Showing results by narrator "Chelsea Stephens" in All Categories

Bounty hunting is rewarding, but nobody ever said it was easy. When your partner is a powerful dark witch with anger issues, it can get downright terrifying. Good thing Matt Bordelon is up for a challenge because the weather isn’t the only thing heating up in the Big Easy. A cabal of dark witches and wizards will do anything to control magic. A powerful, idealistic, and extremely misguided politico can only make things worse. As if that wasn’t enough, something evil is snatching people from the New Orleans area.

Kari and her allies have seen numerous miracles in recent months, from the glorious rebirth of a friend to the unprecedented alliance of many peoples from across Terrassia and beyond. Now, all the pieces are in place, the military campaign known as The Phoenix Ascension ready to be put into motion. All hope - not just on Terrassia or even Citaria as a whole, but on her sister worlds of Irrathmor and Mehr'Durillia as well - now rests on the execution of this plan. Failure will mean the end of the last chance of liberating Mehr'Durillia and the deaths of the final defenders of Citaria.

Once upon a time, my world was small and sheltered. Everything changed the moment I stepped over my Safety Line, barrelling towards a coupling with a man I hardly know. He wants me. All of me. Dunked in a charged political pit, I must secure the ships needed to quell the spill of murderous beasts still flooding the continent. But one wrong move could spur the war I’ve worked so hard to avoid.

In his Locus review of Two Worlds and in Between - the first volume of The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan - Gary K. Wolfe wrote, “...it makes you wish the second volume were here now.” Well, the long wait is over. This second volume completes this ambitious undertaking, collecting the finest of Kiernan’s stories from 2004 to 2012, selected by the author herself. The book includes 25 short stories and one poem, plus the short novel Black Helicopters - more than 200,000 words of fiction, including the World Fantasy Award-winning “The Prayer of 90 Cats”.

One hundred and ten years ago, Maria Montessori, the first female physician in Italy, devised a very different method of educating children, based on her observations of how they naturally learn. In Montessori, Angeline Stoll Lillard shows that science has finally caught up with Maria Montessori. Lillard presents the research behind nine insights that are foundations of Montessori education, describing how each of these insights is applied in the Montessori classroom.

Emily Joiner was once part of an inseparable group—she was a sister, a best friend, a lover, and a rival. Summers without Emily were unthinkable. Until the fire burned the lake house to ashes with her inside. A year later, it’s in Emily’s honor that Chelsea and her four friends decide to return. The house awaits them, meticulously rebuilt. Only, Chelsea is haunted by ghostly visions. Loner Ryan stirs up old hurts and forces golden boy Chase to play peacemaker. Which has perfect hostess Kennedy on edge as eerie events culminate in a stunning accusation.

In an effort to put her vengeful past behind her, Captain Branna Kelly charts a new course with the help of the Banshee's newest officer, Julia Farrow. Her first mission on the path to redemption is to restore order at a neighboring port. Julia's new fighting skills are put to the test when they go up against the deadly Ferryman and her cutthroat captain, Isaac Shaw. She more than holds her own, both with and without a blade, and Branna is torn between supporting and protecting her.

In this full retelling of Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow, confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

After barely escaping an attempt on her life, veteran demon hunter Karian Vanador must root out infiltrators within her own order. At the same time, she is presented with a unique opportunity: Infiltrate the very realm of the demon kings to bring back a possible defector. With a family to consider and the risk of inciting a war between two worlds, Kari must decide: Is the life of a Syrinthian priestess worth the risk?

Sawyer’s life is simple, if not easy. Her home might be in ruins, but she can protect what’s left of it. A city destroyed by the bots - that’s home. Humans have been hunted, but Sawyer is one of a few who have turned the tables. She’s a Watcher. Taking out the bots one by one. Protecting what’s left. It’s the carbons she needs to be wary of. Faster and stronger than humans, they’re dangerous. But Sawyer’s smarter. That will keep her alive. At least, that’s what she believed. But the carbons are evolving, and their plans are ever more cunning.

Welcome to a very special issue of Weird Tales. This issue celebrates the Bram Stoker Awards, the “Oscars” of the horror trade. They are presented every year by the Horror Writers Association (horror.org), a group founded in 1985 (and incorporated in 1987) by a collective of masters of that genre, including Joe R. Lansdale, Karen Lansdale, Robert McCammon, and Dean Koontz. This issue is packed with short stories, flash fiction, poems, and an essay—all written by past winners of the Bram Stoker Award.

For Karian Vanador, though, being resurrected comes with a price. Not only is she in a different time and place, but the world has changed in her absence, and she must face the dark demons of her past once again. Partnered with allies who would've been her enemies in her past life, she must adapt to this new world and lead these young heroes to fulfill their potential - to stop a civil war being stoked by demonic influences. If they fail, Citaria may fall to a war that dwarfs the Apocalypse.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

An underworld serial killer prowls the streets. The head of a criminal guild arrives demanding the help of the Order. Things had been quiet since the incident on Tsalbrin, but Karian Vanador recognized the calm before the storm all too well. When one of the Order's most prominent mortal enemies arrives on campus demanding help with an underworld threat, Kari knows there has to be a connection. Harried by a deadly foe, Kari must call upon friends old and new to track down an assassin leaving a trail of bodies in her wake.

Any conversation about effective teaching must begin with a consideration of how students learn. However, instructors may find a gap between resources that focus on the technical research on learning and those that provide practical classroom strategies. How Learning Works provides the bridge for such a gap. Distilling the research literature and translating the scientific approach into language relevant to a college or university teacher, this book introduces seven general principles of how students learn.

What explains the insistent pull of Roe v. Wade? Abortion law expert Mary Ziegler argues that the US Supreme Court decision, which decriminalized abortion in 1973 and was overturned in 2022, had a hold on us that was not simply the result of polarized abortion politics. Rather, Roe took on meanings far beyond its original purpose of protecting the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. It forced us to confront questions about sexual violence, judicial activism and restraint, racial justice, religious liberty, the role of science in politics, and much more.

It was the time of the Moon of the Three Rings when the Free Trader ship Lydis landed on the planet Yiktor and junior crew member Krip Vorlund visited a beast show. He was strangely attracted to the owner of the show animals, a delicate and mysterious woman named Maelen. Soon Krip was caught in a vicious struggle by powerful opponents over the fate of Yiktor - and he learned the nature of Maelen's sorcery when he found his mind trapped in the body of a wolf-like creature.

In this remarkable collection the author has selected over two dozen of her best Lovecraftian tales ranging from 2000s “Valentia” to her more recent classic “A Mountain Walked” as well as including the complete Dandridge Cycle, as well as a new story, “M Is for Mars.” In short, this is a cornerstone volume for Kiernan fans and Mythos devotees alike.

A rundown apartment in Koreatown. A Los Angeles winter. A strung out, worn out, wrecked, and used government agent is scraped up off the pavement, cleaned up, and reluctantly sent out into battle one last time. Ellison Nicodemo has seen and done terrible things. She thought her only remaining quest was for oblivion. Then the Signalman comes calling. He wants to learn if she can stop the latest apocalypse. Ellison, once a unique and valuable asset, can barely remember why she ever fought the good fight.

Terraform hones the predictive capacity of science fiction and seeks new, vivid, and visceral ways to depict the future we’re hurtling toward, translating the decay and anxiety that surround us into something else, something unexpected, something that burns like a beacon and upends the conventional ideas of where we’ll end up next. Section by section—Watch/Worlds/Burn—the book takes on surveillance, artificial intelligence, and climate collapse. With a potent roster of established names and rising talents, it confronts the issues that orbit our everyday existence.