Showing results by narrator "Alyssa Bresnahan" in All Categories

Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Viola was never found, and her family never recovered. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant.

Police chief Cameron McDonald has lived in idyllic Wheelock, Massachusetts for most of his life, as has his beloved wife Allie. Their comfortable lives are thrown into tumult, however, when Cam's distant cousin Jamie arrives in town along with his wife's dead body. Jamie admits to the murder - a mercy killing to end the pain caused by a ravaging cancer. And now Cam is torn by his oath to uphold justice and his family obligations as chief of the Scottish McDonald clan.

In the world of Warbreaker, each person is born endowed with the power of one Breath―which can be sold and collected by others, then used to Awaken objects and even corpses to do their bidding. A few individuals who die in glory return as gods, with the power of thousands of Breath, but no memory of their mortal lives―and are enthroned in the Court of Gods in Hallandren’s capital. To Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris, the abuse of Breath and the claim of the Returned to be gods are repugnant blasphemy.

In Hot Blooded, she transports listeners into the heart of New Orleans, where a deluded murderer is on a holy quest of vengeance. Dr. Samantha Leeds hosts her own late-night radio talk-show on WSLJ. One day she receives a menacing phone call at her home, while miles away, a prostitute is strangled to death. Seemingly unrelated, nobody connects the two events until more murders occur under similar circumstances.

Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux wakes one morning drenched in blood, her head pounding mercilessly. Worst of all, she can't remember what happened the night before - when her estranged husband was murdered. Now the police want answers. Tormented, Caitlyn turns to her sister for support and is warned not to talk to the handsome new psychologist in town. But she soon realizes he's the only person she's comfortable confiding in.

Grave Sight draws listeners into the intriguing world of Harper Connelly, a woman with a unique gift: she can "see" the deceased and how they died. A teenage girl from a small Ozarks town is missing and feared dead. Hired by local police, Harper locates the girl's body in a nearby forest. But there's more than one corpse in those woods, and the second one raises questions no one wants to ask.

Three remarkable journeys into the stars: Worlds of Exile and Illusion includes Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions. These three spacefaring adventures mark the beginning of grand master Ursula K. Le Guin’s remarkable career. Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s groundbreaking classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these first three books of the celebrated Hainish series follow travelers of many worlds and civilizations in the depths of space.

Firstname Lastname is a no one with nowhere to go, with a name that is the result of an unfortunate clerical error and destined to be one of the only humans on an alien space station. That is, until she sneaks aboard a ship and joins up with a crew of repo men (they are definitely not pirates). Now she's traveling the galaxy "recovering" ships. What could go wrong?

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The last thing Maura Thomas remembers before her car careened over a steep embankment is having dinner with her college roommate - over 20 years ago. Everything in between is a blank. Maura has no recollection of her husband, her daughter, or her busy, glamorous existence as owner of a Beverly Hills boutique. Maura can't even be sure that everyone around her is who they claim to be. Is it paranoia or self-preservation that makes her uneasy?

Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials, and its triumphs - through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other's faults with patience and affection.

Twenty-two-year-old Militine Scott is in training at the Madison Bridal School in Seattle, yet she has no intention of pursuing marriage. What respectable man would have her? But she has found the school provides the perfect opportunity to keep her unsavory past hidden.

During a treacherous winter trek to the basecamp of Annapurna, one woman is forced to confront the events leading up to her best friend’s tragic death twenty years earlier as well as the nature of their friendship, the meaning of love, and the unexpected consequences of what is spoken—and what is not. When Livy receives a package containing the ashes of her best friend, she knows she must return to the place Mo loved best to honor her memory. Leaving her son and her estranged husband behind, Livy travels to Kathmandu and the mountain towns of Nepal, and to the past.

Highly acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin lends a resonant voice to a pivotal yet often overlooked character of Vergil's The Aeneid. Born into peace and freedom, Lavinia is stunned to learn that she will be the cause of a great war - or so the prophecies and omens claim. Her fate is sealed, however, when she meets a man from Troy.

Abrianna Cunningham has always viewed her longtime friend, Wade Ackerman, as a protective brother. Lately, however, she's begun to see him differently and finds herself attracted romantically to him. But she's confused and overwhelmed by these unfamiliar feelings. Wade, on the other hand, has loved Abrianna for some time and has been waiting for her to realize they are more than just friends.

Nora knows she needs to move on. And forget about magic. She's back in graduate school, and her life is going surprisingly well. She doesn't need to think about other worlds, about enchantments and demons, or about magicians - even though she once aspired to become one herself. Most of all, she really should forget the magician Aruendiel, who shared the secrets of magic with her but fiercely guarded the deepest secrets of his heart. Then a chance encounter gives Nora the opportunity to slip between worlds again - and the next phase of her magical education begins.

Poland, 1940. The Russian army invades the beautiful city streets of Vilna. Soldiers storm 10-year-old Esther Rudomin's house and arrest her entire family. The Rudomins, the soldiers say, are "capitalists - enemies of the people". Forced from their home and friends, the Rudomins are herded onto crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia.

Some say the great mystery of how one can live in two worlds at once died with Thomas Hunter many years ago. Still others that the gateway to that greater reality was and is only the stuff of dreams. They are wrong. In the small town of Eden, Utah, a blind girl named Rachelle Matthews is about to find out just how wrong.

On humanity's first extra-solar mission, the exploration vessel Magellan, or, as she prefers, "Maggie", discovers an alien artifact. Deciding that finding advanced alien life is too important to ignore, Captain Allison Ridgeway chooses to return to Earth while ordering her crew to reverse engineer technology far beyond anything back home. Meanwhile, at mission control, the governments struggle to maintain the existence of aliens a secret while also combating bureaucracy, the military industrial complex, and everyone else who wants a piece of what could skyrocket humanity into a new technological age.

Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd.

Lucy Champagne was sent to St. Cecilia’s after her movie-star mother was brutally attacked by her sleazy boyfriend, Ray Watkins. Lucy’s damning testimony landed Ray a 25-year sentence. But now, Ray is free. And he’s going to find Lucy and make her pay, no matter how far and how fast she runs....