Showing results by narrator "Jess Nahikian" in All Categories

Ellory returns to Pine Brook to navigate senior year after a two-month suspension and summer away - no boyfriend, no friends. No going back. Tormented by some and sought out by others, troubled by a mysterious note-writer who won’t let Ellory forget, and consumed by guilt over her not entirely innocent role in everything and everyone she’s lost, Ellory finds that even in the present, the past is everywhere. The path forward isn’t a straight line. And moving on will mean sorting the truth from the lies - the lies Ellory has been telling herself.

Working as a Wench - i.e. waitress - at a cheesy medieval-themed restaurant in the Chicago suburbs, Kit Sweetly dreams of being a Knight like her brother. She has the moves, is capable on a horse, and desperately needs the raise that comes with knighthood. Company policy allows only guys to be Knights. So when Kit takes her brother’s place, clobbers the Green Knight, and reveals her identity at the end of the show, she rockets into internet fame and a whole lot of trouble with the management. But this Girl Knight won’t go down without a fight.

Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Dr. Hannah Bryers, anthropology professor and forensics expert at the prestigious Mad River University, takes pleasure in examining corpses, but small talk and living people fill her with dread. When she’s not teaching, she analyzes the decomposing flesh of murder victims around the globe.

Study Break, a collection of interconnected contemporary Young Adult short stories written by Gen Z authors, explores different parts of "the college experience," from questioning your major to questioning your identity.

Aidan Thomas is a hardworking family man and a respected member of his community. He's also a kidnapper and serial killer who has murdered eight women. And there's a ninth, a woman he's renamed Rachel, imprisoned in a backyard shed where she fears for her life. When Aidan's wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Cecilia, are forced to move. Aidan brings Rachel along, introducing her to Cecilia as a family friend who needs a place to stay. After five years of captivity, surely Rachel is too brainwashed to attempt to escape.

In a series of interwoven fictionalized stories, Deborah Noyes gives voice to the marginalized women in P. T. Barnum’s family - and the talented entertainers he built his entertainment empire on. Barnum was a legendary showman, entrepreneur, marketing genius, and one of the most famous nineteenth-century personalities. For those who lived in Barnum’s shadow, however, life was complex.

Summer 1940. Fourteen-year-old Tessa Graham finds herself in a new, unfamiliar world. For her safety, she is sent from England to Chicago to live with the prominent Ardley family just before the London Blitz. On the University of Chicago campus, 18-year-old Anthony Ardley has to make a choice. His country stands at the brink of war. What will happen when Tessa and Anthony cross paths on the way to discovering themselves? A coming of age tale that emerges into an epic love story, this book takes you back to Chicago in the pre-war era, when two young people must find their paths.

In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term. From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

On a frigid December night, Megan Floyd vanishes from the mountain town of Fraser, Colorado. The extensive search provides no answers and as attention of her disappearance fades, the case goes cold. Her father, Tom Floyd, is forced to confront his worst fear that his daughter will never be found, and soon his life and marriage begin to disintegrate around him.

Valerie is on a mission to reach the king. But when a gang of lawless Avalonian natives hijacks her prized war car, getting it back means a detour into dangerous territory. The frontier is overrun with cutthroat gangs, deadly bounty hunters, and mountain lords with their own brand of justice. When her mission thrusts her between warring factions, she’s forced to take sides in a battle she’s unprepared to fight. Secrets from her own past lie hidden in the forest, and with her mentor Damon missing, the only thing she can count on is her sword.

The Late Bloomer is harrowing, grim, and poignant in the way of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Told in Kevin March’s singular and unforgettable voice, delivering a gripping narrative with an unsparing climax as moving as it is terrifying, The Late Bloomer defies expectations of the genre and will haunt those who listen to it.

This amazingly wise and nimble collection investigates the horrors inflicted on so-called “witches” of the past. The Witch of Eye unearths salves, potions, and spells meant to heal, yet interpreted by inquisitors as evidence of evil. The author describes torture and forced confessions alongside accounts of gentleness of legendary midwives.

Zelda is stuck in a dream, a very strange dream where people can fly, bears sneeze money, and her childhood cat, Patches, is somehow alive—despite being run over years ago. Things only get stranger when Zelda meets Langston, a sweet if overly timid guy who feels more real to her than anyone she’s ever met. As Zelda and Langston explore the far reaches of the dreamscape together, they find themselves growing closer and closer. But what they uncover along the way pushes them towards a truth neither of them wants to face.

A missing king, rumors of war coming from the North, and a Southern prince determined to preserve the peace that has lasted a generation. An agent, known only as The Traveler, is sent across time and space to protect a prince in a medieval era while keeping her true origins a secret. The prince, along with four loyal companions, journey North to find a missing king who can provide stability to a strategic realm. The Traveler must quickly earn the trust of this small group and finds herself growing attached to the one man distrusted the most.

Captain Shea Lara is the leader of The Veiled Duchess, the most feared pirate ship in all of Nereid. And now, after completing her former mentor's final score, she's retiring. Everything she's known seems to be coming to an end. Until a night in her favorite tavern, when a mysterious stranger drags her back into the fold with an offer for a score, she can't refuse. All she has to do is kidnap the crowned princess of the northern Queendom, Joana of Arethusa.

Summoned by letter, Holly Shaw and five of her cousins—virtual strangers to each other—have gathered at a grand house in the rugged wilds of Alaska. Equally unfamiliar to Holly is her great aunt Lydia, the woman who has called the family together and is dangling a massive inheritance before them. Her condition? They must remain in the house, with Lydia and her butler and caregiver, until she passes. Anyone not in residence at that time is out of the will, their share of the money split among the others. That night, everyone settles in. And the next morning, the murders begin.

Fire and ashes! The city is burning! Young mage’s apprentice Thomena is gifted in the elements of wind and water, but she yearns to learn the secrets of fire. When she discovers another mage is the one starting fires around her city of Orlaun, her resolve is tested by tragedy and roaring infernos. She needs to win the trust of the toughest heroes around, the fire-fighting vigiles, but they are hard to impress. Can she save Orlaun before the fires consume all Thomena cares about?

Captain Shea Lara and the crew are back in this thrilling sequel to The Veiled Threat, The Veiled Descendants. It's been a year since she struck the deal - a year since she promised to marry her princess, a year of adventure, darkness, and change. Her fiancé has chased Shea across the Nereidan seas, but now it's time for her to come back to Arethusa. The storm has arrived, and none of them are prepared for what’s coming.

After school one day, Frankie, a lover of physics and astronomy, has her first sexual experience with quiet and gorgeous Benjamin - and gets her period. It’s only blood, they agree. But soon a gruesome meme goes viral, turning an intimate, affectionate afternoon into something sordid, mortifying, and damaging. In the time it takes to swipe a screen, Frankie’s universe implodes. Who can she trust? Not Harriet, her suddenly cruel best friend, and certainly not Benjamin, the only one who knows about the incident.