Showing results by narrator "Kate Reinders"

Firstborns rule society. Secondborns are the property of the government. Thirdborns are not tolerated. Long live the Fates Republic. On Transition Day, the second child in every family is taken by the government and forced into servitude. Roselle St. Sismode's eighteenth birthday arrives with harsh realizations: she's to become a soldier for the Fate of Swords military arm of the Republic during the bloodiest rebellion in history, and her elite firstborn mother is happy to see her go.

Secondborn Roselle St. Sismode was pressed into military service to battle the rebel uprising threatening the society that enslaves her. Now, powerful factions conspire to subvert the lines of succession, positioning Roselle to replace her mother as leader of the Republic's armed forces. But the woman who bore her would sooner see Roselle dead than let her usurp her firstborn brother's command.

On a sunny day at the beach with her mom and brother, 15-year-old Jane Arrowood went for a swim. And then everything — absolutely everything — changed. Now she’s counting down the days until she returns to school with her fake arm and kids will whisper, "That’s her. That’s Shark Girl," when she passes. But right now there are only questions. Why did this happen? Why her? What about her art? What about her life?

Sarai was only fourteen when her mother uprooted her to live in Mexico with a notorious drug lord. Over time she forgot what it was like to live a normal life, but she never let go of her hope to escape the compound where she has been held for the past nine years. Victor is a cold-blooded assassin who, like Sarai, has known only death and violence since he was a young boy. When Victor arrives at the compound to collect details and payment for a hit, Sarai sees him as her only opportunity for escape.

Isaac Mayfair is hiding a dark secret. And just when Adria Dawson thinks the worst of her life among the werewolf world is over, she learns the secret that can rip her and Isaac's love apart. Adria must come to terms with what the truth means for her. What it means for her life and how much time she has left to live it. She must choose between two different fates, neither of which can offer life as a certainty.

Philippa Fisher is feeling lonely. She misses her fairy godsister, Daisy. But while on vacation with her parents, she befriends a local girl named Robyn. Though she’s excited to have a friend again, Philippa can’t help but feel that there’s something strange about Robyn and her father. Meanwhile, Daisy, who is hard at work on a new mission, misses Philippa as well, so she decides to break the rules to visit her friend. Though the girls are happy to be reunited, things soon begin to go horribly wrong with Daisy’s assignment.

When Alice was 10, Ray took her away from her family, her friends - her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over. Now Alice is 15 and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of her death. He does not know it is what she longs for. She does not know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her. This is Alice's story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.

Princess Ko's been bluffing about the mysterious absence of her father, desperately trying to keep the government running on her own. But if she can't get him back in a matter of weeks, the consequence may be a devastating war. So under the guise of a publicity stunt she gathers a group of teens - each with a special ability - from across the kingdom to crack the unsolvable case of the missing royals of Cello.

My name is Sophie. This book is about me. It tells the heart-stoppingly riveting story of my first love. And also of my second. And, okay, my third love, too.

Fredrik Gustavsson never considered the possibility of love, or that anyone could ever understand or accept his dark and bloody lifestyle - until he met Seraphina, a woman as vicious and blood-thirsty as Fredrik himself. They spent two short but unforgettable years together, full of lust and killing and the darkest kind of love that two people can share. And then Seraphina was gone. It's been six years since Fredrik's lover and sadistic partner in crime turned his world upside-down.

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and Ryu — Jane’s bloodsucking boyfriend — can’t let a major holiday go by without getting all gratuitous. An overwhelming dose of boyfriend interference and a last - minute ticket to Boston later, and Jane’s life is thrown off course.

Determined to live a dark life in the company of the assassin who freed her from bondage, Sarai sets out on her own to settle a score with an evil sadist. Unskilled and untrained in the art of killing, the events that unfold leave her hanging precariously on the edge of death when nothing goes as planned. Sarai's reckless choices send her on a path she knows she can never turn back from and so she presents Victor with an ultimatum: Help her become more like him and give her a fighting chance, or she'll do it alone no matter the consequences.

During her nightly, clandestine swim in the freezing winter ocean, a grisly find leads Jane to startling revelations about her heritage: she is only half-human. Now, Jane must enter a world filled with supernatural creatures that are terrifying, beautiful, and deadly — all of which perfectly describe her new “friend,” Ryu, a gorgeous and powerful vampire.

Cello is in crisis. Princess Ko's deception of her people has emerged, and the Kingdom is outraged: The Jagged Edge Elite have taken control, placing the Princess and two members of the Royal Youth Alliance under arrest and ordering their execution; the King's attempts to negotiate their release have failed.

Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other Schools. At Hamilton High, it’s a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part, Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight or haze a freshman. And on three separate occasions Randy’s car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend’s attention. Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: She and the other players’ girlfriends go on a hookup strike.

When 11-year-old Annie first started lying to her social worker, she had been taught by an expert: Gran. "If you’re going to do something, make sure you do it with excellence," Gran would say. That was when Gran was feeling talkative, and not brooding for days in her room - as she did after telling Annie and her little brother, Rew, the one thing they know about their father: that he was killed in a fight with an angry man who was sent away.

Since devastating secrets were uncovered by Nora Kessler, Niklas Fleischer and Victor Faust have been divided as business partners and brothers. Ultimately, Niklas is persuaded to lead a mission to Italy, and he sees it as an opportunity to set in motion forgiveness - or retribution - for his brother's betrayal. The mission: play the role of a wealthy German investor and kidnap a beautiful, notorious madam named Francesca Moretti. No stranger to these types of roles, Niklas is the best man for the job. But this time the risks will be much greater, as he will not be doing it alone.

It's 1926, and the one thing eleven-year-old Lexie Lewis wants more than anything is to leave Portland, Oregon, where she has been staying with her strict grandparents, and rejoin her mother, a carefree singer in San Fransisco's speakeasies. But Mama's new husband doesn't think a little girl should live with parents who work all night and sleep all day.

Victor Faust's new Order is growing. Business is good, as there is no rest for the wicked in an underground world of hardcore criminals and contract killing. Relationships among the operatives have changed little over the past year - but things are about to change now, and all six high-ranking members of the new Order will be blindsided by an unlikely enemy. Loved ones whose only ties to Victor's organization are their relationships with its members are abducted.

This is a story about accepting the people we love - the people we have to love and the people we choose to love, the families we’re given and the families we make. It’s the story of two women adrift in New York, a widow and an almost-orphan, each searching for someone she’s lost. It’s the story of how, even in moments of grief and darkness, there are joys waiting nearby. Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks, making croissants and chocolat chaud, seeking out rare ingredients, all to earn the love of her distracted chef of a mother, who is now packing her off to boarding school.