Showing results by narrator "Sarah A" in All Categories

Mary Bloomfield has no illusions. Her chances for matrimony have long since passed. Still, her circumstances are pleasant enough, especially now that she has found purpose in assisting her father with his medical practice in England's beautiful Lake District. Even without love, it's a peaceful life. That is until Adam Edgerton returns to the sleepy district. This decorated war hero did not arrive home to acclaim and rest, but to a new battle against the repercussions of an insidious disease.

Despite descending from a long line of powerful sorcerers, Vi Solaris lacked all magic. That is, until the day she manifested a powerful sorcery unlike any other. Now, a sorcerer from a distant land tells her she must leave her home to claim her true power as champion of the goddess. That the mysterious plague ripping through her empire is the first warning an ancient evil threatens to rise anew. And that she is the only one who can put a stop to it.

We all desperately want answers to the same questions: Am I valuable? What is my purpose? Do I belong? But the identity we’re searching for always seems just out of reach. Contrary to what the world tells us, we don’t need to find ourselves. Instead, we need to be found in Christ. More than just a sound-bite, Gospel-shaped Womanhood delves into what having a Jesus-centered identity really means and how it shapes our relationships, our service, our work, and our self-image.

In a tense cultural climate, is it possible to disagree productively and respectfully without compromising our convictions? Spanning a range of challenging issues--including critical race theory, sexual assault, campus protests, and clashes over religious freedom--highly regarded thought leader and law professor John Inazu helps us engage honestly and empathetically with people whose viewpoints we find strange, wrong, or even dangerous.

He's 10 years older. My brother's best friend. And for the next two weeks, he gets to have me in all the ways he's ever wanted. The last time I saw him, he still called me kiddo. But fast-forward five years and more than a few things have changed. He's still Iain Thorn. He's still my brother's best friend and the painfully sexy man I clearly never stopped wanting. But me? Apparently, I've grown up in more ways than he can resist.

Living a life of grinding poverty in the General Laborer class, Alice's only hope was the System would someday notice her and reward her hard work. That day arrives when she discovers a System-seed, a one-time chance to change from the lowest to the highest of classes. Now, she is a rare minion-master in charge of an ever-growing horde of dragons. Dragons that will not stay small and cute forever. As each grows and multiplies, so does her power.

Zayn Becker has struggled to protect his little brother in the aftermath of the car accident which claimed their parents' lives. They lost everything that night except for each other. What subsequently happened at the group home devastated Roman and set Zayn on a vengeful path that leads to the elite. When a mysterious guardian emerges, Zayn is more than willing to help take down the brothers who abandoned him and Roman as babies. But first, he targets the sweet, innocent daughter of the man who owns the group home.

The email arrives Sunday night: Do exactly what I say, when I say it, or I will reveal your secret. On Monday morning, seventh graders Owen, Gemma, Ally, and Todd, who have nothing in common and barely know each other, must work together and follow the instructions of an anonymous blackmailer. None of them want to go along with the blackmailer's strange instructions, but each of them have a secret they must protect at all costs.

Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare’s colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland’s most famous story, “The Stranger”, left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the story lines of her favorite literature.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë—the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist—is a true classic. It transports us with a deft hand straight into 19th-century Haworth, Yorkshire and crafts an extensive account of Brontë’s life, quoting throughout from letters she sent and received. From her challenging, isolated childhood to her death shortly before the age of 39, newly married and pregnant, the enigmatic author of Jane Eyre is portrayed with enormous care.

From the best-selling author of The Things We Cannot Say, Before I Let You Go, and the upcoming The Warsaw Orphan, comes a poignant post-WWII novel that explores the expectations society places on women set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything once believed to be true.

Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up - and she hasn't looked back. What would have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious...and hopelessly in love with her boss. But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers - all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework - and her father.

Growing up in a deeply evangelical family in the Midwest in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Sarah McCammon was strictly taught to fear God, obey him, and not question the faith. Persistently worried that her gay grandfather would go to hell unless she could reach him, or that her Muslim friend would need to be converted, and that she, too, would go to hell if she did not believe fervently enough, McCammon was a rule-follower. But through it all, she was plagued by fears and deep questions as the belief system she'd been carefully taught clashed with her expanding understanding of the outside world.

A hilarious new middle grade novel from beloved and best-selling author Gordon Korman about what happens when the worst class of kids in school is paired with the worst teacher. The Unteachables never thought they’d find a teacher who had a worse attitude than they did. And Mr. Kermit never thought he would actually care about teaching again. Over the course of a school year, though, room 117 will experience mayhem, destruction - and maybe even a shot at redemption.

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books.

I’m an Earth Fae who doesn’t belong here. They can play their little mind games all they want, but I’m going to find a way back to my elemental world. Even if it kills me. Except Headmaster Zephyrus is one step ahead of my every move. Prince Kolstov won’t stop cornering me. And Shadow—the reason I’m in this damn mess to begin with—haunts my dreams. My affinity for the earth is dying and being replaced by something more sinister. Something powerful. Something deadly.

Compiling Smarsh’s reportage and more poetic reflections, Bone of the Bone is a singular work covering one of the most tumultuous decades in civic life. Timely, filled with perspective-shifting observations, and a pleasure to read, Sarah Smarsh’s essays—on topics as varied as the socioeconomic significance of dentistry, laws criminalizing poverty, fallacies of the “red vs. blue” political framework, working as a Hooters Girl, and much more—are an important addition to any discussion on contemporary America.

Before Natasha Romanoff was an Avenger, she was a Russian spy and assassin, genetically altered by Soviet Union-era scientists to become a super soldier. But someone has stolen a sample of her blood—and the blood of James “Bucky” Barnes, the operative known as the Winter Soldier, another human weapon developed in a Russian laboratory. Whoever took their blood possesses the key to recreating the formula flowing through Natasha and Bucky’s veins—the formula that enhanced their physiology to superhuman levels.

At Glentivar Plantation, Virginia, enslaved workers find the body of a white baby hidden amongst logs. Judy and Richard Randolph along with Nancy are staying at the plantation. Screams were heard coming from Nancy's room during the night. Gossip quickly spreads throughout Virginia society: Nancy Randolph had given birth to a child by Richard, people whisper. Together they murdered the child to protect their reputation. Richard is tried for murder and the sensational trial shakes the new American nation to its core. The events of that night ripple down the years.

Enveloped in a shroud of darkness and driven by an unrelenting thirst for vengeance, Balthazar, a tormented soul haunted by his tragic past, transforms into a merciless dark demon on a quest to bring retribution to Mathias—the man he holds responsible for his suffering. A twist of fate awaits as Balthazar crosses paths with Alina, the seductive and enigmatic daughter of his sworn enemy. Unexpectedly drawn to her, Balthazar finds himself torn between his burning desire for revenge and the growing, forbidden allure of Alina.