Showing results by narrator "Xe Sands" in All Categories

Sydney Richardson's enjoying a rare night out in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, when she learns that one of her friends has been shot. Rick Sheffield thought he was staking out a drug deal; turns out he had a front-row seat to a million-dollar cash drop gone wrong. Meanwhile, at a construction site across town, a young vagrant is killed execution-style after spreading some serious wealth among his street friends. Sydney sees no reason to link the shootings, until the money disappears from the evidence locker.

Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival - until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store.

Raised in the Catholic faith, yet strongly drawn to Paganism, Adelina St. Clair spent many years questioning and soul-searching before she found a way to blend aspects of Wicca and Christianity into a vibrant and loving belief system. Filled with personal anecdotes, this book tells the story of St. Clair's journey of self-discovery and revelation, from her initial fear and guilt to her ultimate sense of peace and joy. With warmth and heartfelt reverence, St. Clair discusses vital aspects of Witchcraft and Christianity, as well as the commonalities between the two.

Liz Ianelli, known around the world as Survivor993, spent years at the Family Foundation—labeled an “institution for troubled teens.” The children who went through The Family School like her were good people. They had potential and dreams, but they came out with lifelong trauma: anxious, angry, paranoid, self-hating and in pain. Most of them have suffered lives of hardship, unable to integrate back into society. Hundreds have died, mostly by overdose and suicide. I See You, Survivor is about what really happened at The Family and what continues to happen at thousands of facilities like it.

Anna O'Brien leads a predictable and quiet life as a map librarian at the illustrious Library of Congress until she stumbles across the baffling mystery of a ship disappeared at sea. Thwarted in her attempts to uncover information, her determination outweighs her shyness and she turns to a dashing congressman for help. Luke Callahan was one of the nation's most powerful congressmen before his promising career was shadowed in scandal. Eager to share in a new cause and intrigued by the winsome librarian, he joins forces with Anna to solve the mystery of the lost ship.

Geez, make a splash in the world of art forgery at the age of 17 and people can't stop bringing it up. Lesson learned: genuine art is priceless, and forgery gets you arrested. Now Annie puts her artistic talents to honest use as a faux finisher in San Francisco. But carving out a new reputation can be a creative challenge.... Modernism isn't Annie's thing, but even she is surprised to discover that the "sculpture" in a prestigious gallery's grisly new exhibition is an all-too-real corpse - the artist's.

Even the most skilled sorceress can't ward off a lawsuit, and Lily is not at her enchanting best with her hands full as the temporary leader of San Francisco's magical community. So after her potbellied pig, Oscar, head butts rival clothier Autumn Jennings, Lily tries to make peace without a costly personal injury case.

Paul Tremblay has won widespread acclaim for illuminating the dark horrors of the mind in novels and stories that push the boundaries of storytelling itself. The fifteen pieces in this brilliant collection, The Beast You Are, are all monsters of a kind, ready to loudly (and lovingly) smash through your head and into your heart.

Amid the excitement of the early twentieth century, hundreds of young women spend their days hard at work painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark radium paint. The painters consider themselves lucky—until they start suffering from a mysterious illness. As the corporations try to cover up a shocking secret, these shining girls suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly scandal. The Radium Girls: Young Readers Edition tells the unbelievable true story of these incredible women, whose determination to fight back saved countless lives.

Since she went straight, Annie Kincaid's been applying her genius for fine art forgery to her own faux finishing business in San Francisco. She hasn't seen the inside of a jail cell since she was 17, although sometimes it takes all of her arts-fine or otherwise-to keep it that way.... Annie knows that art security can be inadequate, but it's crazy to think that an Old Master painting could be hanging unguarded in the local columbarium where she's doing restoration work. Still, when she gets a tip that the chapel's copy of Raphael's exquisite La Fornarina might be the real thing, Annie has to take a look.

The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls - a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit.

Annie's got bad news for her ex-boyfriend, curator Ernst Pettigrew: the snooty Brock Museum's new 15-million-dollar Caravaggio painting is as fake as a three-dollar bill. And the same night Annie makes her shattering appraisal, the janitor on duty is killed - and Ernst disappears. To top it all off, a well-known art dealer has absconded with multiple Old Master drawings, leaving yet more forgeries in their places. Finding the originals - and pocketing the reward money - will get Annie's new landlord off her back.

In The Lightkeepers, we follow Miranda, a nature photographer who travels to the Farallon Islands, an exotic and dangerous archipelago off the coast of California, for a one-year residency capturing the landscape. Her only companions are the scientists studying there, odd and quirky refugees from the mainland living in rustic conditions; they document the fish populations around the island, the bold trio of sharks called the Sisters that hunt the surrounding waters, and the overwhelming bird population....

In What to Do When You're Having Two, national twins guru and founder of Twiniversity, and mother of twins herself, Natalie Diaz provides a no-holds-barred resource about life with twins, from pregnancy and birth all the way through your duo's first year of life. Funny, reassuring, full of stories and advice, and packed with tried-and-true tips from the trenches, this is the must-have survival guide for parents of twins.

Dani, Meg, and Charlotte have bonded over babies, barbeques, and backyards, but when they escape for a girls' weekend away, they can't bring themselves to return to lives that don't seem to fit anymore. All three of these women thought they would be different. None of them thought they'd be facing down 40 and still wondering when life starts. What they do when they realize where they're headed is both inspiring and wildly entertaining.

1941. A talented flier, Jessie Lovelace yearns for a career in aviation. When the civilian flight school in her small Texas town begins to clandestinely train British pilots for the RAF, she fights to become an instructor. But the task isn’t without its perils of near-misses and death. Faced with the weight of her responsibilities, she finds solace with a British officer who knows firsthand the heavy price paid in war . . . until he returns to the battles he never truly left behind.

On April 14, 1989, for reasons still debated today, Mexican immigrant RamÓn Salcido went on a violent rampage in the idyllic Sonoma Valley wine country where he lived and worked. In the course of just two hours, he killed his wife, Angela, her two younger sisters, his mother-in-law, and the man with whom he suspected Angela was having an affair. He then slashed the throats of his three young daughters - four-year-old Sophia, three-year-old Carmina, and twenty-two-month-old Teresa - leaving them for dead.

"You look like a thing and I love you" is one of the best pickup lines ever...according to an artificial intelligence trained by scientist Janelle Shane, creator of the popular blog AI Weirdness. She creates silly AIs that learn how to name paint colors, create the best recipes, and even flirt (badly) with humans — all to understand the technology that governs so much of our daily lives.

It’s autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there. Because in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusual trees. And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it’s nearly black. Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another. And another. You will become stronger. More vital. More yourself, you will believe. But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing—and become darker.

Sydney Richardson already has her hands full running two successful Madison, Wisconsin, eateries and enjoying the company of handsome blues bar owner Clay Hawthorne. She doesn't have the time or patience for his ex's homecoming. Two decades ago, Miranda Greer abandoned Clay with their infant child. Now she claims she wants to make amends, reconnect with her son, and settle down. None of which is to Sydney's liking, because behind Miranda's chic, saccharine façade, Sydney senses something very bad.