Showing results by narrator "Alana Collins" in All Categories

The Carnival at Bray meets West Side Story in Sarah Carlson’s powerful YA debut; set in post-conflict Belfast (Northern Ireland), alternating between two teenagers, both trying to understand their past and preserve their future. Seventeen-year-olds, Fiona and Danny must choose between their dreams and the people they aspire to be. Fiona and Danny were born in the same hospital.

All children have imaginary friends, Georgina tells herself. It’s perfectly normal, and they all grow out of it in the end. But when her seven-year-old son, Cody, tells her about New Granny, the friend he’s met in the park, Georgina is instantly suspicious. Something - call it maternal instinct - tells her he isn’t making it up. Still, maybe Georgina is losing her mind. Her husband assures Georgina that it’s just a game, the product of their son’s overactive imagination. But what if Cody’s imaginary friend isn’t so imaginary after all?

Paige Mahoney has eluded death again. Snatched from the jaws of captivity and consigned to a safe house in the Scion Citadel of Paris, she finds herself caught between those factions that seek Scion’s downfall and those who would kill to protect the Rephaim’s puppet empire. The mysterious Domino Programme has plans for Paige, but she has ambitions of her own in this new citadel. With Arcturus Mesarthim - her former enemy - at her side, she embarks on an adventure that will lead her from the catacombs of Paris to the glittering hallways of Versailles.

Burn brightly. Love fiercely. For all else is dust. Every child of Glasnith learns the last words of the god-gifted mortal Aillira, and Lira of clan Stone, a descendant of Aillira with the power to read people’s souls, knows the story better than most. When a golden-haired warrior washes up on the shores of her homeland, Lira helps the wounded man. But as they form a bond forbidden by both their clans, Lira finds herself facing the same tragic fate as her ancestor.

Marceline Murphy is a gentle beauty with a well-founded aversion to rogues. But when two of Boston’s most notorious pursue her, she encounters a tug-of-war of the heart she isn’t expecting. Sam O’Rourke is the childhood hero she’s pined for, the brother of her best friend and a member of the large, boisterous family to which she longs to be a part. So when his best friend Patrick O’Connor joins in pursuit of her affections, the choice seems all too clear. Sam is from a family of faith and Patrick is not, two rogues whose wild ways clash head-on with Marcy’s - both in her faith and in her heart.

I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. Now I am the woman who is going to catch him.... You've just read the opening pages of The Nothing Man, the true-crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago. Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man. The more Jim reads, the more he realises how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth.

Rebellion has always been in the O'Reilly family's blood. So when faced with the tragic death of her brother during Northern Ireland's infamous Troubles, a teenage Nora joined the IRA to fight for her country's freedom. Now, more than a decade later, Nora is haunted by both her past and vivid dreams of a man she has never met. When she is given a relic belonging to Brigid of Kildare, patron saint of Ireland, the mystical artifact transports her back eighty years - to the height of Ireland's brutal civil war.

In the midst of World War II, Ireland has declared herself neutral. Troops found on Irish soil must be reported and interned, no matter which side they are fighting for. When midwife Nan O'Neil finds a wounded young Canadian pilot at her door, she knows she's taking a huge risk by letting him in. Not only is she a widow living alone, but if caught harboring a combatant, she'll face imprisonment.

1943: Europe is at war - but neutral Ireland is isolated from the storm. In a sleepy coastal village south of Dublin, eighteen-year-old Aileen Sweeney meets soldier Niall O’Rourke at a dance, and the spark between them soon ignites a powerful love. But when Niall makes a life-changing and contentious decision, Aileen’s hopes and dreams fall apart. In an instant Niall is transformed from dashing suitor to social outcast, and the fallout leaves each of them navigating the consequences alone. Putting her innocence behind her, Aileen must make her own tough choices.

Every child of Glasnith learns the last words of Aillira, the god-gifted mortal whose doomed love affair sparked a war of gods and men, and Lira of clan Stone knows the story better than most. As a descendant of Aillira and god-gifted in her own right, she has the power to read people's souls, to see someone's true essence with only a touch of her hand. When a golden-haired warrior washes up on the shores of her homeland, Lira helps the wounded man instead of turning him in. After reading his soul, she realizes Reyker is different than his brethren who attack the coasts of Glasnith.

There's one must-have toy this Christmas, and Neala Clarke has told her niece Charli she'll get it for her. Never mind that she's got less than a week and it looks like everywhere is sold out. She's promised Charli a Fire Princess doll - and Neala is a woman of her word. Darcy Hart is a people-pleaser. So when his adorable six-year-old nephew, Dustin, asks for a particular doll at the last minute, he says yes. Luckily for Darcy, there's one left in stock at the local toy store.

In a city devastated by an epidemic, where survivors are all missing parts - an arm, a leg, an eye - Nell has always been an outsider. Her father is the famed scientist who created the biomechanical limbs that everyone now uses. But she's the only one with her machinery on the inside: her heart. Since the childhood operation, she has ticked. Like a clock, like a bomb. And as her community rebuilds, everyone is expected to contribute to the society's good, but how can Nell live up to her father's revolutionary ideas?

It’s the final years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and Bríd and her sister, Ina, try to maintain a stable life in a divided country. Pushed by her mother’s fanaticism and a family tragedy, Bríd joins the IRA and makes a devastating choice. Frightened and guilt ridden, she flees, leaving behind Ireland and her family for America. Years later, her guilt and tragic history still buried, Bríd is an overprotective mother raising her sensitive daughter, Bernie, in Southern California.

Limerick, Ireland. The driveway of the Stokes family home. American Oscar Harvey opens the trunk of the car his hosts have loaned him and finds in it the body of a woman beaten and bloody. But let's start from the beginning. Kate and Mannix Stokes and their children live beside Curragower Falls in Limerick, in a house they love but can barely afford in postrecession Ireland. On top of that, their autistic son, Fergus, is being bullied at school, and their daughter, Izzy, blames herself for not being able to protect him.

Karen will do anything for her eight-year-old daughter Scarlett, even holding together a marriage that is way past broken. So when she disappears from their rural home, Karen is one hundred percent focused on a single goal: finding her little girl as soon as possible. But time is of the essence, because Scarlett is profoundly deaf and would live in utter silence if it wasn’t for her high-tech hearing aids. Karen knows that within hours their batteries will run out, leaving her daughter even more isolated and vulnerable.

Oona grew up on the island of Inis: a wind-blasted rock off the coast of Ireland where the men went out on fishing boats and the women tended turf fires; where the only book was the Bible; and where girls stayed at home until they became mothers themselves. The island was a gift for some, a prison for others. Even as a child, Oona knew she wanted to leave, but she never could have anticipated the tumultuous turn of events that would ultimately compel her to flee. Now, after 20 years - after Oona has forged a new, very different life for herself - her daughter vanishes.

With her whole life ahead of her, beautiful young Grace’s world changes forever when she’s married off to a much older judge. Soon, feeling lonely and neglected, Grace meets and falls in love with an Indian doctor, Vikram—he’s charming, thoughtful, and kind, everything her husband is not. But this is 1950s Ireland, and when she falls pregnant, the potential scandal must be dealt with.

This heart-wrenching novel in verse describes the life of a poor girl surviving the Irish Land War and the everyday challenges she experiences.

Lira of Stone watched her home burn and her clan fall beneath the sword of the warlord known as the Dragon. She believes the man she loves, a warrior who defected from the Dragon's army, is dead. Alongside her exiled brother and his band of refugees, she will fight the forces that conquered her island. But the greatest danger may come from Lira herself—with the blood of banished gods running through her veins, she's become a weapon, and no one is safe from the power of her wrath.

From the author of The Fifth Avenue Artists Society comes this unforgettable historical novel based on the founding of the country's first sororities. Illinois, 1881: Whitsitt College sophomore Beth Carrington has two goals to fulfill by the time she graduates: obtain a medical degree and establish a women's fraternity, Beta Xi Beta, that will help young women like herself to connect with and support one another while attending the male-dominated Whitsitt.