Showing results by narrator "MARIA MARQUIS" in All Categories

High Mistress Talia is a hell-raising socialite with a murky past. But she has a bright future. Beautiful, rich, and a virtuoso harpist, she’s betrothed to the Count of Brecht. In short, she has it all. Or so it would seem. Marla Holst is the new lady’s maid, but never has the "help" been so unhelpful. Marla, real name Mist, has only one mission: to stop the high mistress’ marriage. By any means necessary. But complications abound. And all the nobility want to do is duel. Meanwhile, the highlight of the season, a recital of the famous "Cursed Symphony", draws ever closer.

In the last volume of the Fourth Talisman series, the worlds of the living and the dead collide in a final confrontation that will leave Nocturne and Solis forever changed...Three talismans adrift. Two mad kings. One poisonous crown. As dark forces gather at the Rock of Ariamazes in Samarqand, Nazafareen discovers that there are worse places than the afterlife. The twisted creature pulling the Vatras’ strings is holed up in the deepest level of the Dominion - and only she has the power to follow him there, though at the potential cost of her own soul.

In the fourth volume of The Fourth Talisman series, Nazafareen risks everything on a desperate gamble to stop the Vatras, once and for all. Determined to confront Culach and make amends, Nazafareen goes to Val Moraine, setting off a chain of events that ultimately leads her deep into the perilous wasteland called the Kiln and the faceless enemy waiting there. But the ancient hatred that shattered the world a millennium before is stronger and far more devious than she and her companions imagine. Is the Viper truly dead? And can Nazafareen triumph without facing her own heart's darkness?

Calli learns about Chris's motives and tries to understand his dilemmas. Given no choice, the two of them travel with a mysterious companion back to General Harding's facility. They make an effort to dismantle the programs that are exterminating people with powers and wiping Diamond Bearers from the face of the Earth.

When you’re a cog in a cycle of generational trauma, how do you disrupt harmful patterns and build your own? How do you become a healthy mom when you never had one? In Mother Trauma, Emily Bowers shares her story to reveal the truth about emotional abuse and its lifelong impact on survivors. She reveals the steps she’s taken to heal old wounds, learn self-love, and grow into the mother she wanted and needed as a child. You can learn from trauma rather than live in it, but you need hope, healing, and compassion—from others and yourself.

The Diamond of Freedom, book three in The Unaltered series, melds together history, geology, metaphysics, science, and fantasy in this non-stop nail biter. Calli and Chris race against the clock to identify the power-neutralizing stone that prevents Calli from healing her life-threatening injuries. She must also learn how to counter its effects before she can fight against the rogue Diamond Bearer named Freedom to save the boy she loves and the world of her friends.

Ness Opute will not fail again. The woman who murdered his wife, who has eluded him for many years, has killed again. To bring her to his own personal justice, Opute must give up his identity as a notorious smuggler and work his way up the ranks of her empire. If he can climb to her inner circle, he will claim victory over her lifeless body. But Opute isn’t the only one on the hunt.

On June 21, 2016, Pacific Gas & Electric Company announced a plan to shutter California’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025. The plan was hailed by environmental groups and politicians around the country. Then, suddenly, the state’s Democratic establishment reversed the decision, and in 2024 the Biden-Harris administration awarded the plant $1.1 billion in credits to extend its life. What happened in between? In Atomic Dreams, journalist and lifelong environmentalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow unearths the surprising answers—and the deep-seated conflicts behind them.

Nick Carraway is expecting a normal life. He has a steady, if boring, job and a modest home. He even has some family nearby. But there's one thing he didn't plan for - his neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. Gatsby hosts lavish parties, while rumors about his sordid past fill the air. After attending an infamous Gatsby bash, Nick is pulled into love triangles, destructive wealth, secrets, and far too much champagne. Join Nick on a journey through art deco decay.

I dream of waking up and being someone else - my hair, my eyes, even my voice, completely different - and each time I go to the mirror to check my reflection, to see what I look like, I’m her. Every time. Her. It’s her reflection that stares back at me, but I’m the one who controls it. I’m in control, and that’s exactly why it feels so good. I control her and what happens to me; I control both lives - mine and hers - and I have what I want the most: her looks, her status, her marriage. There’s nothing left of me, and only I know the secret.

Tangled influences compel a young girl to hide her true nature, until one weekend in her mid-20s when the truths she’s been suppressing call her to a crossroads she can’t avoid. Insulated from societal mores by her glamorous mother and humble father, six-year-old Beatrice—barefoot in ratty overalls—tunes into animals, senses the unspoken, and thrives. But when tragedy penetrates their rural Vermont bubble, Beatrice is thrust into a world that tells her she has no place unless she hides her depth, pretties up, and falls in line. She complies.

Elyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She's been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than average people, so that while she looks 18 years old, she's closer to 80. The second is that her blood has a mysterious power to heal. For Elyse, these things don't make her special. They make life dangerous.

Set in Rome, Chicago, and Anchorage and spanning thirty years, The Book of Timothy: The Devil, My Brother, and Me recounts in lyric movements a sister’s journey, partly through trickery, but eventually through truth, to gain a long-absent admission from the priest who abused her brother. While on that journey, Nockels Wilson confronts not only the priest, but her personal quest for vengeance. She further seeks an understanding of how the first Book of Timothy, the alleged work of St. Paul, contributed to the silencing of women in her once loved Catholic Church.

Bekk cannot seem to stay awake. As a sophomore in high school, it doesn't bode well for his education or the social services agent breathing down his older brother - and guardian's - neck. But Bekk can't help it. He's being plagued by dreams - dreams from his childhood, about a land called Iyah. If he doesn't snap out of it soon, he'll be taken away from the only family he has left. But when the school psychologist insists it's a childhood reaction to the trauma of his parent's death, Bekk's only recourse is to figure out the meaning of his dreams, before it's too late.

As her search draws closer to uncovering the twisted truth, she begins receiving ominous warnings to stay quiet and drop the story. The young journalist is in danger. Her cameraman and best friend, a person with his own secret past, says he wants to protect her. But Shelby is headstrong, dodging anything that could lead to love. She can't allow anyone to distract her as she fights for the two women who deserve justice. She never expects that, along the way, she'll have to stop and save herself.

Daith Tocc has discovered some incredible things about herself while aboard the spaceship the Horizon: She is smart and charming and has psionic powers that allow her to sense emotions, melt physical objects, even heal or injure with a thought. The problem is, she doesn't have any memory of who she used to be.

In the mid-1800s, at the encouragement of a dear friend, Emily Dickinson began writing poetry. Fewer than 12 of her poems were published while she was alive. The hundreds of poems for which Emily is known and celebrated today were almost lost at the hands of her sister, who was only fulfilling her dying sibling's wish.

Lucy and Ruth are country girls from a broken home. When they move to the city with their mother, leaving behind their family ranch and deadbeat father, Lucy unravels. They run to their grandparents’ place, a trailer park mobile home in the barrio of San Jose. Lucy’s barrio friends have changed since her last visit. They’ve joined a gang called VC. They teach her to fight, to shank, to beat a person unconscious and play with guns.

Lead Council member Christoph is dead by Elyse's hand, and Descendants have begun to emerge, exposing their secret to the world. Some see this as the prophecy come to fruition, but the prophecy caries a heavy consequence. It was never meant to be as peaceful as most had hoped. Humans and Descendants struggle to live together in a world that isn't ready for such a change. Those who glorify the supernatural race believe Descendants truly are the gods they claim relation to.

Uprising continues the story of Elyse, William and the descendants. Elyse has been in hiding for most of her life. Only now she's hiding with William, and she knows who she's hiding from. The Council want a child Elyse and William have yet to conceive, a child who will be the next oracle, and who will provide the final piece to a plan Christoph has been organizing for years.