Showing results by narrator "Emily Woo-Zeller" in All Categories

In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African-American expats. From being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, he becomes the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure, and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war. Song Yuhua is refined and educated, and has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai's most powerful crime boss in payment for her father's gambling debts.

Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet, Luddeccea, but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about. Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past 24 hours or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he's never met.

Valerie Dearborn wants a life as light and fluffy as cotton candy, but it's more like a puffer fish: pointy, unusual, and - if not prepared exactly right - deadly. In London for graduate school, Val knows she's finally free. Her father and ex-almost-boyfriend are back in California and she's out of the Vampire hunting biz for good. Or is she? She draws the attention of Lucas, a 1600 year old Vampire, and King to his kind. He's also wicked hot.

The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner, Bill Smith, into a storm of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and New York City real estate scandal. Choi has left the Tong headquarters building to his niece, who hires Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, to accompany her to inspect it. The building is at the center of a tug-of-war between Chinatown preservation interests - including Lydia’s brother, Tim - and a real estate developer who’s desperate to get his hands on it.

The year 2099. Riley Taylor has defeated the terrorist group the Champions and is now faced with a different sort of enemy: the State. Trouble is, there isn’t one single person to blame for the way life in America is now, and instead of confronting a foe, she must root out the evil in the system piece by piece, law by insidious law. To do this, Riley will need the help of the Volunteers. But rebuilding her crew from scratch will not be an easy task, and taking on the government will require a team of specialized allies.

A collection of 36 extraordinary stories originally told on stage, featuring work by writers, entertainers, thinkers, and community leaders. Spanning comedy and tragedy, Alien Nation brilliantly illuminates what it’s like to be an immigrant in America.

For the Nameless Restaurant, once a discreet hole-in-the-wall meant for a cast of supernatural regulars, the increasing levels of background magic has brought with it that most dreadful of locusts—new customers. The staff of the Nameless Restaurant are finding the influx of new customers—both mortal and magical—to be a challenge. They're reaching a breaking point, and something has to give. The only question is, will it be Mo Meng's rules on magic or the restaurant itself?

The Best Life Stories by Reader's Digest are 150 of the best hand-picked real-life tales of resilience, joy, and hope - all in 150 words or less!

The discovery of the North and South Poles. The summiting of Everest. The moon landing. The (largely unknown) birth of climate change science. These are just some of the stories from The Explorers Club, the organization that, since its inception in 1904, has pushed the envelope of human curiosity. This guided tour of The Club’s most riveting journeys is full of fascinating anecdotes about The Club’s distinguished members, including Teddy Roosevelt, Neil Armstrong, and Jane Goodall.

I’ve always been able to separate feelings from chemosignals. A shot of dopamine, a dash of serotonin, and a sprinkle of oxytocin - and bam - you’re in love. And when egg meets sperm, you’re pregnant. I couldn’t even be surprised as I stared down at the little blue plus sign - because I knew exactly when and how and with whom it happened. The upside? I don’t have to go looking for a suitable mate.

A fresh new voice emerges with the arrival of Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant experience in America. Her stories cut across generations and continents, moving from the fraught halls of a public school in Flushing, Queens, to the tumultuous streets of Shanghai, China, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

Enslaved in Kipchak Khanate, Jinghua has lost everything: her home, her family, her freedom...until the kingdom is conquered by enemy forces and she finds herself an unlikely conspirator in the escape of Prince Khalaf and his irascible father across the vast Mongol Empire. On the run, with adversaries on all sides and an endless journey ahead, Jinghua hatches a scheme to use the Kipchaks’ exile to return home, a plan that becomes increasingly fraught as her feelings for Khalaf evolve into an impossible love.

Kitchen Chinese, Ann Mah's funny and poignant first novel about a young Chinese-American woman who travels to Beijing to discover food, family, and herself, is a delight complete with mouthwatering descriptions of Asian culinary delicacies, from Peking duck and Mongolian hot pot to the colorful, lesser known ants in a tree, that will delight foodies everywhere. Mah's tale of clashing cultures, rival siblings, and fine dining is an unforgettable, unexpectedly sensual listening experience.

Few know more about what goes on in Singapore than Aunty Lee. When a scandal over illegal organ donation involving prominent citizens makes news, she already has a list of suspects. There's no time to snoop, though - Aunty Lee's Delights is catering a brunch for local socialites Henry and Mabel Sung at their opulent house. Rumor has it that the Sung's fortune is in trouble, and Aunty Lee wonders if the gossip is true. But soon after arriving at the Sung's house, her curiosity turns to suspicion. Why is a storage house she discovers locked?

In the late twenty-first century, technology has lengthened lifespans far beyond what was once medically possible. Existence itself has become relatively easy - if boring. In this futuristic paradise, ninety-four-year-old Mia Ziemann longs for something different and undergoes a radical new treatment that restores both her body and mind to that of a twenty-year-old. After her dramatic transformation, Mia finds herself lost in an avant-garde world of passion, designer drugs, and creative expression...

The Galactic Peacekeepers are being hunted. The tables have turned. Marshals are going missing. Marshal Throttle Reyne and her Black Sheep are sent on a mission to investigate the recent surge in pirate attacks. But when the pirates unite and take over Free Station, the headquarters of the Galactic Peacekeepers, the Black Sheep must make a suicide run against the pirates and save the lives of their friends. If they fail, the system will belong to the pirates.

Air Command pilot Nova Whiteside is assigned to a remote outpost to guard the construction of a tethered orbiter, Skyranch Twelve, against rebel sabotage. The difference between the well-ordered Union air fields and this dusty garrison is made painfully clear when she runs afoul a brutal commander of ground troops. When she is trapped behind enemy lines in a bloody uprising, she meets Djari, a civilian whose trust in the governing Union is shattered by what he has witnessed.

Kali Māhoe, Hawaiian cultural expert and detective with the Maui Police Department, has been called to a bizarre crime scene. In the recesses of a deep trench on Lana'i Island, a derelict refrigerator has been unearthed. Entombed inside are the skeletal remains of someone buried decades ago. Identification is a challenge. The body is headless, the skull replaced with a chilling adornment: a large, ornately carved wooden pineapple.

Rural China, 1942. Twenty-two-year-old Eugenia Baker exists in a bubble as yet untouched by WWII. Content to help her father with his missionary work, Genie sees her future as a straight, if narrow, road - until an American pilot arrives, warning them of the approaching Japanese army. Lieutenant Ted Younan is one of the Flying Tigers, volunteer fighters protecting China from aerial attacks. After rescuing Ted from his downed plane, Genie’s father asks the flyboy to get his daughter across the mountains so she can escape to the United States.

This confessional self-help guide explores the complex emotional truth of what it’s like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. Activist author Marissa LaRocca’s revelatory tale includes her struggle with her secrets, including sexuality, and how she emerged as an outspoken advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues.