Showing results by narrator "Nancy Wu" in All Categories

From Cixin Liu, the New York Times best-selling author of The Three-Body Problem, To Hold Up the Sky is a breathtaking collection of imaginative science fiction.

The Sino-American contest is driven by clashing geopolitical interests and a stark ideological dispute over whether authoritarianism or democracy will dominate the twenty-first century. But both history and China's current trajectory suggest that this rivalry will reach its moment of maximum danger in the 2020s. The Chinese challenge will most likely prove more manageable than many pessimists currently believe—but during the 2020s, the pace of Sino-American conflict will accelerate, and the prospect of war will be frighteningly real.

Waking up in a tacky coffin and wearing off-brand shoes, Betsy Taylor can't believe the horrible turn her life has taken; then she discovers she's a vampire. Soon, Betsy becomes a participant in a power struggle between the forces of darkness. With only her friend Jessica and the hunky vampire Sinclair to help her, this new "Queen of Vampires" will have a tough time getting her afterlife straight.

A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew. Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island.

Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she’s known. She’s a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself—and about the humans who hope to save her.

Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as infants. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While Mokoya received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What's more, they saw the sickness at the heart of their mother's Protectorate.

After dying, Faith awakens in a fairy tale world from a book she read as a child. With no memories of how she died, she has to survive in a new body that once belonged to Kaeda, one of the lead villain’s lackeys. But in the novel, Kaeda is destined to die! To avoid dying again, Faith uses her knowledge of the novel to survive a world at war and avoid Kaeda's fate. But as the story unravels from a new perspective, she finds unexpected love—and realizes that the villain and hero are not what they seem. Who is the true villain of this story? Can Faith find her own happily ever after?

Amy Tan takes us deep into the illicit world of 1912 Shanghai, where beautiful courtesans mercilessly compete for the patronage of wealthy gentlemen. For the women, the contest is deadly serious, a perilous game of economic survival that, if played well, can set them up for life as mistresses of the rich and prominent. There is no room for error, however: Erotic power is hard to achieve and harder to maintain, especially in the loftiest social circles. Enter veteran seducer, Magic Gourd, formerly one of Shanghai’s “Top Ten Beauties” and now the advisor and attendant of Violet, an aspiring but inexperienced courtesan.

From kung-fu to tofu, tea to trade routes, sages to silk, China has influenced cuisine, commerce, military strategy, aesthetics, and philosophy across the world for thousands of years. Chinese history is nothing if not messy. Heroes are also villains; prosperity mingles with violence; cultural vibrancy coexists with censorship and repression. Modern China is seen variously as an economic powerhouse, an icon of urbanization, a propaganda state, and an aggressive superpower seeking world domination.

Told through the eyes of the Leongs' secret-keeping daughters and wives and spanning the Boxer Rebellion to Pearl Harbor to 1960s Hawaii, Diamond Head is a breathtakingly powerful tale of tragic love, shocking lies, poignant compromise, aching loss, heroic acts of sacrifice, and miraculous hope.

We know that autoimmune disease—a condition when the body’s immune system attacks its own healthy tissue and cells—affects about one in ten Americans, or 24 million people, with prevalence increasing worldwide. But as New York Times bestselling author Dr. Sara Gottfried explains in this eye-opening new book, autoimmune disease may be even more pervasive than we realize—and its root cause may surprise you.

A schoolgirl - Siu-Man - has committed suicide, leaping from her 22nd floor window to the pavement below. Siu-Man was an orphan, and Nga-Yee, the librarian older sister who'd been raising her, refuses to believe there was no foul play - although nothing seemed amiss. She contacts a man known only as N, a hacker and an expert in cyber-security and manipulating human behavior. But can Nga-Yee interest him sufficiently to take her case, and can she afford it if he says yes?

Spanning more than 150 years, and set in multiple locations in colonial and postcolonial Asia and the United States, Inheritors paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of its characters as they grapple with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war. Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designed to speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories.

Being a hero isn't easy. But Hilo had no idea it would be this hard. Hilo came to earth because he was running from Razorwark. But he's done running. Razorwark has come to earth. And the time has come for one final face to face showdown. What happens will decide the fate of the robot world . . . and Hilo's future. The sacrifice will be great. But with Izzy's help, Hilo finally knows what he has to do. Because THIS is how all the pieces fit.

One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterward, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own.

When Veronica Lewis wakes up in a Nevada hospital, the doctors tell her that she was badly injured in a car accident. She claims to be a college student at New York University, but a quick call to the admissions department reveals that she graduated years ago. Vonny has no memory of the past decade and no idea what she was doing in Nevada. The situation intensifies when a pair of detectives shows up at the hospital. They inform Vonny that her husband, John, was recently found dead. The detectives reveal that he was murdered in an alleyway and want to begin questioning her immediately.

Set two years before the events of The Will of the Empress and Melting Stones, this adventure reunites plant mage Briar; his mentor, Rosethorn; and his young apprentice, Evvy, who has a talent for making stones...do things. The three journey eastward to the forbidding land of Yanjing, where they discover a danger that threatens the home temple of the Living Circle religion.

“Imparting some piece of yourself—any part—is arduous and warrants some kind of commendation,” writes guest editor Wesley Morris in his introduction. Both personal and personable, the essayists in this volume use their own vulnerability to guide listeners on excursions that unfold on uncomfortable edges. From contemplating the nuances of memory to exploring the complexities of family, romance, gender identity, illness, and death, Morris’s selection of essays presents a roundup of the thinkers who masterfully grapple with the issues of our time.

Once she was Eon, a girl disguised as a boy, risking her life for the chance to become a Dragoneye apprentice. Now she is Eona, the Mirror Dragoneye, her country’s savior — but she has an even more dangerous secret .She cannot control her power. Each time she tries to bond with her Mirror Dragon, she becomes a conduit for the ten spirit dragons whose Dragoneyes were murdered by Lord Ido.

What was the pandemic of the century like at the start? This swift, gripping novel captures not only the uncertainty and panic when COVID first emerged in Wuhan, but also how a community banded together. Weaving in the tastes and sounds of the historic city, Wuhan’s comforting and distinctive cuisine comes to life as the listener follows 13-year-old Mei who, through her love for cooking, makes a difference in her community. Written by an award-winning author originally from Wuhan.