Showing results by narrator "Gabrielle De Cuir" in All Categories

A billionaire scientist, driven by the unsolved murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of religious extremists, offers his newly developed Fountain of Youth Pill to the world free of charge - under condition that the recipient abandons any and all support of religion. His goal is the creation of a global utopia based on science and reason, but has he underestimated religion's power for good in the world? Will its destruction threaten the very Armageddon he seeks to prevent?

The Pyrénées, France, 1939. Twenty-year-old Sylvie Laget has found the one she wants to be with forever. With war looming, she pledges her heart to a young man on a neighboring farm and rebels against her religious upbringing by consummating their relationship. But when her lover leaves to fight the Nazis, her joy is shattered by heartache. Burying her pain by posing as a nun to work with the resistance (the Maquis) and help Allied forces, Sylvie is devastated by news of her beloved’s death.

Vivian Borne—true-crime author, antiques dealer, and ex-sheriff of Serenity, Iowa—is looking forward to meeting her new editor in London. Flying first class, rooms at the Savoy…her long-suffering co-author, daughter Brandy, worries the trip will bankrupt them both, but the alternative—Mother travelling alone—is unthinkable. Brandy’s almost tempted to make her fiancé, Tony—Serenity’s Chief of Police—call Scotland Yard and warn them Vivian’s coming.

Lord Angle Theta and his men seemed unstoppable and unbeatable, no matter the odds. But when they met their match in the swamps of storied jutenheim, Lomerian blood ran like rivers. Ector and Malcolm Eotrus had a simple duty: Keep their family's mighty fortress safe, as had their ancestors for untold centuries. They failed. Time and again, Lomerian wizards conquered challenges that brawn and brain alone could not master. But magic has a weighty price. Even the greatest sorcerers cannot escape the Wizard's Toll.

Young Jennifer is forced to put all of her extraordinary gifts to the test when the land of Rhadaz faces its final battle against the forces of a mad emperor and the influences of death-worshiping outer worlds.

A ghostly presence in “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” desires revenge against a tyrannical husband. In “Mr. Jones”, Lady Jane Lynke inherits an estate unexpectedly, and can’t make sense of how to manage the servants - especially since the caretaker has been dead for decades, but keeps giving orders. Meanwhile, in “Afterward”, a newly wealthy American couple moves into a large, isolated house in southern England complete with a ghost...and the mysteries surrounding the husband’s business are slowly uncovered.

Maxim Jakubowski has edited all the great names in crime fiction, and stories from his anthologies have won the CWA Dagger six times. Now he has collected 19 Dagger Award-winning stories in one volume, making it the first retrospective deep dive into the CWA’s archive of Dagger Award winners. Edgy, twisted, and disturbing, Daggers Drawn is visceral and thrilling collection showcasing the very best modern crime fiction has to offer.

Some of the smartest erotic stories in the world just happen to be written by lesbians, women who changed the face of erotic lit. Susie Bright presents a collection of lesbian sex lives that speak fearlessly, through every taboo, without any apologies. Writers like Dorothy Allison, Lisa Montanarelli, Greta Christina, and Peggy Munson name names, get as close to any woman as they dare, and relish every deep stroke of their erotic pens….

Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine has provided four edgy stories about heroism, each exploring emotional dimensions uncommon in this or any other genre.

Rita Van Arsdale, a member of the high society in New York, is invited to an elegant party where she falls in love with a gentleman called Mr. Durand, who returns her feelings and proposes to her. But their plans are derailed after Mrs. Fairbrother, who has arrived at the party wearing a spectacular diamond, is discovered murdered in an alcove. The prime suspect is none other than Mr. Durand, so Miss Van Arsdale gets down to work to reconstruct the true course of events and prove that her love is indeed innocent.

On November 29, 1909, police were called to a ramshackle home in East Orange, New Jersey, where they found the emaciated body of 24-year-old Oceana "Ocey" Snead facedown in the bathtub - dead of an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a note left behind. But it would not take authorities long to discover that Ocey's death was no suicide. And Ocey's own mother and two aunts were far from the sorrowful caretakers they appeared to be.

To the Lighthouse chronicles the lives of the Ramsay family and their close friends, from the tranquil and motherly Mrs. Ramsay to the tragic and eccentric Mr. Ramsay, and their eight children and varied guests. Woolf uses the three movements of the novel to capture their complex family allegiances and the tensions between men and women at the time. Centered around their visits to the Isle of Skye between 1910 and 1920, the novel is an examination of the quiet, seemingly trivial moments of everyday life.

Mikhail was fired for blowing a deal with the Italians and throwing an unauthorized office party that got him arrested, so he can’t believe his luck when his former boss offers him easy money and the Land Rover of his dreams for the simple job of teaching the boss’s son, teenager Sergei, how to "be a man". Of course, Sergei’s not the Internet-obsessed recluse his father believes, and Mikhail can’t help but fall for Sergei’s beautiful secret girlfriend, Marina, himself. Mikhail finds himself lying to his boss about Sergei’s activities, lying to Marina about Sergei’s identity, and lying to Sergei about his love for Marina.

Lewis Dodd, a young, troubled composer, arrives at “Sanger’s Circus”, a wild gathering consisting of precocious children, a slovenly mistress, and an assortment of hangers-on in the Austrian Alps overseen by the eccentric Albert Sanger, a composer himself. Tessa, Sanger’s lively 14-year-old daughter, falls in love with their handsome visitor. After Albert’s death leaves Tessa and her siblings penniless, they must implore extended family members for assistance. Florence, Tessa’s 28-year-old cousin, graciously steps in to help and she falls in love with Lewis.

It's been almost 2,000 years since the mer-shifter Skyla walked the streets of Athens - not since her heart was broken by a human man and she exchanged the land and sky for the ocean depths. Ever since, she has lived in the underwater ruins of Atlantis, studying with the priestesses of the goddess Amphitrite, refining her mermaid powers and ignoring her human half.

Even on their wedding day, John and Irene sensed that they were about to make a mistake. Years later, divorced, dating other people, and living in different parts of the country, they seem to have nothing in common - nothing except the most important person in each of their lives: Sadie, their spirited eighteen-year-old daughter. Feeling smothered by Irene and distanced from John, Sadie is growing more and more attached to her new boyfriend, Ron. When tragedy strikes, Irene and John come together to support the daughter they love so dearly.

Pamela Binnings Ewen’s newest novel reveals the story of Émilienne, once the most beautiful, sought-after woman in Paris during the Belle Époque, the era of peaceful years just before World War I. As a girl, Émilienne fights her way through poverty in Montmartre, drawn to the lights of Paris below. Soon, she stars at the Folies Bergère, mistress of kings and princes, known as the most beautiful woman in Europe.

At first blush, Widdershins is a conventional haunted house story involving an unsuccessful writer who moves into an empty house in hope that isolation will help his failing creativity. His sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by his seclusion, but his art, his only friend, and his sanity are all destroyed in the process. It can be interpreted as narrating the gradual possession of the protagonist by a mysterious, possessive feminine spirit, or as a realistic description of a psychotic outbreak culminating in catatonia and murder, told from the psychotic subject’s view.

Who is the Crimson Empress, and what does her conquest of the Named Lands really mean? Who holds the keys to the Moon Wizard’s Tower? The plots within plots are expanding as the characters seek their way out of the maze of intrigue. The world is expanding as they discover lands beyond their previous carefully controlled knowledge. Hidden truths reveal even deeper truths, and nothing is as it seemed to be.

From the haunted hills of Roman Britain to the sewers of occupied Warsaw … in the bloodied streets of Revolutionary Paris, and the anarchy World War II Shanghai … out of the wilds of America, India, Africa and Europe … down the long savage darkness of the centuries, monsters have fed upon us. They are shapeshifters, vampires, sorcerers and spirits—things named only in myth, and things for which we have no name. They are our demons, our reflections, our desires and our nightmares. And all too often, they are … only human.