Showing results by narrator "Ellen Archer" in All Categories

In this exquisite, transporting debut, 15-year-old Polly Kimball sets fire to the family farm, killing her abusive father. She and her young brother find shelter in a Massachusetts Shaker community called The City of Hope. It is the Era of Manifestations, when young girls in Shaker enclaves all across the Northeast are experiencing extraordinary mystical visions, earning them the honorific of "Visionist" and bringing renown to their settlements.

In the spirit of the demolition derby, where drivers take heedless risks with reckless abandon, welcome to the first convocation of The Secret Society of Demolition Writers. Here is a one-of-a-kind collection by famous authors writing anonymously and dangerously. With the usual concerns about reputations and renown cast aside, these 12 daredevils have each contributed an extreme, no-holds-barred, unsigned story, each shining as brightly and urgently as hazard lights.

Hanna Schutt never suspected that her younger daughter's happiness would lead to her husband's death and the destruction of their family. When Dawn brings her new boyfriend home from college for a visit, her parents and sister try to hide their doubts because they're glad that Dawn--always an awkward child--appears to have grown into a confident, mature young woman in her relationship with Rud.

Karigan may have heard the First Rider's call, but she's not about to let it take over her life...or at least that's what she thinks. She swore to complete a dying man's mission - to deliver a sealed letter to King Zachary. Now that task, more dangerous than she could have imagined, is complete and her work is done, Karigan wants to leave the dangerous world of tainted magic and ancient magicians behind her and return home. Exhausted in both body and spirit, she plans to return to her quiet life and her father's business.

Clint McCade roared into town to visit his best friend, just as he had a dozen times before - but this time the rugged photographer had romance on his mind! When Sandy Kirk told him she'd lost her heart at last, he vowed to help her get her man. Practicing seduction and pretending to be lovers started out as a game, but would their lips and bodies betray the desire neither dared to confess?

Karigan G'ladheon is a Green Rider - a seasoned member of the royal messenger corps whose loyalty and bravery have already been tested many times. And her final, explosive magical confrontation with Mornhavon the Black should have killed her. But rather than finding death, and peace, Karigan wakes to a darkness deeper than night. The explosion has transported her somewhere - and into a sealed stone sarcophagus - and now she must escape, somehow, before the thinning air runs out and her mysterious tomb becomes her grave.

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the world.... It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this 11-by-11-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows Room cannot contain either much longer.

After her capture at the hands of Grandmother and the Second Empire, Karigan G'ladheon is making halting progress towards recovery. Karigan takes on increasingly dangerous missions, haunted by the specter of her torturer, Nyssa, and sinking ever further into the mire of her recollections of the past and the losses she's sustained. Meanwhile, the forces of the Second Empire are moving on Sacoridia and their primary target is a vulnerable garrison that guards a crucial mountain pass.

Exactly one year ago, Camaro Espinoza killed five bad men in New York City and fled town. Now she's keeping a low profile in Miami, running night charter catch-and-release fishing trips off the coast. It's a simple life for a former combat medic. But it wasn't easy to come by. Camaro plans to do everything she can to hold on to it.

In the annals of business trips gone horribly wrong, Evangeline Harker's journey to Romania on behalf of her employer, the popular television newsmagazine The Hour, deserves pride of place. Sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu, she has found the true nature of Torgu's activities to be far more monstrous than anything her young journalist's mind could have imagined.

Vampires have walked among us for thousands of years. These reanimated corpses survive by draining and consuming the blood of the living, and their threat to humanity cannot be ignored. Throughout the centuries, professors and peasants have offered their own vampire-fighting tips, but these were often old wives' tales, based more on superstition than on fact. Here, for the first time, is a comprehensive vampire-fighting guide for the 21st century.

Thirty-seven-year-old Elayna Leopold used to be a New York magazine editor, until she and her young family moved to suburban New Jersey. Two years ago, the death of an infant son sent her into a deep depression, a darkness that begins to lift in the company of a handsome, unattached neighbor. As she fights yearnings that could destroy everything that gives her life shape, a threat to her young daughter's welfare emerges from an unlikely source.

The Dream Gatherer. A visit with the eccentric Berry sisters turns dangerous when an arcane device is discovered in their house that can summon dreamers through their dreams, and one of them is a nightmare. 'Wishwind'. Raised in an orphan camp, Green Rider Danalong has known only war and strife, until a shipwreck leaves him stranded on a mysterious island.

Clare Moorhouse, the American wife of a high-ranking diplomat in Paris, is arranging an official dinner crucial to her husband's career. As she shops for fresh stalks of asparagus and works out the menu and seating arrangements, her day is complicated by the unexpected arrival of her son and a random encounter with a Turkish man, whom she discovers is a suspected terrorist. More unnerving is a recurring face in the crowd, one that belonged to another, darker era of her life. One she never expected to see again.

In the heart of Louisiana, Amanda Trent has arrived at her cousin's plantation to find Amelia's death looming over the war-torn grounds. There is a dark secret in the shadows around every corner and in the heart of Amelia's widower, Jason Monteigne. Amanda only wants to leave the haunted home but an accident has ensnared her in a tangled web of mystery, passion and hidden desire. What is it that haunts Jason's every moment and will Amanda discover the truth of her cousin's death?

Cass Dollar is a survivor. She's overcome the meltdown of civilization, humans turned mindless cannibals, and the many evils of man. But from beneath the devastated California landscape emerges a tendril of hope. A mysterious traveler arrives at New Eden with knowledge of a passageway North—a final escape from the increasingly cunning Beaters

A religious war is brewing. The Catholic Church relies on the ruthless reputation of Lord Beltran Nemesto, who tirelessly hunts down those who don't believe or who practice dark arts. Half mortal, half Fae princess, Rhiannon le Fay is a healer trying to broker peace between the Faerie and mortal worlds. The Convergence is approaching, an occurrence every 1,000 years where the Veil that separates the two realms temporarily dissolves. Without her help, war between the two is inevitable.

How far in the future is Mornhavon now? A hundred years? Ten years? Only one year? There's no way to tell. So though the immediate threat has passed, Mornhavon's shadow still lies heavily on the land and on their minds...although there are threats closer to home as well. The D'Yer Wall, protecting Sacoridia from the dark, corrupted Blackveil forest, remains breached despite Karigan and her fellow Riders' best efforts.

Cuddle up with your little one and listen to these three bedtime Bible favorites: Goodnight, Manger and Goodnight, Ark by Laura Sassi, and Goodnight, Angels by Melody Carlson.

The CIA's highly classified Special Activities Division is in the business of tracking people down and keeping secrets hidden. Then a botched field operation reveals some dark dealings between an officer's superiors and an informant, dealings she's not supposed to know about. And a plot that could kill thousands of Americans. Including her husband and daughter. Knowing that her leadership is corrupt to the core, she is forced to give up her identity and to work from the shadows. But it's not easy staying hidden when your enemies are elite intelligence operatives.