Showing results by narrator "Daniela Acitelli." in All Categories

Nearly a decade after getting chased out of the Army for fighting back against abuse, Monna Locke's skill and discretion have made her the go-to safecracker for Los Angeles clients who need vaults opened and no questions asked. When a lawyer hires her to retrieve a box from his client's mansion, it seems like an easy payday—until she opens the safe and is immediately attacked by heavily-armed men.

When Zeke’s sister-in-law Rachel Caen was found dead on Christmas Eve, her family assumed that she had taken her own life. Now five years later, one of the emeralds that Rachel was wearing at the time of her death is discovered at a stonecutter’s house in Portland, Oregon. With his brother Simon under suspicion for Rachel’s murder and stealing the emeralds, Zeke and detective Sarah are under pressure to clear his name. But with troubles of their own and in need of a place to hide, the duo return to Zeke’s hometown where a spiritual force helps Sarah find another emerald....

Can corals build worlds? Do rattlesnakes enchant? What is a raccoon, and what might it know? Animals and the questions they raised thwarted human efforts to master nature during the so-called Enlightenment—a historical moment when rigid classification pervaded the study of natural history, people traded in people, and imperial avarice wrapped its tentacles around the globe. Whitney Barlow Robles makes animals the unruly protagonists of eighteenth-century science through journeys to four spaces and ecological zones: the ocean, the underground, the curiosity cabinet, and the field.

It’s been fifteen years since Vivian Delacroix unleashed her followers on the town of Cardinal Falls. The cult members killed anyone Vivian told them was a threat to their beliefs. Now, another killer takes young girls of nine or ten, all related to Vivian’s original victims. He drugs them, suffocates them, and painstakingly arranges them in ritualistic poses. The bodies give up no evidence to the killer’s identity.

Homeless, broke, and broken, Eaven Alexander strives to resurrect her life. Her degrees in historical architecture and antiques attract a lucrative but questionable job offer to locate an important document for the mysterious Greg Sault. The hunt takes her inside a decaying mansion and into conflict with Clayton Mercer, a town heavyweight and Greg’s enemy. Too late, she realizes that something insidious is lurking behind Astoria’s idyllic façade. And that no one is who they claim to be.

Piper Robbin and the American Oz Maker is an adult fantasy that takes one of world's favorite tales and transforms it into a dark and epic landscape few can escape much less understand. Imagine Potter meets Avengers in Emerald city and you're getting close. After a magical hostile from Orion falls to Earth and proceeds to play cat-and-mouse with the human race, the 21st century's greatest sorcerers create a network of seven Oz-like city worlds designed to protect everyone from the alien entity. But the alien is far more powerful than anyone suspected.

Drina skips foreplay when she seduces traitors. Rather, she specializes in afterplay: deporting them to a not-so-perfect island in the Mediterranean. All goes well for this Gypsy spy until Carlo walks into her honey trap. She loses her heart to the man twenty years her junior. Carlo is one of three young adults who roam the region in search of fathers they have never known. When he meets one of them, Theresa, there is an instant spark.

The Past Awakens by Ali Kaden is a riveting journey through the enigmatic town of Baneford, Massachusetts, where the shadows of history loom large over the present.

hen a young mother abandons her baby in a crowded park, Nora steps in to take her place. Little does Nora know that this act of kindness will plunge her into a chilling and twisted journey. As Nora becomes deeply entangled in the life of the abandoned child, a series of dark secrets about the mother’s haunting past gradually come to light. The more Nora uncovers, the more she realises she has unwittingly entered a manipulative web of lies and deceit.

Who among us would not wish the return of our lost loved one? Our narrator, while in the depths of grief for his "Lenore", is visited by a talking raven. Is this supernatural raven a voice from the other side, or is our narrator merely following a slow, sorrowful descent into madness?

Alexandra knew they were hiding something inside that gorgeous house. When she discovers her landlord’s son lied about sexually assaulting a classmate, she’s disgusted that his parents are protecting him from prosecution. As Alex plots to avenge a woman who has no voice, she realizes justice may bring her face to face with her greatest fear.

A woman arrives in Florence, overwhelmed by the strange, warm city so different from her home. Amidst the Renaissance architecture and amorous couples, she finds an unexpected love of her own. With his dark, ugly looks, people might stop and stare, wondering what someone like her was doing with someone like him. But he's the Mickey to her Minnie, and she can fix him—they can fix each other. She feels bound to him, body and soul.

It's a warm, cloudless morning on the day the envelope arrives for Daisy. Soft sunlight streams into the apartment she shares with her partner, Anderson, who is sleeping peacefully. Daisy's fought hard for this happiness, worked her way up from being a vulnerable teenage runaway to a woman with a stable job and a loving boyfriend.

The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This semi-autobiographical story was first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. In this story, which was written after a severe bout of postpartum depression, Charlotte gives us a disturbing and surreal view of the deterioration of a woman's mental health and her descent into psychosis from her depression.

When her husband, Dell, is seriously injured in an accident meant to free her from her past, Emily is left to await his recovery alone. Traversing time without the man of her dreams becomes a nightmare with no apparent end, until her husband's younger self, Shane, arrives - handsome, arrogant, and ready to challenge Emily's feelings for a husband who might not survive his injuries. Inspired by the memory of Maude, her beloved great-great-aunt, Emily tries to escape her new life, only to discover that she may have just risked everything for the love of Maude.

Madison Archer was a perfect daughter, with perfectly dark secrets. She did not mind that her father used her as a pawn in a business deal. She knew this role well, but meeting Jackie Westin sent her perfect world into a tailspin. Jackie introduced Madison to a different kind of love in a different kind of world, a world that would bend everything Madison believed about life. This is a tale of forbidden love, in a world of dark secrets, betrayals, and intrigue.

Twenty-two short stories that will lift your spirits or break your heart from acclaimed author Warren Adler, well known for iconic novel turned international box-office hit The War of the Roses. Written to celebrate the author’s return to New York City after 40 years away from it, Adler focuses his laser eye on New York City in these 22 deftly crafted and compelling short stories. New York, the frenetic, tough-minded, generous-hearted city, magnet for people’s hopes and aspirations, is as vividly and lovingly portrayed here as any of the characters.

Forty-five-year-old Beverly Hill had her life together—or so she thought. She had a good job, great friends, and the most spectacularly wonderful and exhausting niece a woman could want. It should’ve been enough. But then an angel walked into her life, and all hell broke loose. Bev is tossed into a world darker than she’d ever imagined—even after living through the last couple years of hell mouths, lake monsters, and friendly neighborhood demons. It will take Bev, her necromancer-in-training niece, and Barachiel to combat the darkness and save the town from the vengeful dead.

In this unnerving Edgar Allen Poe tale, our narrator insists on his sanity after carefully calculating and committing the brutal murder of an old man because of his monstrous eye. He argues that it is quite sane to cut the body into pieces and hide it under the floorboards. Will our narrator's guilt be his undoing? To what extent will he go to defend his sanity?

The secret Father Manny Gonzalez, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, kept for over 20 years had clearly caught up with him when he is found shot dead in his parish rectory. His childhood friend, Lieutenant Ryan Condon, commander of the NYPD Bronx Homicide Squad, seems determined to have the priest's killer brought to justice. The stakes are raised when an unyielding Latina detective, Toni Santiago, begins to suspect the lieutenant's involvement. The Sons of Mount Carmel delves into themes of faith, trust, and atonement, exploring the consequences of past choices.