Showing results by narrator "Zura Johnson" in All Categories

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that's no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.

Loren Calla has only ever been ordinary. As a human struggling to survive in a city that caters to the needs of vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural creatures, she always assumed her life would remain simple, predictable, and as safe as her world would allow. Until she barely escapes abduction at the hands of Darkslayers—supernatural bounty hunters that possess the Sight, a magical tracking ability that allows them to see a person's aura—and one of her friends is taken in her place. The abductors are demanding a ransom: Loren's life in exchange for her friend's safe return.

Nevada Baylor runs a small-time detective agency in Houston, Texas, busting scammers, exposing cheaters, and dealing with petty criminals. She's very good at her job–helped by a magical ability to sense when someone tells the truth or lies. But when she's forced into accepting a case to find a radical pyrotechnic who can conjure heat and fire at will, Nevada knows she's out of her league. To bring him to justice, she'll have to join forces with someone who wields an even more dangerous power.

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during WWII included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju? This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history.

All that stands between rowdy long-haul trucker Jill MacLeod (aka Junkmouth) and her family back in Boston is two thousand miles of asphalt. Well, that and the monstrous game the System has had her playing ever since it descended on Earth. The reward: mana. Jill's goal: kill, score, drive—and stay alive. Behind the wheel of a turreted forty-ton semi named Bertha, Jill hammers east from Montana through a gauntlet of every kind of chomping, hissing, rabid creature imaginable. Barreling forward in her magical soulbound big rig and chalking up a bumper crop of roadkill, Jill isn't alone for long.

After Keelynn witnesses her sister's murder at the hands of the legendary Gancanagh, an immortal creature who seduces women and kills them with a cursed kiss, she realizes there’s nothing she wouldn't do to get her back. With the help of a vengeful witch, she’s given everything she needs to resurrect the person she loves most. Tadhg, a devilishly handsome half-fae who has no patience for high society—or propriety—would rather spend his time in the company of loose women and dark creatures than help a human kill one of his own. Until Keelynn makes him an offer he can’t refuse.

Ever since the System brought magic and monstrous mayhem to Earth, long-haul trucker Jill "Junkmouth" MacLeod has had a need for speed. The highway snaking through the Midwestern plains is the battleground, and the stakes are the lives of not only Jill but thousands of survivors along for the ride. Together with Bertha, her mega-upgraded, fully-turreted, heavily-armored Soulbound big rig, Jill has the edge—so far.

We're at an inflection point in data, where our data management solutions no longer match the complexity of organizations, the proliferation of data sources, and the scope of our aspirations to get value from data with AI and analytics. In this practical book, Zhamak Dehghani introduces data mesh, a decentralized sociotechnical paradigm drawn from modern distributed architecture that provides a new approach to sourcing, sharing, accessing, and managing analytical data at scale.

Loren soon finds herself caught in a new storm of trouble when the Terran Imperator blackmails her into working for him. There's only one problem: he expects her to use her magic, and she doesn't seem to have any of it left. To keep Darien and the other Devils safe, she agrees to everything the imperator asks of her. But the secrets she is forced to keep from Darien and her involvement with the imperator's son threaten to drive her away from Darien in ways she might never recover from…

Happily married with two wonderful children, Dom and Stacey are living the dream. He runs a successful design agency; she's finding fame as an author of children’s books. Everything is perfect. But then they meet the mesmerizing Tamara, and their lives are changed forever. Tamara is a woman with a plan. She executes it step by step—patient, systematic, methodical. And as her plan unfolds, Dom and Stacey find their lives slipping out of control, taking them from heaven into the deepest, darkest hell....

When I applied for a job as a personal assistant, I had no idea I'd be working for THE Eloise Roth. One of the queens of romance novels, who has dozens of bestsellers under her belt. I also had no idea that she would be strict, demanding, and difficult. Every single day I think about quitting, but for some reason I keep coming back for more. I have no idea when the hell Eloise went from my intimidating boss to the woman who stars in all of my dirtiest fantasies, but it's becoming a real problem, and my already scattered brain is having even more trouble functioning. I'm so getting fired.

When Darkslayer Darien Cassel first took human Loren Calla under his wing, he made a promise to protect her from anything. Now that she has fallen into a coma, every day a losing battle to return to life, he is determined to save her. When he hears rumors of the one place in Terra that houses a secret that just might bring her back to him, he drops everything to try it, leaving behind the city he grew up in and the people he calls family. His decision sets his best friend Maximus Reacher onto a road of his own.

Hot on the heels of her 2018 This Is Horror Award–winning short story collection Spectral Evidence, critically horror author Gemma Files compiles fifteen more of her most startling recent nightmares—a creepily seductive downward spiral of dark poetry and existential dread, entirely suitable to the slow apocalypse going on all around us. So take your mind off your troubles and send it somewhere the rules still operate, if only to punish those who violate them.

Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans. To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of monsters. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.

Sarah Kurchak is autistic. She hasn’t let that get in the way of pursuing her dream to become a writer, or to find love, but she has let it get in the way of being in the same room with someone chewing food loudly and of cleaning her bathroom sink. In I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder, Kurchak examines the Byzantine steps she took to become “an autistic success story”, how the process almost ruined her life, and how she is now trying to recover.

My husband is dead, and I’m the prime suspect. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the law requires I marry by the end of the season, or I lose my kingdom. I followed my heart the first time; I won’t do it again. The old tournament tradition could help me select our next king while protecting my broken heart, but I never expected a close friend of my husband’s family to show up to compete. I don’t know if he believes the rumors and suspects me of murder, but it’s clear someone wants him out of the competition and me off the throne.

Demeter: a goddess of life, living half of one. Demeter did not always live in fear. Once, she loved the world and the humans who inhabited it. After an act of devastating violence, though, she hides herself away among the grasses and wildflowers. Her only solace is her daughter . . . Before she was Persephone, she was Core. Core is as bright as summer and devoted to her mother, even during their millennia in exile from Olympus. But she craves freedom. Naïve and determined, she secretly builds a life of her own—and as she does so, she catches the eye of a powerful god . .

Becoming a parent, once the expected outcome of adulthood, is increasingly viewed as a potential threat to the most basic goals and aspirations of modern life. We seek self-fulfillment; we want to liberate women to find meaning and self-worth outside the home; and we wish to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change. Weighing the pros and cons of having children, millennials and zoomers are finding it increasingly difficult to judge in its favor. With lucid argument and passionate prose, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman offer the guidance necessary to move beyond uncertainty.

She thought he was dead. Four years after the disappearance of her beloved prince, Lady Allette Rittey returns to the fae realm to find Prince Senan very much alive—and on the verge of marrying a bloody princess. Desperate for answers, Allette poses as a servant to gain access to his castle. But the wedding bells are ringing, and she's running out of time before she loses him forever. Prince Senan Vale has problems. A lot of them. Most pressing, an arranged marriage not to the woman he was meant for, but the princess of a neighboring kingdom.

Psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray has dedicated her life to the study and prevention of ERS—a space-based condition most famous for a case that resulted in the brutal murders of twenty-nine people. When she's assigned to a small exploration crew, she's eager to make a difference. But as they begin to establish residency on an abandoned planet, it becomes clear that crew is hiding something. While Ophelia focuses on her new role, her crewmates are far more interested in investigating the eerie, ancient planet and unraveling the mystery behind the previous colonizer's hasty departure.