Showing results by narrator "Natalie Naudus" in All Categories

Gina "Tinkerbell" Miyoko is not your typical private eye. Armed with a baby blue Magnum, a Harley blessed with Holy Water by her dramatically disposed mother, and a Japanese mingei tucked in her pocket (a good luck charm from her Sherlock Holmes-obsessed father), Tink spends her time sniffing out delinquent dads in the San Francisco Bay area and honing her detective skills. But when her best friend, Rose, an undercover agent, discovers there’s a stalker on her tail, she hires Tink as a bodyguard.

From jewelry to meditation pillows to tourist retreats, religious traditions are being commodified as never before. Imitated and rebranded as “new age” or “spiritual,” they are marketed to secular Westerners as an answer to suffering in the modern world. In Buying Buddha, Selling Rumi, Sophia Rose Arjana examines the appropriation and sale of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam in the West today, the role of mysticism and Orientalism in the religious marketplace, and how the commodification of religion impacts people’s lives.

Karda rule the skies over Adalta. The powerful hawk-headed flying horses have been the protectors of their world for millennia. Now they are called to do battle again to save Adalta from an ancient enemy. On Adalta for her first solo undercover mission, Marta Rowan is awed by the sight of these beautiful, fierce creatures. She wants more than anything to fly one. As cover for her mission, she applies to join their riders. Sidhari, a majestic bay Karda with shining copper colored wings chooses her, and Marta is caught in a soul-deep bond she never expected.

Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. In Sex with a Brain Injury, she writes about what it means to be one of the “walking wounded,” facing her fear, her rage, her physical suffering, and the effects of head trauma on her marriage and other relationships. Forced to reckon with her own queer mother’s battle with addiction, Liontas finds echoes in their pain. Liontas weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability—particularly in relation to women and the LGBT community.

Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don't bother her, not when she's already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train. Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater.

In Shadow Lab, a brilliant roster of speculative fiction writers pulls listeners into a diverse and genre-bending collection of stories, each as irresistible as the last.

Every single one of Elise Ngo’s close girlfriends—Rebecca, Jesse, and Beth—is getting married within the same few months, and every single one of them has asked her to be both bridesmaid and florist. Though it’s a lot for her to juggle, the work and exposure is a boon to her struggling flower shop. The stakes are high at Rebecca’s high-profile wedding, where the guests are mostly political connections of Rebecca’s parents. Desperate for the event to go off without a hitch, Elise enlists the help of an outside caterer who turns out to be Ben Yu, Rebecca’s elusive younger brother.

Forgiveness is the 13th title in the Osho best-selling Insights for a New Way of Living series.

Hua Minglan didn't fear death. At least not hers. What scared her was watching the people she loved suffer for nothing more than the history in their blood. Because as descendants fo the last Dragon Lords of Piao, the Minglans had dragon blood. The capital city wasn't a welcome place for anyone suspected fo harboring the ancient power inside them. No dragon had been seen in Piao in a hundred years, yet the legends called their blood royal. It was said those with dragon blood were fit to sit on the emperor's gilded throne.

After a victory that came at too high of a cost, Ryn's sacrifices have paid off. Ryn has awakened Grace, the Davina who's prophesied to save them all...but she's not what Ryn expected. From the start, Ryn knows Grace is keeping secrets. But it's worse than she originally feared, for Grace is hiding something that could mean the end of the world. Ryn decides she has to discover the truth - even as war erupts in Eagle Valley. Everything Ryn thought she knew about the magical world is wrong, but somehow, she and her friends have to make it right again.

The West has taken to meditation with great enthusiasm. We contemplate. We concentrate. We embrace mindfulness techniques and a multitude of mantras. We have undertaken to “do” meditation. The Aspects of Meditation series is comprised of brief, precious texts in which Osho shows us the core of meditation is not about sitting silently or chanting a mantra. It is, instead, a question of understanding the subtle workings of the mind. In Book 3, Osho explores different states of unconsciousness and the ways in which they can transform awareness of the here and now.

After a heated argument, Clara's fiancee stormed out of their apartment, but before they have a chance to reconcile, he died a tragic accident. It's been two years, but she's still paralyzed with grief, and her friends are worried about her. So, to try to say what was left unsaid, she start's texting his old phone. What she doesn't realize is that the number has been reassigned.

There's a name for girls like me: Sugar Baby. I’m used to being passed around the sexually depraved, middle-aged senators of Washington, DC, like candy, but when I meet him - the mysterious man who buys my exclusivity for three months for price that should frighten me more than his demands - everything changes. He's younger than the others. His touch is softer. His lips sweeter. His need fiercer. He has only one requirement.... A blindfold to protect his identity...and to protect me from the danger I'd face if our arrangement leaked to the world.

Ryn Tyler finally found her home - and demons are out to destroy it. After a lifetime of searching for where she belongs, Ryn knows it's in Eagle Valley...but war threatens to take that all away. Attending an angels-only high school should help her master her magical abilities, but stopping the upcoming battle is more important. Ryn trains in secret with the help of her mentor, Marek, a bad boy who can't decide between duty and love - and who's already stolen Ryn's heart. But the arrival of another Davina complicates things, and Ryn finds herself torn between the two boys.

People who complicate my life earn the business end of my hook. Funny how that never seems to stop them. Think I’m exaggerating? I stand accused of colluding with Fomorian raiders who are abducting young mermaids. And one of the lost boys I rescued from Neverland is being terrorized by a faerie nightmare. A dark menace connects the two things.

Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a former girls’ college now serving as the site of a secret US Signal Intelligence facility. But Kit is soon involved in another kind of fight: government girls are being brutally murdered in Washington DC, and when Kit stumbles onto a bloody homicide scene, she is drawn into the hunt for the killer.

In the days of the Sundering, Quarabala - the Seared Lands - were cursed by Akari Sun Dragon and scorched beyond all recognition. Now a cruel place inhabited by nightmare beasts, the Seared Lands are home to a desperate few; and as fears of a second Sundering grow, these people look to greener lands. If no place is found for them, they will seize new lands from the soft hands of Those Who Dwell Above.

The third collection in the Music and Murder Mystery Series, Back in Black features one story for each song from the seminal hard rock album of the same name. This book showcases ten brilliant mystery writers at the top of their game, including Reed Farrel Coleman, Heather Graham, Tori Eldridge, Ward Larsen, and Andrew Child, among others.

When a virus sweeps across the globe, Ash and Jack must each face their fears. Married and isolated in one small apartment, each woman grows restless, claustrophobic, and paranoid. As the horror outside their door ramps up to apocalyptic levels, inside Jack is unraveling. She shuts herself away and fears everything. Fears the virus has crawled its way inside, down her throat, into the lining of her stomach. Ash is afraid, too - afraid of what her increasingly erratic wife will do to her. In a pandemic none of us are ready for, should we fear the outside world or what's waiting within?

Emiko Soong, newly minted Sentinel of San Francisco, just can't catch a break. Just after she becomes the guardian for a sentient city, a murder strikes close to home. Called by the city and one of the most powerful clans to investigate, she traces the killer whose scent signature bears a haunting similarity to her mother’s talent.