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Audiobooks Narrated by Frankie Corzo
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"A marine biologist's search for an undiscovered species of octopus leads her to an isolated island where long-buried memories rise like specters from the deep, intent on dragging her darkest truths to the surface...
From the author of The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey, this hauntingly evocative novel is perfect for fans of Emilia Hart's The Sirens, Sarah Penner's The Amalfi Curse, and Adrienne Young.
Twenty nautical miles off the coast of Boston lies Bell Island, shrouded in fog, mystery, and legend. Historically a refuge for women fleeing the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600s and a way station on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves in the 1800s, the island is isolated and rumored to be haunted by spirits and . . . other things.
It is to Bell Island that microbial biologist Harper Hafdóttir ventures in search of evidence of a new species of octopus, Thalassa, possibly lurking below the swirling water's surface. Along with her equipment, and her luggage, Harper carries with her the burden of past trauma and vivid, recurring dreams.
Swept up in unexplained phenomena ranging from increased seismic activity and a boat-capsizing rogue wave to encounters with island creatures that defy explanation, Harper looks to the island's venerated if mysterious mayor for answers. Lady Loreana Bell comes from a single matriarchal line that has ruled the island for 400 years--and seems to have been expecting Harper's arrival.
It is within the walls of Bell Manor--its gothic grandeur matched only by the intensity of Harper's deja vu--that she discovers the 1690 journal of a young woman in the grips of a religious cult. As a tsunami threatens the island, Harper finds herself on the verge of a revelation that will ultimately unlock the mystery of her haunted dreams and disclose her true purpose on Bell Island . . ."
"Winner of the Herralde Novel Prize
A darkly funny coming-of-age novel where Florida's sun-drenched strangeness meets the dangers of derelict parenting and misplaced devotion
An eccentric Spanish philosophy professor relocates with his two children, a boy and a girl, from Boston to a gated island off the coast of Miami. The kids have come to the US to learn English and spend time with their father after a heated custody battle. But as the professor is embraced by a glittering social scene and his seemingly fun, innocent antics tip into recklessness, the children receive a very different kind of education.
In this lush, sharply observed novel, an unnamed, unreliable narrator remembers her surreal stay on Key Biscayne, where nobody lives unless they have something to hide. As the narrator is gradually drawn into the island's morally ambiguous world, putting her innocence at risk, she begins to overidentify with her father. She becomes not just witness but also accomplice to his erratic behavior, acquiescing to his efforts to isolate herself and her brother from their concerned mother, whose calls from Spain go unanswered.
The Key Biscayne Affair is a tender, disorienting, and deeply disquieting coming-of-age story disguised as a psychological thriller. Xita Rubert delivers a powerful meditation on childhood and the knotty truths that memory leaves behind."
"A rousing, inspiring call-to-action that encourages us to embrace the economic potential of refugee women and break the invisible barriers that constrain their power
Every day, thousands of women are forced from their homes by armed conflict, persecution, and violence. Jina Krause-Vilmar has spent decades working around the world with these women, in some of the most difficult and dangerous conditions. Now, in We Are Called to Rise, she explores and celebrates the economic and social power of refugee women—the strength and opportunity that policymakers overlook, governments fail to harness, and stereotypes erase, but that also ultimately holds the potential for real change and progress. Presented through a compelling blend of storytelling and social science, Krause-Vilmar lays out a new plan for how we can think about and pursue change, from debunking the “bootstrapping myth” and setting new rules of engagement to presenting personal stories of women thriving against overwhelming obstacles in locations across the globe that put faces and intimate truths to passing headlines.
Inspiring, informative, and more timely than ever, We Are Called to Rise is a powerful testimony to the invisible threads that keep us from embracing one another—and how, despite the barriers, we can reweave those threads to create opportunity not just for these women, but for entire communities, everywhere."
"Encanto meets Oceans 8 in this thrilling finale in the Encantadora duology, following Rosa and her friends as they are caught up in a hair-raising new heist with a monstrous twist.
Rosa Coelho has traveled far from trapping monstros in the lowest city streets of Lua. Ever since her thief crew, the Tea Leaves, successfully heisted from the Ministério dos Monstros, she's been trying to put her trapping skills behind her to become a full-fledged keeper, master of locks and puzzles.
And now she's up against the puzzle of a lifetime. Driven to untangle the cryptic message her lost pai left behind, Rosa and her friends must travel to Sol, the City of Thieves, to compete in a series of challenges that would win her access to the answers she's been looking for.
But when familiar faces return to sow chaos in the competition, the Tea Leaves discover the darkness within the Garden of Monstros is much more treacherous than they ever imagined. Caught between past and future, Lua and Sol, her knowledge as a trapper and her duty as a keeper, Rosa will need to choose the right path to save her found family-and the entire city-before it's too late.
"
"'When friends meet, hearts warm.'
Scottish saying
Cousins Nora and Allie are bound by a friendship that feels more like sisterhood, so when their Gran asks them to travel to Scotland on her behalf to claim an unexpected inheritance and unearth her old diary, they jump at this chance for the trip of a lifetime together.
When they arrive in Gran's childhood village, they run into roadblocks but use the delayed schedule to experience the beauty of Scotland. Over shortbread from the local bakery and a boat ride on Loch Lomond, through exploration of ancestral castles and autumn highlands, they wonder what God wants to teach them in this land of mist and heather.
Though they revel in their time together abroad, they find they've brought more baggage than just their suitcases. While Allie fears she may have to leave early to deal with issues back home, Nora struggles to understand all the unknowns before her. What is it about Scotland that keeps drawing her to this unfamiliar place?
As the truth of Gran's past comes to light, Allie and Nora must make weighty decisions. Will they learn to rely on the creative purposes of God, even if it means their lives will never be the same?
On this armchair trek to Scotland, Robin Jones Gunn takes readers on a journey of faith, friendship, and family. Themes of European travel, midlife adventures, and unexpected secrets make this inspirational women's fiction a perfect selection for Christian book clubs."
"'Filled with longing and desire, Muñeca explores the true cost of freedom and the lengths we go to attain it. Cynthia Gómez's writing is utterly hypnotic; from the very beginning, she had me completely under her spell.' -Monika Kim, author of Eyes are the Best Part
A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process.
It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic.
Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta's caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why?
As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts- ones she hoped would stay gone forever.
Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love-even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned."
"From New York Times reporter Jazmine Ulloa, a sweeping human history of El Paso, revealing violence, power, and privilege at play in America's most famous border town.
El Paso has been called the "Ellis Island" of America's southern border, a mountain pass cum border town cum bifurcated metropolis where past meets future, and disadvantage meets opportunity, or so the promise goes.
El Paso is an extraordinary, can't-look-away reported history; it uses deep research and dozens of new interviews to blow away the myth of this place, where Mexico's Juarez and America's El Paso intertwine. It charts the history of El Paso through five families. From the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican Repatriation, to the shifting immigration laws under Reagan and Trump and the violence and bloodshed brought on by the drug war, El Paso captures a place often misunderstood or forgotten by the rest of the country, and the world.
El Paso is a brave new work of narrative nonfiction that gives new voice and perspective to history that has long been checked at the border, or told through the lens of white men alone. Ulloa draws upon meticulous research and reporting and stunning historical detail to craft the intimate narratives of an unforgettable cast of characters."
"Instant USA Today bestseller!
A heart-wrenching and unforgettable contemporary romance about grief, healing, and second chances, where Josefine and Daniel—two souls from different worlds—learn that sometimes love is the only way to find your way back to the surface
He can't stop thinking about her. She wants to forget him. But fate seems to have other plans.
Josefine Resendiz is trying to survive the weight of grief while pretending her life hasn’t come to a complete standstill. She doesn’t know how to name what she’s feeling or how to fix what feels broken inside her. All she knows is that staying afloat is getting harder by the day.
Daniel Garcia looks like he has everything going for him. A gifted shortstop with a future everyone believes in, he carries himself with easy charm and quiet confidence. What no one sees is the guilt and loss he’s been carrying since his brother’s death, grief he’s learned to hide behind smiles and discipline.
That's until he stumbles upon Josefine on Christmas Day, by chance and at the wrong time, in a moment that was never meant to last. But some connections refuse to disappear. When their paths keep crossing, forgetting each other becomes impossible. Feelings surface. Defenses falter. Being together starts to feel like relief.
As they grow closer, they are forced to face the question neither of them is ready to answer: What happens when love arrives before healing does, and letting go feels just as terrifying as holding on?"
"A companion to Ursula K. Le Guin's award-winning Hainish novels—including The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed—Five Ways to Forgiveness tells the story of the planet Werel and its colony planet Yeowe, and how their societies are shaped by the legacies of slavery and revolution.
When the enslaved people on the colony Yeowe (called 'assets') overthrow the slave-holding class (called 'owners'), the owners on neighboring Werel launch a war to preserve the master-slave society that undergirds the economy of both planets. Told from the perspectives of people caught in the crosshairs of the struggle, the stories in this collection are linked by the character 'Old Music,' an Ekumen ambassador who is secretly working as an abolitionist and supporter of Yeowe's emancipation. Together they ask: What does forgiveness look like in a world riddled by racism and caste?
In 'Betrayals,' a disgraced revolutionary leader makes peace with his past. In the intersectional 'Forgiveness Day,' a female ambassador from the Ekumen struggles with the patriarchal culture of Werel, while 'A Man of the People' tells the life story of a male Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe. 'A Woman's Liberation' tells the story of a woman who, after escaping to freedom, must reckon with the internalized racism that still enchains her. And finally, the story 'Old Music and the Slave Women' braids the collection together and counts the cost of justice.
First published in 1994 as Four Ways to Forgiveness, this is the first standalone edition that includes the fifth story, 'Old Music and the Slave Women,' that Le Guin wrote years after to augment this extraordinary, vital suite."
"Brilliantly read by a multi-cast of narrators.
The International Bestseller
'Just stellar - extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled' - Anne Enright, Booker Prize winning author of The Wren, The Wren
'These stories are perfect for the times we dwell inside' - Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon
The strange and explosive new collection from the incomparable imagination of Samanta Schweblin, a master of the short story.
A gripping blend of the raw, the astonishing and the tragic, every story is as perfectly unexpected as a snare: tightly, exquisitely wound, ready to snap at a touch.
Here, a young father is haunted by the consequences of a moment of distraction; tragedy is complicated by the inexplicable appearance of an injured horse; an attempted poisoning leads two writers to startling conclusions; a lonely woman's charity is rewarded with home-invasion. And in the shocking opening story, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring.
Guilt, grief and relationships severed permeate this mesmerizing collection - but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love and longing, each sinister and beautiful. Step by step these unnerving stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life - ourselves.
'No one writes like Samanta Schweblin' - Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home"
"An immersive, historical novel based on true events: In 1938, Orson Welles’s legendary radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds terrified Americans into believing Martians were invading. Eleven years later, an Ecuadorian radio station adapted the show—with catastrophic consequences. Now, two young journalists are determined to uncover what really happened to their families that night—even as secrets endanger their future.
1957: Aspiring photojournalist Valeria Anzures returns to her hometown of Quito with a secret purpose: to discover the truth about how her parents really died. The disastrous 1949 War of the Worlds show caused a mob to torch her family's radio station—and the newspaper run by their closest friends, the Monteros. The tragedy shattered the families’ relationship—and left the station on precarious financial ground. Now, expected to save her family’s legacy through an arranged marriage, Valeria will risk everything to find out the truth. Even if it means allying with the man she's always loved—but who now treats her like a stranger.
For Matías Montero, the scars of that night run deep. He saved his mother but blames himself for not rescuing his father. As a journalist, he views Valeria as a rival. Still, they’re both on the same mission. Perhaps, together, they can unearth the past their families and friends would rather remain buried.
Valeria and Matías soon find trusting each other is as dangerous as the attraction they can't resist. Between their families’ mutual hatred, duplicitous witnesses, insidious lies, and ruthless manipulations, exposing the real story will put their future on the line—and ignite revelations no one saw coming."
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