Showing results by narrator "Nicole Lewis" in All Categories

The Aktibar—a set of trails held every 10 years to find the next Ember rulers of the Empire—is about to begin. All can join but not just anyone can win; it requires great skill and ingenuity to become the future wardens of Strength, Knowledge, Truth and Duty. Sylah was destined to win the trials and be crowned Warden of Strength. Stolen by blue-blooded rebels she was raised with a Duster’s heart; forged as a weapon to bring down from within the red-blooded Embers’ regime of cruelty.

When billionaire Marsh's octogenarian grandmother summons him home for an urgent family dinner, he dreads being force-fed every embarrassing truth about his family he's tried to forget. Never mind that Thanksgiving weekend was when he planned to propose to his girlfriend, Jada, who knows nothing of the nine-figure fortune Marsh has hidden her away for years. But the money may be the least of his problems - there's a reason why he's never brought Jada to Connecticut.

Anoor is the first blue-blooded ruler of the Wardens' Empire. But when she is accused of a murder she didn't commit, her reign is thrown into turmoil. She must solve the mystery and clear her name without the support of her beloved, Sylah. Sylah braves new lands to find a solution for the hurricane that threatens to destroy her home. But in finding answers, she must make a decision. Hassa's web of secrets grows ever thicker as she finds herself on a trail of crimes in the city. Her searching uncovers the extent of the atrocities of the empire's past and present.

In this urgent outpouring of American voices, our poets speak to us as they shelter in place, addressing our collective fear, grief, and hope from eloquent and diverse individual perspectives.

The Wardens’ Empire is falling. A vigilante known only as the ‘Truthsayer’ is raising an army against the wardens. Sylah and Hassa must navigate the politics of this new world, all the while searching for Anoor. Across the sea the Blood Forged prepare for war, requesting aid from other governments. Jond’s role as Major General sees him training their soldiers for combat, but it’s matters of the heart that prove to be the hardest battlefield.

Yeeran was born for war but is unprepared for love. She has left her new lover, the Queen of the fae, to return to her homeland, only to find that her former lover now threatens war against the fae. Left behind, her sister Lettle is determined to break the curse that binds the fae to their realm. When a stranger appears in the city, Lettle is convinced he’s the key. But the Fates that once spoke to her have fallen silent. Can Lettle and Yeeran discover the secret behind the curse – and unite these two worlds before they destroy each other?

Whilst working on a spreadsheet for a New York-based PR firm, Gerald has his consciousness uploaded into his company's Slack channel. He posts for help, but his colleagues assume it's an elaborate joke to exploit the new working-from-home policy and, now that Gerald's productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from...wherever he says he is. Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists co-worker Pradeep to care for his body and Slackbot, the service's AI assistant, to help him navigate his new digital reality.

Behold one of the toughest dealers in the political arena, a singularly shrewd operator who cut her teeth from deep within the ranks of the Democratic Party and climbed all the way to the top. Rising higher than any woman ever who came before, Madam Speaker created a blueprint that those after her could follow. And now, back to her rightful place as Madam Speaker, she's prepared to take back power for the people...and at the end of it all, in characteristic class and style, she will pass on the gavel to the next generation of badass leaders.

A young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family, menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night, a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort and cruelty.

A brand-new, heart-wrenching story from the best-selling author of If I Stay and I Was Here, Gayle Forman. Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plans to run away from home to find the boy that he loves, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City after a family tragedy leaves him isolated on the outskirts of Washington state. After the three of them collide in Central Park, they slowly reveal the parts of their past that they haven't been able to confront, and together they find their way back to who they're supposed to be.

When Jasmyn Williams and her husband King realise they're expecting their second child, they decide to move to the town of Liberty, California hoping to find a community of like-minded people, where their growing family can thrive in a majority-Black environment. Then, as Jasmyn gets further into her pregnancy, she discovers a terrible secret that turns her frustration to dread. A secret that could threaten the safety of not only her family, but everything she believes in...

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture and history. We meet Black and multi-racial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief - all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively.

All hail Queen Elizabeth! She's a “queen" but not a monarch who's spent her life fighting to create a more equal society. Now one of the most recognizable women in politics, Warren took a winding road to become the badass senator from Massachusetts - the first woman senator ever elected from the state. Day-to-day struggle to make ends meet? Check. Single motherhood? Check. Law degree? Check. Tenured Harvard Law professor? You bet!

Love is messy. Love can make us feel alive. It can also bring us down. Sometimes we look for it in all the wrong places. This is a novel about longing, desire and dreams; about passion and risk and all the places in between. Delivered in a lush orchestration of diverse female voices, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm is a provocative and gripping novel about the desire to be loved, and the need to belong.

Self-declared book hater Drew Young never expected to inherit her grandmother's old bookshop, the Book Nook. And now, as she prepares to host a signing for bestselling author (and hopeless romantic) Jasper Williams, she finds herself caught between a bookshelf and a hard place. Sensing sparks between the unlikely match, a group of mischievous old ladies - otherwise known as the Book Nook's resident book club - spot the opportunity to do what they do best: meddle.

A short, intense and profoundly moving debut novel about race, identity, sex and death. Thandi is American, but not as American as some of her friends. She is South African, but South Africa terrifies her. She is a black woman with light skin. Her mother is dying. In exquisite vignettes of wry warmth and extraordinary emotional power, What We Lose tells Thandi's story. Both raw and artful, minimal yet rich, it is an intimate portrait of love and loss, and a fierce meditation on race, sex, identity and staying alive.

After investigating the tragic shooting of a child during hunting season, the FBI and River Patrol combine forces to uncover a potential serial killer. With yet another life hanging in the balance, Deputy Jason Colefield discovers that the answers he seeks point him to the one place he doesn’t want to go - the buried memories of his own childhood.

Guns, an American Conversation follows up on a handful of strangers - teachers and gun-rights advocates, hunters and police officers, mothers and fathers across the United States - brought together in a larger group of 150 people, for a monthlong moderated Facebook group chat. The goal of the project - which expanded on earlier efforts - was to foster a civil, yet honest, dialogue between people whose backgrounds and beliefs led them to have opposing views on the issue.

So, you're single. Whether existing sans partner is a new state of being or you've been on this solo journey for a while, the fact of the matter is this: Being single is actually awesome. You can do whatever you want, travel wherever you want, and be your truest, most free self. But there are a lot of people out there - your mom, your married best friend, the wedding industry, society - who see things differently. To them, singledom is something to avoid at all cost, no matter how many times you tell them you love your life the way it is.

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture and history. We meet Black and multi-racial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief - all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively.