Showing results by narrator "Lindsey Dorcus" in All Categories

Emilia Drakon, pirate, fugitive, and dragon sorceress, loves her captain and her dragons, and she'll do whatever it takes to protect them—including the will of a sea goddess. Captain Maria Welles, on the other hand, wants nothing more than to see her enemies bleed. If she wants safety for her crew, that's only because she's their captain, and if she longs for the love of her sword-and-magic-wielding surgeon, em . . . well, okay, that's where things get complicated.

Emilia Drakon was once the youngest and kindest of the dragon sorcerers, but she's now the last of her kind. Betrayed and angry, she trades her meekness for a sword and embarks on a quest for vengeance that will lead her straight into the arms of the legendary Captain Maria Welles. Captain of the famed pirate ship, the Wicked Fate, Maria is every bit as treacherous and bloodthirsty as they say. She has her own vendetta and practically jumps at the chance to trick Emilia into joining her crew.

Lyra Bien intended to live a quiet life to avoid the attention of the magic-obsessed king in the fortress of Stonegate. Until Roark Ashwood—the prince’s silent guard and rumored killer for the crown—invades her village and uncovers the truth behind the silver scars in her eyes. To save her best friend from death, she’s forced to reveal her abilities, and is immediately claimed by the crown as the next melder.

Thirteen years ago, Providence Byrd threw the family car in reverse and ran over her mother. Even though her mother survived, that single instant of teenage madness made Providence a felon and irrevocably altered her life. When her mother disappears years later under suspicious circumstances, Providence tells herself that returning home is her chance to find closure after a prolonged estrangement from her family. Never mind that this is only half of the truth: she’s also returning to finally confront her abusive father, Tom Byrd.

Lauren Fox is the bookkeeper for Cold World, a tourist destination that's always a winter wonderland despite being located in humid Orlando, Florida. Sure, it’s ranked way below any of the trademarked amusement parks and maybe foot traffic could be better. But it’s a fun place to work, even if “fun” isn’t exactly Lauren’s middle name.

From small indignities to unconscious slights, women experience situations at work every day that may seem small or unimportant but that effectively differentiate and exclude them. These are micro-offenses; the small, awkward, or uncomfortable moments that slow-build until the unwelcome environment takes hold and women disengage.

When a former classmate begs Pleiti for help on behalf of her cousin―who’s up for a prestigious academic position at a rival Jovian university but has been accused of plagiarism on the eve of her defense―Pleiti agrees to investigate the matter. Even if she has to do it without Mossa, her partner in more ways than one. Even if she’s still reeling from Mossa’s sudden isolation and bewildering rejection. Yet what appears to be a case of an attempted reputational smearing devolves into something decidedly more dangerous―and possibly deadly.

Fi is a prisoner. Briar, a monster. Shane's a warrior. And Red is a traitor. What was once a formidable group of four fighting to reawaken the kingdom is now ruptured, torn apart by the wicked Spindle Witch. Confined to a tower with the monstrous Briar Rose, Fi is caught in the Spindle Witch’s ever-tightening web. With the Spindle Witch on the verge of finding the Siphoning Spells and crushing Andar—with Fi’s help, no less—Fi’s only hope lies in decoding the ancient riddle of the Rose Witches before she loses Briar forever.

Dark clouds are gathering for cocky storm chaser Oakley Pierce as she throws herself into a bruising Oklahoma tempest that will change the course of four lives. Tracking her path is down-to-earth TV meteorologist Lana Monroe, who'd dearly love a commitment from her free-spirited partner, Oakley, after eight long years of absence and career sacrifice. Buckled in with Oakley for the storm-chasing ride of a lifetime is butch, brave EMT Riley Gatlin. She can't help but be drawn to the sweet newly divorced single mother Chloe Crawford, who seems as out of place in the group as she is sad.

Rosy is a bone familiar, gifted with the power to shift into animals marked with exposed bone. She spends most of her days in the magical Bone Forest, caring for her feral grandmother and hiding her powers to avoid conscription by the Witch King’s army. Until the day that Princess Shaw, a witch known as Death’s Heir, visits the Forest. When Rosy saves Shaw’s life, the princess offers her the chance to attend the prestigious school, Witch Hall, as payment. Though Rosy is wary of Shaw’s intentions, she cannot pass up the opportunity to find the cure for her grandmother’s affliction.

No one told her the most important law of the court - the law of greeting. If they had, maybe she wouldn't have greeted Bluebeard when he arrived to claim a mortal wife. And if she hadn't greeted him, she wouldn't have become his 16th wife or been swept away to the lands of the Wittenhame. But if none of that had happened, then she wouldn't have been an integral part of the game that takes place every 200 years - a game that determines the fates of nations.

It’s the summer of 1976 and Alice and Tom set out on the remote Canadian highways in their new RV, hoping to heal their broken hearts after a devastating tragedy. They’ve planned the trip perfectly, taken care of every detail. Then they meet two young hitchhikers down on their luck and offer them a ride. But Simon and Jenny aren’t what they seem. They’ve left a trail of blood, destruction, and madness behind them. Now Alice and Tom are trapped, prisoners in a deadly game, with nowhere to turn.

Lilou Adler is a student at the Bastan College for Applied Physics: a magic school focussed on training adult witches and warlocks to become Enforcers. As an Enforcer-in-training, she is one of the many tasked with keeping each generation of fairy tale creatures on track with their fates.

Shelby works as a dog walker in northern California, and she’s just finished up her bi-weekly trip to the park with a husky named Pluto. When she brings him back to his house, she finds his owner - Todd Burke, a well-known local businessman and founder of an organic supplements company - lying on the bathroom floor, dead. A detective arrives on the scene. As she interviews Shelby, the body is inspected by a medical examiner, and more cops search Todd’s home, it becomes clear that the victim’s life was less picture-perfect than his clean-cut persona might lead you to believe.

Aelis de Lenti, Lone Pine's newly assigned Warden, is in deep trouble. She has just opened the crypts of Mahlgren, releasing an army of the undead into the unprotected backwoods of Ystain. To protect her village, she must unearth a source of immense Necromantic power at the heart of Mahlgren. The journey will wind through waves of undead, untamed wilderness, and curses far older than anything Aelis has ever encountered. But as strong as Aelis is, this is one quest she cannot face alone.

When law grad Cass Walker wakes up after surviving a car accident, she is flooded with memories of a man named Devin. The only problem? Devin—as confirmed by family, friends, and doctors—doesn’t exist. Everything about him, from his coffee-brown eyes to the slightly crooked angle of his pinkie to his high-wattage charm, is a figment of Cass’s coma-addled imagination. Still, she can’t get him out of her head. So when she happens upon the real Devin a year later in a Cleveland flower shop, she’s completely shocked.

On a remote, gas-wreathed outpost of a human colony on Jupiter, a man goes missing. The enigmatic Investigator Mossa follows his trail to Valdegeld, home to the colony’s erudite university―and Mossa’s former girlfriend, a scholar of Earth’s pre-collapse ecosystems. Pleiti has dedicated her research and her career to aiding the larger effort towards a possible return to Earth. When Mossa unexpectedly arrives and requests Pleiti’s assistance in her latest investigation, the two of them embark on a twisting path in which the future of life on Earth is at stake.

At this stage in her life, June St. Clare never imagined she'd be starting all over again-a new job, a new city, a new love? Looking for a fresh start after tragedy, June finds herself the unexpected owner of Lark Estates-a micro winery in the heart of Napa Valley. There, June is determined to learn the business and do her best, even if she's convinced that her assistant winemaker, the beautiful but elusive Lucia Santiago, wants to see her fail.

June lives the glamorous lifestyle of a mid-level Dungeons and Dragons influencer: broke in her parents' basement. Although June's internet-famous avatar has her life together, June is a people-pleasing mess on the inside. When she needs a D&D group for a lucrative opportunity, her celebrity group disinvites her, and she has to lean on her old friends.

A collection of the year’s best mystery and suspense short fiction selected by #1 New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Jess Walter and series editor Steph Cha.