Showing results by narrator "Darla Middlebrook" in All Categories

The city of Kairouan in Tunisia, 1020. Hela has powers too strong for a child - both to feel the pain of those around her and to heal them. But when she is given a mysterious cup by a slave woman, its powers overtake her life, forcing her into a vow she cannot hope to keep. Trapped by her vow, Hela loses one chance after another to love and be loved. Meanwhile, in her household, a child is growing into a woman who will become famous throughout the Muslim world.

Jack London, famed for his tales of adventure, was also a science fiction writer only rivaled in his time by the great H. G. Wells. The Iron Heel is a dystopia that would, in part, inspire George Orwell's masterwork, 1984. The Iron Heel tracks the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States of America - and the doomed attempt to counter it. It is a novel more relevant today than it was in its day. Hear the "tale of capitalist oppression" that George Orwell couldn't stop thinking about.

The fifth and final installment of Russian Collection for Kids goes well and truly outside of the boundaries of Russia and all over the world. Folk tales and stories by foreign authors, narratives from various continents, fanciful and fascinating story lines, people, places, and animals - everything has been thrown in and mixed thoroughly in this comprehensive collection, bound to astonish and delight both children and grown-ups.

In an era when women are sequestered and silenced, Miryam of Magdala lives a contended life until her son's careless gesture evokes a hostile action that shatters her serenity. With no hope of justice, Miryam commits an unthinkable act... and descends into depths of darkness that threaten her life and her sanity. Even after Yeshua the Messiah dramatically restores her life, Miryam can neither forget nor forgive unresolved injustices.

Ora escaped Conjuragic, barely avoiding the terrible fate the tribunal sentenced her to after the trial. Now back in the human realm, she must race across the world to find allies and train her to use her forgotten powers while avoiding the Hunters. As Ora tries to master the power within, a greater challenge lays ahead. But only if she can convince others to join her cause, heal her broken heart, and cross over the bridge from victim to hero.

This collection of stories from some of the brightest fantasy writers in the world run the gamut from steampunk to horror, from steamy romance to weird western, from Victorian thriller to contemporary bondage. But they all feature one thing in common - the corset. From vampire comedy to steampunk action to BDSM, Cinched is certain to free your mind. What else will follow?

After that disappointing and sudden end to what had been a promising career, Mei rewarded herself with a long, relaxing vacation in the outback to celebrate her gender reassignment and her new start in life. The first stop on her journey turned out to be a little backwater planet called Deanna....

In November 1912, popular and pretty 18-year-old Ella Barham was raped, murdered, and dismembered in broad daylight near her home in rural Boone County, Arkansas. The brutal crime sent shock waves through the Ozarks and made national news. Authorities swiftly charged a neighbor, Odus Davidson, with the crime. Locals were determined that he be convicted. This examination of the murder of Ella Barham and the trial of her alleged killer opens a window into the meaning of community and due process during a time when politicians and judges sought to professionalize justice.

For the first time ever, the Vampire Covenant in one volume. Included in this omnibus is all three novels (The Vampires of Hope's Covenant, Rage of the Vampire, and War of the Vampire). Also included are short stories and a never before published sample of the upcoming prequel novel: The Birth of the Vampire: The Journal of Kersey Avonwood.

Faith, an anomaly to the human race, must defend herself, her world, and her universe from certain doom after accidentally injuring a monster she runs into at her high school graduation. Her adventures lead her and a Watcher known as The Man, to the planet Quii, a city-planet outside her own universe that potentially holds a key to stopping the end of planet Earth. On Quii, secrets come out, and they learn truths about the mysterious Rymuth Elves, the planet's only inhabitants.

The Bronze Age saw the beginning of empires, as well as their mysterious and catastrophic end. In a world not unlike our own, the nomadic Whisperers of the Gods have been given a grave vision of the gods destroying the world in a great flood, and they send three messengers to the great empires in hopes of appeasing the gods. Finding themselves in strange new lands with even stranger customs, the Whisperers soon discover the hardest thing is not only convincing the kings and queens to listen, but also reaching their destinations without falling prey to the dangers and temptations of these new lands.

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.

Action! Adventure! Time Travel! Each day shapes the days that follow...The Time Saving Agency liked having fresh agents on the job, who had a clear mind and steady hand. After all, time travel wasn’t for the faint of heart. The pay was good enough, but as Johnathan Scrooby decided long ago - even if he didn’t get paid for it, the thrill alone was payment enough! Then again, the TSA realized they couldn’t afford to have disgruntled employees with the power of God at their fingertips, so the pay was very, very good indeed!

Over a century ago, The Brothers Grimm compiled an iconic collection of stories. Over forty years ago, American cinema was infected by the walking dead. A few years ago, classic literature fell to that same infection. Now, it is time for the logical, but simultaneously unlikely, fusion of the often mistakenly labeled Grimm's Fairy Tales to fall prey to the gaping maw of undeath. Volume One of Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales offers up the first twenty-five stories with a liberal dose of blood, gore, and zombies.

Deor Smithfield had it all figured out. She had a great education, a new job teaching at a good university, and a plan to move across the country to start her new life. Then her body betrayed her, and she seemed to be falling prey to the same wasting sickness that killed her mother. When medical science failed her in spectacular fashion, Deor's grandmother told her that her long-lost father was more than just another deadbeat dad - he was a faerie, and she's a Changeling, half-human, half-fae.

"If your death ever comes before mine, I hope the gods take my life soon after." Duli and her husband had stated those words to each other several times. Then the day came when his dwarf kin brought his body back from the field of an ambush...Duli only wishes her own death, but in the process sparks a liberation movement that shakes the subterranean city to its core values. Even if the women win over their clan, they must still prove they have the mettle to face their husbands' killers, and the magic that humans command.

Returning from an evening in Mars City spent visiting relatives he didn’t know he had, Timaset Skooch arrived at the local space port to find his new acquisition stolen. A few minutes later, the crew of his slightly run-down loderunner "Celeste", returned from a nearby pub, blind drunk, puzzled, and now unemployed as well. Ever since he’d decided to quit being a PI and to try his hand at running cargo instead, things had just blown up in Skooch’s face one day at a time (Florpavian Flamebirds tended to do that occasionally).

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...

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?

Isabel Kramer's dream of running competitively, frustrated since age 17, reveals itself when, on a lark, she joins her daughter in the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Now age 60, Izzy challenges her misgivings, the sage and well-intentioned advice of family and friends, and prepares for long-distance running. Izzy, a psychiatrist and professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, has no illusions about the likelihood of success and the possibility of injury, but amazingly, she outperforms expectations.