Showing results by narrator "Laurie Catherine Winkel" in All Categories

He’s barely set foot in the city when someone recognizes him as Archibold Stormblood, the immortal hero of legend. Worse, a lieutenant of the local crime lord overhears the exchange. Not exactly the best way to start a vacation. Charm, his companion, watches with her usual unreadable calm. She doesn’t raise her voice, but her rebukes cut like a blade. To her, his plan is reckless, foolish, and bound to fail.

Double, double, bard in trouble. Mob will catch him in a couple... Okay, the mobsters looking for Daniel still hadn't found him. That was the good news. Bad news? The net was tightening - and Daniel was running out of places to hide inside the Dawnlight Forest in the World of Chains. His skills and achievements as a bard did not help avoid attention - quite the opposite, in fact.

On a frozen wasteland of a planet, a girl is on the run with a wolf who is born to be a killer but bound to be her guide. As they fight to escape ice goblins, giant bears, and a ruthless leader intent on trapping them both, one question drives them relentlessly forward: Where do you turn when there is nowhere to hide?

He could have been way worse off. Sure, Daniel was stuck in-game as the local bard of a quaint village, but people were nice, the quests juicy, and the lore intriguing. Even so, with the mob on the look-out, Daniel would soon find himself sorely tested to avoid detection.

So much darkness. At least it made hiding easier. Daniel and his group of close friends barely made it away from the mob and their underhanded allies among the Cabal. Now, they were hunted prey, forced to ditch their beloved floating castle in order to find a place to hide. But where could you possibly hide when the Dawnlight Forest would soon be teeming with people looking for you? That’s right. Underground. Quite literally.

Draysky was born to die on the ridge. Like his father before him, his fate was to harvest elemental treasures until the dust claimed his lungs. As the lowest of society, a Knotted, the thin cord around his neck signifies to all his low rank. He would never progress as a mage, nor learn of the forbidden runes of the kingdom magicians.

Chance Abbot is cocky. Sexy. Gorgeous. A player in every sense of the word. He broke my heart once, and I swore he'd never get a second chance. But when he smiles at me, flashing those irresistible dimples or looks at me like I'm the best thing he's ever seen, I forget I shouldn't fall for his charms again.

"Masterful. Magnificent. A passionate story of survival and a real page turner. This story will stay with me for a long time." —Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's Journey Living through World War II working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and...

Sometimes the world is a very dark place. You know the magic is still out there, but it feels distant or displaced. Voices in the Darkness is an attempt to create a link, to bring some of those voices together in a single work of art. Six award-winning authors lent their talent to this work. The stories are unique and dark, filled with wonder and emotion.

Esil is content with his quiet life beta testing new game worlds, so he doesn’t give the invitation a second thought. Having every detail of his life scrutinized while pursuing gold and glory are ambitions of the past, and mentoring is at the bottom of his to-do list. That all changes when Dean, a teenager from the same orphanage where Esil grew up, begs for help. This is a life-changing opportunity for a kid from the boxes.

Sixteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin writes the daily morgue column for Le Petit Journal. Her job is to summarize each day’s new arrivals, a task she finds both fascinating and routine. That is, until the day she has a vision of the newest body, a young woman, being murdered - from the perspective of the murderer himself. When the body of another woman is retrieved from the Seine days later, Paris begins to buzz with rumors that this victim may not be the last.

Michelle has been figuring out what her life is like now that the demon has been killed, and Sylvia and Varro are dead. Even the clans of witches trying to attract her to their way of life have backed off and given her a chance to grieve. Her relationship with Elron is stronger than ever, but there are things left unsaid. On the way to her parents' wedding, the delicate calm she’d been living in is broken. Witches are out for her blood, her family is caught in the crossfire, and friendships are threatened.

Success beyond my wildest dreams? Too bad I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. No time to sit back and watch the fame roll in when you're being hunted by superpowereds and a private military force. Still, everything was going according to plan. Grace, Veronique, and I were headed south. Our target? The secret government facilities scattered across the country. The second installment of Mutants in the Making was nearing completion, ready to be published any day now. Things were tense, but all was well. I wish they would have stayed that way....

Gideon and the ladies continue their uphill battle against Mercsecure, and along the way, bust even more super ladies out of The New Mexico Facility high-security research lab to join the fight, including the speedy, motor-mouthed Michelle.

Financial expert Catey Hill shows moms how to spend less and save big in this savvy guide where each step is designed to take 30 minutes max. Let's face it, kids are expensive -- in 24 states, daycare actually costs more than in-state college tuition! And the older kids get, the more you will...

Never Fall in Love with a Cowboy Jessa Mae Love is done with relationships. No matter how tempting he might be, she cannot--will not--fall for a man like Lance Cortez. The outrageously handsome cowboy is practically a living legend in Colorado, as famous for riding bulls as he is for breaking...

Deputy Jesse Maddox's reputation in Beach Pointe is...less than stellar. He thought following in the footsteps of his late father, a former cop, would make up for it. Not quite. Every time he closes his eyes, his past is there to haunt him. After falling asleep on the job (again), the sheriff gives him an ultimatum. Get counseling for whatever's keeping him awake at night or get out. Jesse would rather have a root canal, but he goes anyway, expecting a big waste of time. What he doesn't expect is to fall in love.

In the aftermath of the Developer’s Tournament, Esil has a new life filled with opportunity. He’s the first person to test out their most innovative technology, full-immersion gameplay, in a brand new, unexplored gameworld. Magic and mayhem collide in ways he never thought possible, and soon he finds himself caught in a quest that may alter the course of the game for years to come. As Esil experiences the grandeur of full-immersion and the line blurs between reality and the gameworld, the NPCs he meets feel more like friends than data.

In the aftermath of the Civil War so many people struggled to put their lives back together. Iris Sands travels from Virginia to Texas as a mail-order bride. When she arrives in Sweet Water she finds that the man who sent for her died. The Union Soldiers thought her to be a new saloon girl and thought to get to her first before she started working. Lex Willis and ex-Confederate Soldier was about to leave town when he saw Iris being tossed back and forth by the soldiers. He puts a stop to it and takes her to the Eastman Ranch. He swore never to marry but Iris makes him rethink his vow.

Re •sent •ment: The act of hating - no, f--king loathing Dean Collins. (Yes, I'm well aware that's not the actual definition, but it might as well be....) It's been 10 years since we've seen each other, and the feelings are still as strong. I'm not going to bore you with all the details of how our love was once intoxicating, consuming, and perfect. Because it was...until it wasn't. I've been fine without him. I haven't missed his cruelty, his coldness, and his spite. And after the ugliest breakup in the history of breakups, I forced myself to move on.