to change...if she can survive that woman’s deadly machinations.

The most powerful form of magic is free will. Averell Woode is a huntsman’s daughter, hidden away in an enchanted tree from the evils of the world. Though she’s skilled in all things forest-related, she yearns for life beyond the trees. A chance meeting with a stranger seems the perfect opportunity to stretch her wings, and she falls for the charm he wields, especially when an exciting adventure has come to her very doorstep. Devon James Quinn Lansdowne, the spare prince of Annanvale, is trying to avoid anything that smacks of palace life.

Microbiologist Graysha Brady-Phillips accepts an offer to assist in terraforming the planet Goddard for two reasons: She needs the hazardous duty pay, and she hopes the planet's colonists can provide a cure for the genetic disorder that is slowly killing her. But such genetic engineering has been banned for decades by the powerful Eugenics Board, and Graysha is that board's high commissioner's daughter. When the colonists discover this, she isn't surprised that they ostracize her, for the penalties for conducting their radical research could include death.