Lj Blackwell

English settler Grace Ashwell flees an abusive lover in Hobart Town, with six-year-old Violet in tow. In her head, escape is easy: find work in the northern settlements and earn enough for passage home to London. But the terrain beyond the settled districts is wilder than Grace could ever have imagined. She and Violet find themselves lost in a beautiful but deadly land where rain thunders down mountains, the earth drops away without warning and night brings impenetrable darkness.

Listeners all around the world are discovering Robert Stanek and Ruin Mist. Robert Stanek is the highly-acclaimed author of more than 75 books for young people and adults. Ruin Mist is the fantasy world explored in The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches quartet and in In the Service of Dragons. Listen to this special edition audio and explore the world of Ruin Mist and its characters.

In May of 2007, in a small, quiet town in the South Moravia region of the Czech Republic, a technical glitch - a simple, accidental crossing of signals - revealed a terrible case of child abuse, and an entire nation watched transfixed with horror as the grisly extent of the perversion of the maternal instinct was revealed. Two small brothers named Jakub and Ondrej, nine and seven years old respectively, were revealed to have suffered confinement, mutilation, psychological brutality, and cannibalism at the hands of several people.

Connie Willis, the multiple Hugo Award-winning author of Blackout, and Carrie Vaughn, the author of the Kitty Norville paranormal fantasy series, discuss speculative fiction and the art of writing.

The day after her 16th birthday, Princess Alia finds out that she's been given away in marriage to a man she's never met. The war has just ended, and for Alia's protection, she must travel to her future kingdom disguised as a chicken farmer's daughter. This princess to pauper story is filled with problems, prayers and plenty of piano.

The brutal murder of a young girl more than 40 years ago pulls investigative reporter Erin Solomon into a serpentine mystery revolving around her own father's dark past. The trail leads Erin and fellow reporter Daniel "Diggs" Diggins to Black Falls, Maine, a town steeped in the Acadian tradition, where young girls have gone missing with terrifying frequency for decades. Soon, it's clear that the father Erin thought she knew has buried secrets she never could have imagined.