Showing results by narrator "Raquel Beattie" in All Categories

Imperial conquest and colonization depended on pervasive raiding, slaving, and plunder. European empires amassed global power by asserting a right to use unilateral force at their discretion. They Called It Peace is a panoramic history of how these routines of violence remapped the contours of empire and reordered the world from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Amber Patterson Parrish has come a long way. Hard work and immaculate planning turned her from invisible wallflower to prominent socialite, but there have been bumps along the way. Less than a year after her husband Jackson's tax-evasion scandal, Amber reigns supreme over the Bishops Harbor community. But with Jackson being released from prison, Amber's free time - and money - is vanishing. With shocking turns and entertaining characters, The Next Mrs. Parrish will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about duplicity and betrayal.

Cults prey on the very attributes that make us human: our desire to belong, to find a deeper meaning in life, to live everyday with divine purpose. Their existence creates a sense that any one of us, at any time, could step off the cliff’s edge and fall into that daunting abyss of manipulation and unhinged dedication to a misplaced cause. Perhaps it’s this mindset that keeps us so utterly obsessed and desperate to learn more, or it’s that the stories are so bizarre and unsettling that we are simply in awe of the mechanics that make these infamous groups tick.

A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else. But now Deniau's been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect's will: all his possessions and files and sketches are confined in its archives, and their only keeper is Rose House itself. Rose House, and one other.

The past tore them apart. After a terrible accident took everything from Callie Stewart, enrolling at Blairwood University is supposed to be a chance at a new beginning. Living his best life, Hayden Watson, star wide receiver for the Blairwood Ravens, is heading straight for the NFL draft, and nothing is going to stand in his way. The present brings them together.

To survive in the Los Muertos Cartel, you have to stay useful, especially when you're a woman. So I made sure I couldn't be replaced. Now my name is whispered about in the shadows—La Brujita de Los Muertos. Too bad I forgot that lies and deceit are the lifeblood of this toxic paradise. I should have seen the betrayal coming. My hands were always destined to be drenched in the blood of guilty men.

Zenaida's father was murdered, leaving her alone in the outback of the civilized systems called the Rim. There, smuggling, bribes, and a Wild West "live-free-or-die" attitude prevails, and an eye-for-an-eye is the preferred method of retribution. For Zenaida, a child of the Rim, the death of her father requires retribution. But, she must first learn how to survive while trying to track down her snow leopard's stolen litter and her father's killers.

Scarletta: bastard, daughter of a traitor. To the Italian Don of New York, I’m nothing more than a tool to be wielded. My obedience was the price I had to pay for the sins of my father. But Dominick Romano should have worked on gaining my loyalty because the chains he shackled me with have been undone. The Four Families have always run New York: Italian Mafia, Irish Mob, Russian Bratva, and the Jirocho Yakuza Clan. An alliance cloaked in proclamations of peace while they hold knives to one another’s backs. But a new player has emerged: The Syndicate. 

Rosa Mandolini knows in her heart that her family are the greatest painters of magical illuminations in the city. But the eccentric Studio Mandolini has fallen on hard times and the future is no longer certain. While trying to help her family, Rosa discovers a strange magical box protected by a painted crow. But when she finds a way to open the box, she accidentally releases the Scarling, a vicious monster determined to destroy the Mandolini family at any cost.

Phoenix detective Veranda Cruz is dead set on taking down the Villalobos crime family, but the ruthlessness of her quarry demands a ruthless edge of her own. Targeted by an increasingly unstable foe, Veranda must protect her family and navigate adversaries within the force while she sets a trap for Bartolo. As the action heats up, Veranda and her new Homicide team - along with an arson investigator who kindles a flame of his own - are all drawn into a deadly gambit.

Unlikeable Female Characters traces the evolution of highly memorable female characters, examining what exactly makes them popular, how audiences have reacted to them, and the ways in which pop culture is finally allowing us to celebrate the complexities of being a woman. Anna Bogutskaya, film programmer, broadcaster, and cofounder of the horror film collective and podcast The Final Girls takes us on a journey through popular film, TV, and music, looking at the nuances of womanhood on and off-screen to reveal whether pop culture—and society—is finally ready to embrace complicated women.

Yasmin Hernandez - 4.0 student, hard worker, volunteer. Starting Blairwood University is her chance at a new beginning. It doesn't matter that it's all a lie, does it? Nixon Cole has it all - money, good looks, charm, and a national championship win to wrap it all up. But there is more hiding behind his charming smile than he lets on. Until he found out the secret she's been hiding.

A new marriage. A perfect home. A machine that says it’s all a lie. Welcome to Silicon Valley, where the weather is perfect, the income is high … and Rowena Snyder is miserable. A transplant from New York, Rowena moved into her husband Jacob’s idyllic childhood home with their new baby. But suburbia isn’t Rowena’s cup of Starbucks. And she’s got serious anxiety and depression to boot. Jacob, worried about their marriage, scores a new product currently in beta testing from his tech job: Maxine, a “digital friend” that bonds with an individual by continually gathering their personal data.

Outpost and their allies, Lariw and Valhall, are close to solidifying the Helix Alliance, their first step in achieving their decades-old goal of annihilating Jax. The Alliance, which Jax refuses to join, will allow the Outpost led alliance navy to hassle Jax's merchants with the intention of eventually provoking an incident that will lead to war–a war Jax cannot win against a larger alliance navy. A nightmare scenario, since Outpost secretly intends to commit genocide against Jax.

Blackmail isn’t the most romantic way to propose, but with the history between us…I had no choice. Long story short: I broke her heart and pushed her away. Years later we reconnected, and this time she walked away. Neither of us knew she was pregnant. So, when we had a second chance to be a real family, I led her to believe our marriage was fake—that one football season by my side was the only way to prevent another scandal for my career.

It was only supposed to be for one night...Ariana wasn't expecting much when she pulled into the small town of Garoureve. Just a place to sleep for the night, a quick meal, and maybe a drink. What she found instead was a man with a smile who spent the night worshiping her body like it was his religion. When morning came, she left with unexpected regret and a mark to remember him by. A mark that meant a lot more than she realized. A mark that meant her one-night stand wasn't going to be her only night with him.

It is 1984 in Chile, in the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship. A member of the secret police walks into the office of a dissident magazine and finds a reporter, who records his testimony. The narrator of Nona Fernández's mesmerizing and terrifying novel The Twilight Zone is a child when she first sees this man's face on the magazine's cover with the words "I Tortured People". His complicity in the worst crimes of the regime and his commitment to speaking about them haunt the narrator into her adulthood and career as a writer and documentarian. 

Surviving the training program was dangerous - even the first challenge to gain entrance to the school could get you killed. But the training was the easy part. Staying alive afterward was the hard part. Kazaks guarded individuals whose lives were deemed critical to the security of the United States. As such, Kazaks attracted fanatics and the best professional assassins money could buy - liars who could tell lies you believed, ghosts who could become nearly invisible, and Illusionists who could appear to be anyone.

Lynn the Fox has been a Kazak for several years and thought she had seen it all. She was, after all, a Master Kazak having killed more than five Assassins - professional killers with wizard-like talents. But life is unpredictable and the unthinkable is about to happen. Events that will not only put her in unexpected danger but also threaten the existence of the Kazak organization.

To everyone’s astonishment, the party girl and can't-make-up-her-mind Megan not only survived the Hill, the name for the Kazak School, but loves her job and enjoys learning about the lives of the VIPs she is assigned to protect. The most exciting part is the cat-and-mouse game with the Assassins and terrorists intent on killing her clients. Megan the Wolf - sociable, sexy, sly, and lethal - is the newest Kazak Guardian.