Showing results by narrator "Darla Middlebrook" in All Categories

Often the smallest unexpected surprises garner the most demanding dilemmas, which proves to be the ordeal that entomologist Ben Whytten faces. While netting butterflies to add to his vast collection, he mistakenly sweeps what he thinks is the most spectacular butterfly he has ever seen into his net. Upon examining his catch, Ben is horrified to discover he has captured a faery and shredded her delicate wings into useless ribbons.

Ora Stone's memories were erased for her protection. She is a witch, hidden in the human realm, hidden from the others of her kind, and protected by ancient magic. On her first day of college, she loses her amulet, releasing her long-dormant powers. Purely by accident, she performs a levitation spell, an action that breaks the Concealment Code and summons Protectors from Conjuragic to investigate. She is arrested and taken across the Veil to stand trial for her crimes.

One of America's first civil rights activists was a former slave named Sojourner Truth. Truth was born into slavery around the year 1797, and would wait thirty years to win her freedom. Her 1850 autobiography brought attention to the evils of slavery, and her work during the Civil War, her speeches highlighting injustice, and her efforts to ensure greater equality for all Americans inspired those who would follow.

Do you want to live forever? Ever since Jacob Benjamin touched his dead grandmother's cheek while she lay in her coffin, he has had a fascination with death. The mystery of the grave and what lies beyond it became a lifetime quest for the young man. His Master's Degree thesis project explores the decades-abandoned Waxley Mortuary, sitting in ruins. His research partners join him on a journey through life and legacy, but Jacob discovers there is still activity inside the dilapidated walls of Waxley. Jacob realizes that there is one figure standing between him and his legacy, salvation, and redemption: The Mortician.

Life in Clearwater was quiet, even a little dull for Grim, but it was better than the time he'd spent on the streets of Seattle. Then the strange girl arrived, abandoned at a roadside diner. Drugged, sick, with no memory of her past. Grim had a bad feeling about her from the beginning but he didn't say anything when his foster mother, Clara, took her in. If anyone needed a home, it was this strange, sad girl - Clara's new Angel...

In a land of vast forests and clustered cities, humans and anthelai live in uneasy proximity. Forced deep into the wilds, the anthelai are feared and hated. They are perceived as monsters, servants of the dark god Enas, master of the hell-like Plains of Centura. Halfbloods, the children of two species, are extremely rare. The blood does not mix easy, but when it does, the result belongs to neither side. They are outcasts. The lone survivor of an attack that destroys her home and family, one halfblood girl is captured by a man bent on transforming her into a deadly assassin.

It was 1939, and a close-knit South African family found themselves in need of a new home. Peter van der Westhuizen, a husband and father of seven who spent most of his days on the road as a truck driver, did his best to provide for them. Then he found Opsaal. It’s an Afrikaans word that means "saddle up", but it was also a place: a farm, to be exact - a lonesome speck of nothing on the edge of a dirt track nowhere near a main road in the South African wilderness, somewhere in the Adelaide district.

Roble’s quest requires that he journey deep into the Woodnog Swamps to confront the god Lez’minx. Through trickery and temptation, Roble accepted Lez’minx’s gift of two magical rings, and soon learns of the deceitful enchantment, but not until after he finds the rings permanently attached to his fingers. Roble plans to meet the god and demand the spell binding him to Lez’minx be broken forever. But no one should ever order a god to do anything.

A homesick, 16 year-old Roman girl and her illegitimate child, are exiled by the Emperor Nero to Britannia. A middle-aged Celtic king of an insignificant tribe is trying to find middle ground between Celtic tradition and Roman rule and is making enemies on both sides. The shadow of martyred Queen Boudicca is like a curse on the land. An old Legionary is willing to give his life for a friend, and there's a former Greek slave with a secret past that rescues him.

Set internationally and spanning two decades, Annisa is an intricate portrait of a young Afghan girl's struggle to survive after the Soviet invasion in 1979. Her harrowing escape to America, and her fatal decision to return to her people in Afghanistan, evokes insight into a society torn apart by terrorism, drug smuggling, and bitter conflicts over the role of its women.

Flicker is a modern-day ghost story set in a haunted diner. When Charlie Brace buys, refurbishes, and opens a diner that’s been up on blocks for many years, he gets much more than he bargained for.

Tales of a Minstrel follows the adventures of a minstrel named Finbar as he travels from village to village telling his stories. His own experiences, however, tend to outshine even the most exciting story he tells.

Deanna was just another third-rate colony in the Terran Empire - and it was pretty much as boring a lump of rock as could be expected. That is, until Gary Beck, a.k.a. Beck the Badfeller, ran over an obsidian crow with his jeep on the highway to San Fedora and didn’t have a spare tire. Things pretty much went down hill from there.

Who poisoned Laurens De Noyes with a deadly dose of brandy so that the drunken Dutchman dropped dead on Boston Common? Widowed businesswoman Hetty Henry teams up with young Boston minister Increase "Creasy" Cotton to investigate colonial Albany for suspects. Could it be the wife who keeps her own name and her cool at news of her husband's death? Could it be his father-in-law who detested his philandering son-in-law?

Matt Green’s successful capitalist lifestyle is shattered when a trusted property management company mismanages his portfolio, leaving him with vacant rental properties, civil litigation, mounting debts, and the threat of criminal charges for harassment. He meets an enigmatic and alluring woman Angelique Augusto on an internet dating site. After two passionate weeks, Angelique begins to show a terrifying side, demanding to know Matt’s whereabouts every hour of every day.

Skillfully narrated by storyteller Darla Middlebrook, this Robert Louis Stevenson tale of Keawe, a poor Hawaiian man, who buys a strange bottle from a sad, elderly gentleman who credits the bottle with his fortune. The elderly gentleman promises that an imp residing in the bottle will also grant Keawe his every desire. Of course, there is a catch - the bottle must be sold at a loss, i.e. for less than its owner originally paid, or else it will simply return to him. The currency used in the transaction must also be in coin (not paper money or a bank check).

In this 13th Justice Security story, Lieutenant Michelle (Mickey) Rooney of the Chicago Police Department returns, along with Detective Sam Tanner and ex-cop Manny Salazar. This time, two of them have a price on their heads, along with Joey Justice of Justice Security. The bounty has been placed on them by insane Mexican drug cartel leader Esteban Fernandez. Fernandez has hired Lido Bouvier, a wild Cajun assassin, to eliminate all three.

Abbie had been treating two victims of the Chabot rapist who targeted girls, and as she's making progress in their care, unbelievably, someone abducts and strangles them. Their deaths devastate Abbie. During Abbie's difficult recovery, memories of past events gradually return. They are fragmentary and torture her with memory flashes and nightmares. Gradually, she begins to suspect that one of her adult patients may be the strangler.

This is the thrilling follow-up to Orope: The White Snake. Orope introduced listeners to a unique fantasy world inspired by Bronze Age history and mythology. Pekari: The Azure Fish takes listeners further, going to new kingdoms and introducing new characters. The gods are still angry, but the Whisperers of the Gods are closer than ever to saving the world from a terrible flood.

Speculative fiction stories that are set in or about Archaeological Ruins. The protagonist in each story is an archaeologist who is a woman of color. Ruins range from those in the American Southwest to Central America, to the Andes Mountains to Egypt to the Middle East, Egypt to Aboriginal Australia, and across other areas. Some incorporate mythology of the ancient cultures who built and inhabited the ruins. Some of the protagonists are descendants of the ancient peoples of the ruins.