“A master storyteller weaves a tale of love, pain, and sleight of hand…The plotting is clever and the details are touching…[A] richly enjoyable novel.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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- The Kortelisy Escape
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Read by Richard Ferrone and Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 11/30/18
Formats: Digital Audy
Caught in a Three Strikes law that sends him to prison for life, Nate Larson negotiates with prosecutors for an early release in exchange for testifying against his brother in an upcoming trial. As part of the deal, he demands custody of his fourteen-year-old granddaughter, Grace, who’s survived a string of disastrous foster homes.
Nate studied close-up magic during his time in prison. He’s good, and despite her wariness Grace joins him for a touring magic show of New England. Nate’s actual plan: to spend a few pleasant months with his granddaughter then run alone to Canada in hopes of undermining the case against his brother, who’s been falsely accused of trafficking. Pressure comes from that direction, too, from the actual traffickers who have hijacked the family’s legitimate, though secretive, connections to Eastern Europe and the Ukrainian village of Kortelisy.
Facing certain violence unless he runs, distraught at the prospect of wounding Grace unless he stays, Nate must thread a dangerous needle. And Grace, learning to perform some magic herself, must grow up in a hurry if she’s to save the only person she has ever trusted.
- The Kortelisy Escape
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Read by Richard Ferrone and Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 11/30/18
Formats: Digital Audy
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- Never That Far
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Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 6/01/18
Formats: Digital Audy
After her grampa dies, the last place Libby expects to see him is sitting on the edge of her bed. But that’s what happens the night after the funeral.
Even more surprising is that Grampa has three important things to tell her: first, that she isn’t alone or forgotten—“The dead ain’t never that far from the living,” he says; second, that she has “the Sight”—the ability to see family members who have died; and third, that there is something special just for her in the lake. Something that could help her and her father—if she can find it.
Libby and Grampa try to help her father heal from his grief, but it will take all of Libby’s courage and her gift of Sight to convince her father that the dead are never truly gone.
Never That Far is set in the lush, rural landscape of central Florida and is a story that celebrates friendship, hope, and the power of family love.
- Never That Far
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Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 6/01/18
Formats: Digital Audy
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- The Sisters of the Crescent Empress
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 11/07/17
Formats: Digital Audy
The Sisters of the Crescent Empress is the second book in Leena Likitalo’s Waning Moon Duology, a fabulous historical fantasy based on the lives of the Romanov sisters.
We all think we know how the story ends …
With the Crescent Empress dead, a civil war has torn the empire asunder. No one seems able to stop the ruthless Gagargi Prataslav. The five Daughters of the Moon are where he wants them to be, held captive in an isolated house in the far north.
Little Alina senses that the rooms that have fallen in disrepair have a sad tale to tell. Indeed, she soon meets two elderly ladies, the ghosts of the house’s former inhabitants.
Merile finds the ghosts suspiciously friendly and too interested in her sisters. She resolves to uncover their agenda with the help of her two dogs.
Sibilia isn’t terribly interested in her younger sisters’ imaginary friends, for she has other concerns. If they don’t leave the house by spring, she’ll miss her debut. And while reading through the holy scriptures, she stumbles upon a mystery that reeks of power.
Elise struggles to come to terms with her relationship with Captain Janlav. Her former lover now serves the gagargi, and it’s his duty to keep the daughters confined in the house. But if the opportunity were to arise, she might be able sway him into helping them flee.
Celestia is perfectly aware of the gagargi coming to claim her rather sooner than later. She’s resolved to come up with a plan to keep her sisters safe at any cost. For she knows what tends to happen to the sisters of the Crescent Empress.
- The Sisters of the Crescent Empress
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 11/07/17
Formats: Digital Audy
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- This Is Not the End
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Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 8/08/17
Formats: Digital Audy
A teenage girl faces an impossible choice in this high-concept contemporary YA tearjerker set in a world where resurrection is possible, but strictly controlled.
I wonder if for the rest of my life, I’ll be haunted by beautiful days.
On one cloudless, radiant summer afternoon, Lake Devereaux lost everything. The car crash claimed the lives of her best friend and boyfriend, the people who had become her family after her own fell apart. But she doesn’t have to lose them both.
The development of resurrection technology has changed the world. Under the new laws regulating the process, each person gets one resurrection to be used or forfeited on their eighteenth birthday. Mere weeks away from turning eighteen, Lake faces an impossible choice.
Envisioning life without one of the people she loves most is shattering enough, but Lake carries an additional burden: years ago, under family pressure, Lake secretly—and illegally—promised her resurrection to someone who isn’t even dead yet.
The search for answers about her future draws Lake more deeply into the secrets of her past until she begins to question everything about those closest to her. Betrayals and hurts both new and old threaten to eclipse the memories she once cherished.
Then Lake meets a boy unlike anyone she’s encountered before, who unflinchingly embraces the darkest parts of her life and who believes that all resurrections are wrong.
Which path is the right one? And how can Lake start to heal when she can’t move on?
- This Is Not the End
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Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 8/08/17
Formats: Digital Audy
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- The Five Daughters of the Moon
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 7/25/17
Formats: Digital Audy
Inspired by the 1917 Russian revolution and the last months of the Romanov sisters, The Five Daughters of the Moon is a beautifully crafted historical fantasy with elements of technology fueled by evil magic.
The Crescent Empire teeters on the edge of a revolution, and the Five Daughters of the Moon are the ones to determine its future.
Alina, six, fears Gagargi Prataslav and his Great Thinking Machine. The gagargi claims that the machine can predict the future, but at a cost that no one seems to want to know.
Merile, eleven, cares only for her dogs, but she smells that something is afoul with the gagargi. By chance, she learns that the machine devours human souls for fuel, and yet no one believes her claim.
Sibilia, fifteen, has fallen in love for the first time in her life. She couldn’t care less about the unrest spreading through the countryside. Or the rumors about the gagargi and his machine.
Elise, sixteen, follows the captain of her heart to orphanages and workhouses. But soon she realizes that the unhappiness amongst her people runs much deeper that anyone could have ever predicted.
And Celestia, twenty-two, who will be the empress one day. Lately, she’s been drawn to the gagargi. But which one of them was the first to mention the idea of a coup?
- The Five Daughters of the Moon
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 7/25/17
Formats: Digital Audy
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- Royce Rolls
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Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 4/04/17
Formats: Digital Audy
Sixteen-year-old Bentley Royce seems to have it all: an actual Bentley, tuition to a fancy private school, lavish vacations, and everything else that comes along with being an LA starlet. But after five seasons on her family’s reality show, Rolling with the Royces, and a lifetime of dealing with her narcissistic sister, Porsche, media-obsessed mother, Mercedes, and somewhat clueless brother, Maybach, Bentley wants out. Luckily for her, without a hook for season six, cancellation is looming and freedom is nigh. With their lifestyle on the brink, however, Bentley’s family starts to crumble, and one thing becomes startlingly clear—without the show, there is no family. And since Bentley loves her family, she has to do the unthinkable—save the show. But when her future brother-in-law’s car goes over a cliff with both Bentley and her sister’s fianc inside-on the day of the big made-for-TV wedding, no less-things get real.
Really real. Like, not reality show real.
Told in a tongue-in-cheek voice that takes a swipe at all things Hollywood, Royce Rolls is a laugh-out-loud funny romp with an LA noir twist about what it means to grow up with the cameras rolling and what really happens behind the scenes.
- Royce Rolls
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Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 4/04/17
Formats: Digital Audy
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- The Violated
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 3/07/17
Formats: Digital Audy
Bill Pronzini is crime-writing royalty. His more than eighty published novels have won or been nominated for Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity awards—a clean sweep of the crime fiction award field—and received rave reviews from critics. He crafts masterful stories, often from multiple perspectives, in which the human condition is on full display. The Violated is no exception.
In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution.
Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through alternating perspectives—Martin Torrey’s wife, caught between her grief and the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated; the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles—until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion. The Violated is Bill Pronzini at the height of his storytelling powers.
- The Violated
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Read by various narrators
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Release Date: 3/07/17
Formats: Digital Audy
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- Tag, You’re Dead
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By J. C. Lane
A Poisoned Pen Press thriller
Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 7/05/16
Formats: Digital Audy
Six young people play a dangerous game of tag in public, chasing each other through the crowds, streets, and buildings of Chicago. This secret, one-of-a-kind, wildly expensive game offers a macabre twist to the childhood version: if you get tagged, you die.
Three “Its” have their reasons for buying a place in the game. Surgically enhanced Brandy is obsessed with destroying a naturally beautiful girl. Untalented Robert covets his target’s position as superstar of the basketball team. Brainiac Charles craves a battle against an intellectual equal. Given their elite social status, they reject any possible downside to the contest. Each expects the satisfaction of killing their prey, then walking away.
Handpicked innocents play as “Runners,” under threat to their loved ones should they refuse to participate: lovely, small-town Laura; celebrated athlete Tyrese; and Amanda, gamer extraordinaire. Alone, hunted by their adversary, each feels a single hope: to survive.
Technological wizardry controls the game. As soon as Runners receive the “Go” signal on smartwatches locked to their wrists, the game rockets them through the city, from the El to Michigan Avenue to the Lincoln Park Zoo. There is no time to rest. Every thirty minutes the Runner’s location is transmitted, steadily diminishing the Runner’s chance of ever reaching home base alive.
The game will not end until someone is tagged, so the Runners must choose how to play. Will they accept death? Will they murder their “Its?” Or will they find a way to use their individual strengths to stop the game before anyone dies?
- Tag, You’re Dead
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By J. C. Lane
A Poisoned Pen Press thriller
Read by Erin Spencer
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Release Date: 7/05/16
Formats: Digital Audy