Showing results by narrator "Cynthia Farrell" in All Categories

Truth: Penn Walker entered my life like a summer storm - dark, ominous, and filled with thunder. After witnessing my husband's murder, I didn't have much of a heart left to offer a man. But Penn took it all. Every jagged shard. Every broken bit. Even the dirty and twisted pieces that I wish never existed.

Two years ago, Paige Wilson watched helplessly as her brother Ryan was shot, right on her doorstep. He survived the attack, but he never fully recovered from the trauma. Stuck in a wheelchair, Ryan refuses to accept the life of a paraplegic. His idea of fun is coming up with new ways to torment Paige, who has sacrificed her own happiness to care for him. He feels she’s responsible for what happened to him that night, and he’s determined to make her life a living hell.

A young girl receives letters from her lost doll; a cat madly in love with her human neighbour; a bored office worker escapes his monotonous life by travelling on his grandfather’s model train; a man gives all of himself to the woman he loves, piece by piece. These are just a few of the unforgettable characters that inhabit Félix J. Palma’s gorgeously wrought short story collection, by turns mesmerising, morbid and melancholy.

The Adventurer. The Great Snurkab. The Caretaker. Constance Verity returns, having accepted and secured her place in the universe while juggling her expanded life. Until she comes up against The Caretaker’s nemesis, a foe she can’t just beat the hell out of, Connie must defeat the idea of inevitable entropy, the end of everything.

Constance successfully became an ordinary person. People warned her it would be boring, and they were right. That's exactly why Connie loves it. But there's an Adventurer-shaped hole in the cosmos now and a lot of interested parties eager to fill it. Not all of those candidates are fit for the role, and if the Adventurer falls into the wrong hands, it can lead to chaos and destruction. When the fate of the world is at stake, Constance sets off, reluctantly, to keep the forces of evil from stealing the destiny she abandoned.

Captive south of the border with Jax the subject of intense interrogation, there's no way she'll risk escape without setting them both free. When their captors put her in the middle of a dangerous turf war, Kenna wants nothing to do with negotiating a truce. Kenna is dragged along for the ride, partnered with a suspicious former colleague, and tasked with a dangerous assignment whether she likes it or not. With rescue just out of reach, Kenna is pushed to the breaking point: keep fighting, or finally surrender.

The start of a big, commercial, crackling, suspense filled series featuring a sexy, tough-gal DEA agent, Kay Hamilton - perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Patricia Cornwell, and Sara Paretsky.

Under the direction of the Kingsleys’ new president, Paige, the family has gathered for a weekend retreat at a luxurious Laguna Beach resort. Still clinging to the hope of succession are the sons of Richard Kingsley, the family patriarch and CEO: John, the oldest, who’s clawed his way back from a dark tragedy, and Paige’s estranged husband, Ted, the golden boy.

The day of her wedding, 17-year-old Ada’s life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women.

An invitation to Catalina Island from billionaire CEO Richard Kingsley. For his sons, Ted and John, and their wives, it’s an opportunity to curry favor, gain control of a real estate empire, and secure their family’s futures. For the controlling patriarch, succession is a contest. He and his newest wife won’t make it an easy win. Then Richard’s estranged live-wire daughter, Sibley, crashes the party. She’s the least of the night’s surprises. As the stakes for the inheritance of the Kingsley legacy are raised, the beautiful waters of the Pacific look more like a menacing illusion.

Eve is a frustrated young artist and the owner of what she believes is a haunted house. Sandra is an overworked producer at Searching for . . . the Invisible World, a paranormal investigations show perpetually on the brink of cancelation. When the show descends upon Eve's home, they’re intent on creating just another staged spectacle. But, unexpectedly, the crew encounters some very real activity—shelves collapse, electronics go haywire, a cameraman disappears in the dead of night.

A healthy Earth requires healthy children. Yet nearly one-fourth of the world’s children are stunted physically and mentally due to a lack of food or nutrients. During the past 30 years, says Sharman Russell, we have seen a revolution in how we treat these sick children and in how - with a new understanding of the human body and approach to nutrition, and new ways to reach out to hungry mothers and babies - we have gone from unwittingly killing severely malnourished children to bringing them back to health through the “miracle” of ready-to-eat therapeutic food.

Mackenzie Hanson's special set of skills opened the door to a successful career as a professor of cybersecurity at a Michigan university, allowing her to put her criminal past behind her. But when a long-ago partner in crime delivers a cryptic message about her father's tech company being under cyberattack, she heads for Montana to secure exposed assets, close security breaches, and hopefully save lives. Diplomatic Security Services special agent Alex Knight is back home in Montana to decompress from a mission gone wrong. But as he's trying to relax, he's drawn into another mystery.

Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a recent widower in a small, isolated town in Colorado, she takes it as a chance to finally organize her life.

When was the last time you cried? Was it because you were sad? Or happy? Overwhelmed, or frustrated? Maybe from relief or from pride? Was it in public or in private? Did you feel better afterwards, or worse? The reasons that we cry—and the circumstances in which we shed a tear—are often surprising and beautiful. Sad Happens is a collective, multi-faceted archive of tears that captures the complexity and variety of these circumstances.

American Brujeria is about the fascinating blend of American and Mexican folk magic currently used by those living in the US but whose roots are steeped in Mexican culture. This type of Mexican American folk magic, which the author calls “American brujeria”, features its own unique saints and spirits as well as familiar ones, such as the infamous Santa Muerte.

Twins Esmeralda and Atticus Fetch are the best pet finders in Thorns Hollow - a town where people have a lot of pets, and those pets often get lost. But when a lost dog leads them to an old, Victorian house on the edge of town, the twins find their world turned upside down. This creepy house contains a portal that leads to a whole other world - a world where mythical creatures like trolls, fairies, and dragons are real.

Clover Martinez has always been a survivor, which is the only reason she isn't among the dead when aliens invade and destroy Earth as she knows it. When she hears an inexplicable radio message, she's shocked to learn there are other survivors - and that they're all at the former Area 51. When she arrives, she's greeted by a band of misfits who call themselves the Last Teenagers on Earth. Only they aren't the ragtag group of heroes Clover was expecting.

Fifteen years ago, Berta fled from Madrid to London to escape the controlling mother who made her childhood a living nightmare. Now, following her mother’s death, she is forced to return and face the ghosts of her unhappy past. But it is not long before she discovers that her own bleak memories are nothing compared to the dark deception lurking in her family. How did her sister’s loveless marriage really end? And is the loyal housekeeper really hiding the truth about the strange disappearance of Berta’s father?

Mexican witchcraft, or brujeria, has long been an integral part of traditional Mexican culture that permeates all strata of social hierarchy, ethnicity, or level of education. "Brujeria de Rancho" refers to brujeria as it is practiced in the rural areas of Mexico. There, the brujos de Ranch offer their healing and divinatory powers, acting as advisors, and even meting out justice through the use of cursing and hexing for people who are often not able to pay lawyers' fees.