Showing results by narrator "Marni Penning" in All Categories

Everyone comes from someplace. Everyone has somewhere they feel safe. Some people have found their home and are content where they are. Others feel trapped and yearn to go somewhere else. Many are somewhere else and yearn to go back. But even in these safest of places, sometimes…crime hits home. What happens then?

After witnessing senseless murder, Bel vows to end her mother’s tyrannical reign. But as a young mermaid, she has no choice but to spend time on dry land before she can qualify for the crown. As she strives to capture a man's heart, the underwater realm flows with the blood of the queen's enemies.

As a child, Skylar Mackenzie’s imagination always got her in trouble. Now it’s making her a fortune. She owns Imagine That, a toy and bookstore and creativity center in a small Rhode Island beach town where children, and adults, can use their imagination free from judgment. Skye is about to embark on her biggest venture yet, a weekend retreat of family exploration. But it begins to unravel when she finds her estranged half sister, Amy, on the doorstep. And Amy’s not alone. She’s brought Skye’s first love, Connor Reid - the boy who broke her heart.

Abigail made a sacred vow before her husband passed, a vow she could never, would never, break. But life hasn't been easy without him by her side, and her children grow and change more with every passing day. Sometimes it feels like the world is passing her by, like she'll be lonely forever. Amanda thinks Abigail's husband, as perfect as he may have been, was wrong to ask what he did. She thinks it's time for Abigail to move on, but Amanda has problems of her own to tackle that make it hard to preach. Her business is flailing and her daughters are spinning out of control.

Specialist astronaut Evelyn Slater encounters a small, badly damaged, ancient alien artifact on the first ever space junk elimination mission. Where was it from? Who sent it? International governments impose a security clampdown. Evelyn leads a team of handpicked scientists who make amazing discoveries within the alien device. Secrecy becomes impossible to maintain. When the news is finally released, she becomes embroiled in international politics, worldwide xenophobic hatred, and violence.

When reporter Phoebe Adams loses her job and her fiancé on the same day, it never occurs to her that she’ll also have to support her mother, Ruth, through her divorce from Phoebe’s father after thirty-five years of marriage. They both need a safe haven, and Phoebe knows just the place—Summer Island where Grandma Alice still rules the roost from the big New England beach house Phoebe and Ruth once called home.

In love with one twin, bonded by fire to the other. Welcome back to Arcturus Academy. I survived my first semester, but it's not getting easier. I adore Gage, so why do I share a mage-bond with Ryan, a bully who keeps trying to blackmail me and might get both of us killed? He's like a hydra. Whenever I diffuse one plot, another springs up in its place. How long can this go on before he gets what he wants?

When Berkley Carr opened The Love Shack Animal Haven, she thought she’d finally put her past behind her. But sometimes she feels the sting of the scandal from her youth, especially when she keeps crossing paths with her handsome neighbor. So, she keeps her head down and pours all her love into caring for animals. Lawson Salder moved to Cemetery, Indiana, to escape from the grinding poverty of his childhood. He barely knew Berkley from their old neighborhood, but every time he sees her, the shame and pain come crashing back. He knows she’s got major baggage of her own.

Nylan, the only man among the matriarchal band of “angels” marooned on the high plateau of Candar. Forced to seek a life elsewhere, Nylan descends into a world of warring kingdoms and strange magics in search of a peaceful life with his wife and infant son. His talents, however, make him a valuable weapon—and so the war between chaos and order begins anew.

Amanda and Abigail Brooks didn’t even want a ranch. They should be pleased the secondary beneficiary is trying to take it away. But now they’ve been in Birch Creek for a while, and they’ve started to put down roots. They won’t give up without a fight—even if the odds of winning are bleak. Donna Ellingson started on the wrong side of things, but she’s eager to rectify past mistakes. But when helping one widow harms the other, none of the choices she’s presented with are clear.

One year after a devastating hurricane, bride-to-be Ruth Bancroft is marrying her perfect groom in a quaint fishing village on the Gulf Coast. The weekend is carefully curated, with the displays of pomp and social media magic meant to promote an area still struggling to rebuild as well as bring Ruth’s estranged family back together Yet, as good intentions often go, this road to wed is hell and paved in complications. With tensions rising between the family and the bridal party, long-buried secrets come to light, and accusations start flying.

In his mountain-man days, Elwood “Firestick” McQueen was practically a living legend. His hunting, tracking, and trapping skills were known far and wide. But it was his deadly accuracy with a rifle that earned him the Indian name “Firestick.” His two best buddies are Malachi “Beartooth” Skinner—whose knife was as fatal as a grizzly’s chompers—and Jim “Moosejaw” Hendricks, who once wielded the jawbone of a moose to crush his enemies in the heat of battle. Of course, things are different nowadays.

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Accidental space adventurer Cal Carver has had a rough few months. He's fought spider-dragons, battled space clowns, and been repeatedly tortured by the galaxy's oldest assassin. And don't even get him started on the squirrel-tits. Now all that's behind him, Cal just wants to kick back and relax. The universe, however, has other ideas. He and his crew find themselves in possession of the Symmorium Sentience, a once god-like entity now stripped of its power.

After his son gives him a pair of "X-ray" glasses as a gift, Martin Blackstone tries them on just for the hell of it - and all they do is give him a headache...until he sees things he can’t possibly be seeing. Glimpses of things on the other side of a wall or beneath someone’s clothing. He wants to believe it’s just his overactive imagination, but the “X-ray” specs actually work.

Amanda Saddler has lived a long and happy life. She's not ready to die or anything melodramatic, but she's long since given up on finding her fairytale ending. But when her adoptive granddaughter Emery picks up a box that was delivered to her doorstep, some new stories from the past come to light. Amanda Saddler may have spent her life pining for her neighbor, Jed Brooks, but that's not the only man she ever knew.

In the 10th year of the Change, the survivors in Western Oregon live in a world without technology. Michael Havel’s Bearkillers hold the lands west of Salem in peace and order. To the east, the Clan Mackenzie flourishes under the leadership of Juniper Mackenzie, bard and high priestess. Together, they have held Norman Arminger - the warlord of Portland - at bay.

July 1989, in a sleepy Michigan town, high school grad Nina Laramie heads out with her friends and is never seen alive again. Months later, her skeleton is found near a remote party spot in the forest. The ME determines Nina has been brutally raped and bludgeoned to death. Fear and anger ripple through this tight-knit community when the case goes cold. Thirty years later, Riley St. James, a Detroit PD assigned to Nina’s case, is determined to get her first big cold case win despite having a similar past to the victim.

Police Chief Delaney Reed can handle supernatural disasters. With gods vacationing in her little town of Ordinary, Oregon, and monsters living alongside humans, she’s had plenty of practice. But trying to handle something so normal, so average, so very ordinary as planning her own wedding to the man she loves? Delaney is totally out of her depth. When a car falls out of the sky and lands on the beach, Delaney is more than happy to push guest lists and venue dates out of her mind. The car appears empty, but someone has slipped into Ordinary with stolen weapons from the gods.

Praised as “chaotic and vibrant” (Charles Yu), “visionary” (Sam Lipsyte), and “supremely original” (John Cusack), the work of Mark Leyner has inspired a generation of contemporary novelists and has long deserved its place of recognition among the literary superstars of the seismic postmodernism-influenced movement of the early 21st century. A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!: The Mark Leyner Reader samples the staggering highlights from Leyner’s extraordinary career in all of its bizarre and infatuating glory.