Showing results by narrator "Helen Laser" in All Categories

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground.

Sage and her sister won’t make it home from school today. Neither will the other children on Bus 315. But that’s only the beginning of the nightmare. New bus driver Jessa blames herself for what happened. She couldn’t protect the kids she was supposed to deliver to daycare, just like she couldn’t protect her own daughter three years ago. But this time, everything will be different. It has to be.

Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.

One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives. As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them—the boy can turn his every fear into reality. And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself.

It’s 1998, and female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina, but freshman Jessica Fadley, once a bright and responsible student, is going through her own struggles. Just as her life seems to be careening dangerously out of control, she suddenly disappears. Twenty-four years later, Jessica’s sister Lindsey is desperately searching for answers and uses the momentum of a new chart-topping true crime podcast that focuses on cold cases to guide her own investigation.

Dr. Katheryn Newton has dedicated her brilliant mind to groundbreaking medical research. She’s attempting to save lives and hoping to start a family when a catastrophic twist turns her world upside down. Suddenly, Kate finds herself with the power to invisibly end any life. Within hours, Kate is caught in a moral conundrum and trapped in a web of deception. She fights on, fiercely determined to help her country and the planet, but it’s tough when doing good means being bad—and dangerous when someone knows your secret.

In this tale inspired by Cinderella (and for fans of The Last Airbender), Ellie is a firemage in a kingdom of water and windmages. Her worried stepmother warns her against showing off her powers, but when everyone at the king’s ball is in danger from a dragon, Ellie can no longer keep them secret. She works together with another firemage to save the entire kingdom.

It takes some gumption to claim to be the best tea shop in the city of Kansar, where five ancient roads meet and everyone is selling something. But Yala’s shop has been in her family for three generations and is famed for its brews among warriors and wizards alike. When the Imperial Spell Company claims a monopoly on all magic in Kansar, Yala tries to convince a company henchman that her teas are nothing but ordinary leaves and water.

A sportscaster and a kindergarten teacher vie for the last copy of a bestselling dessert cookbook. To prove how badly they want it, each tries to outdo the other with meme-like, dessert-inspired lines.

New England, 2022. Three years ago, single mother Mallory Dunne received the telephone call every parent dreads—her ten-year-old son, Sam, had been airlifted from summer camp with acute poisoning from a toxic death cap mushroom, leaving him fighting for his life. Now, searching for the donor kidney that will give her son a chance for a normal life, Mallory’s forced to confront two harrowing secrets from her past: her mother’s adoption from an infamous Irish orphanage in 1952, and her own all-consuming summer romance fourteen years earlier with her childhood best friend, Monk Adams.

Set in neon-drenched Providence, Rhode Island, circa 1987, just two years after a plane carrying four mafia-affiliated law-firm partners exploded over the Atlantic along with the cushy lives of their once wealthy wives.

The only mortal daughter of two sea gods, and a priestess of Athena, Medusa was a woman who thought she had found her place in the world. But when Medusa suffers a horrific violation at the hands of Poseidon, Athena is outraged over the desecration of her name and sends a message by transforming Medusa into the snake-haired monster of legend. With one look, any who meet her gaze is turned to stone. Word of her monstrosity travels fast, igniting a king’s fear so greatly that he commands the boy-hero Perseus to bring him her head.

There was always something slightly dangerous about Joan. So, when she turns up at private inves­tigator Henry Kimball’s office asking him to investigate her husband, he can’t help feeling ill at ease. Just the sight of her stirs up a chilling memory: He knew Joan in his previous life as a high school English teacher, when he was at the center of a tragedy.

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.

When the nouveau riche Parker family moves to an exclusive community in the heart of Southern California, they believe it’s their chance at a fresh start. Heather Parker is determined to give her daughters the life she never had—starting with horses. She signs them up for riding lessons at Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian, where horses are a lifestyle. Heather becomes a “Barn Mom,” part of a group of wealthy women who hang at the stables, drink wine, and prepare their daughters for competition.

When Sophie Steinbeck finds out just before her wedding that her fiancé has cheated yet again, she desperately wants to call it off. But because her future father-in-law is her dad’s cutthroat boss, she doesn’t want to be the one to do it. Her savior comes in the form of a professional objector, whose purpose is to show up at weddings and proclaim the words no couple (usually) wants to hear at their wedding: “I object!”

When Marilyn Kleinman is caught making out with the rabbi’s son in front of the whole congregation, her parents ship her off to her great-aunt Ada for the summer. If anyone can save their daughter’s reputation, it’s Philadelphia’s strict premier matchmaker. Either that or Marilyn can kiss college goodbye. To Marilyn’s surprise, Ada’s not the humorless septuagenarian her mother described. Not with that platinum-blonde hair, Hermès scarf, and Cadillac convertible. She’s sharp, straight-talking, takes her job very seriously, and abides by her own rules…mostly.

The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.

Victor and Zoey are getting old, well old-er, and it’s beginning to be a real problem. Best friends for a decade, they have seen each other through bad dates and office drama, late nights and hungover brunches, during their years together in New York City. As their wild twenties come to a close, though, the dynamic between the two is shifting. Coming off a tough breakup, Victor dedicates his energies toward building a career writing celebrity profiles for one of the last glossy magazines left, while Zoey navigates the terrain at her nascent fashion startup.