Showing results by narrator "Soneela Nankani" in All Categories

In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama, aboard a ship called Clotilda. Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they'd been delivered.

This summer’s not going as Abby Atkinson planned. A thieving PhD adviser, a screeching halt to her grad program, and zero job offers have left her high and dry. Nothing a little eat, pray, love across the Mediterranean can’t fix, right? Or eat, pray, tutor, more like. Her dissertation might be dead, but she can still teach. She’ll just have to do it for six weeks on a superyacht with a billionaire and his daughter. A playboy billionaire, according to the tabloids—but Abby’s not so sure.

It’s the Hollywood event of the season, and anyone who’s anyone will be enjoying their evening at socialite Holly Stabler’s gorgeous hilltop estate. For personal assistant Zanne Klein, the gala is her chance at a promotion she’s chased for far too long, which means she’ll finally be able to buy a house, pay off her loans, and give her girlfriend the life she deserves.

As a helicopter medic, Daniel Bliant saves other people’s lives. He’s cool under pressure, a calm presence for trauma victims on the worst day of their lives. So why can’t he heal himself? When he answers an emergency call at Phil’s Bar, he can’t believe who the bartender is: the beautiful woman he saw in his ER months ago and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about. But even though Annika is intelligent, lively, and gorgeous, he knows he should forget her.

A Vietnamese mermaid caught between two worlds. A siren who falls for Poseidon’s son. A boy secretly pining for the merboy who saved him years ago. A storm that brings humans and mermaids together. Generations of family secrets and pain. Find all these and more in this gripping new collection that will reel you in from the very first word! Welcome to an ocean of hurt, fear, confusion, rage, hope, humor, discovery, and love in its many forms.

Simi Chopra is on a bad-luck streak. She’s lost yet another job, her student loan debt won’t stop growing, her basement apartment is a certifiable flood zone, and now her best friend has been accused of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond necklace. To put it lightly, she’s desperate for a break—that’s right when Jack waltzes out of the bushes and into her life.

When social worker Jessica Larson asks deputy sheriff Sterling McCallum for help finding the mother of an abandoned baby, he can’t refuse. The brooding cop has a stone in place of a heart and a past as mysterious as the case that brings them together. Something compels Jessica to brave the emotions Sterling arouses within her. But when their secrets come to the surface, can the two handle the shocking revelations?

A young woman climbs the tallest tree in Istanbul’s centuries-old Gülhane Park, determined to live out the rest of her days there. Perched in an abandoned stork’s nest in a sanctuary of branches and leaves, she tries to make sense of the rising tide of violence in the world below. Torn between the desire to forget all that has happened and the need to remember, her story, and the stories of those around her, begins to unfold.

After months of living under the radar in Mexico, Tessa and Eric are forced out of hiding when Dorian Cromwell - a pop star who was allegedly murdered by a fan - is found alive. What's more, when intimate photos of Eric and Tessa appear on the Twitter page of Eric Thorn's biggest fan account, MET, they realize their time together will never be private again. Determined to shut down the elusive MET for good, Eric sets out to investigate. But when his search turns up a dead body, and all signs point to Tessa as suspect number one, Eric's online nightmare becomes an offline reality.

By the time the classified report is leaked to the public, it’s already too late. A horrifying pandemic has begun to spread, with ferocious speed, from Paris to the rest of Europe. The infected masses die quickly . . . but they don’t remain dead for long. As military forces are overpowered by the horde of undead, civilization as we know it is pushed to the breaking point. Those who remain uninfected rush the ports, hoping to escape the bloodthirsty beasts, desperate for some safe harbor.

Adulting shouldn't be this hard. Especially in your 30s. Having been pressured by her tight-knit community to get married at a young age to her first serious boyfriend, Anu Desai is now on her own again and feels like she is starting from the beginning. But Anu doesn't have time to start over. Telling her parents that she was separating from her husband was the hardest thing she's ever done - and she's still dealing with the fallout.

Known for enchanting architectural features like sliding bookshelves and secret passageways, Secret Staircase Construction is finally getting the recognition it deserves, and is now taking on a dream project: transforming a home into a public library that celebrates history's greatest fictional detectives. Though the work is far from done, Gray House Library’s new owner is eager to host a murder mystery dinner and literary themed escape room. But when a rehearsal ends with an actor murdered and the body vanishes, Tempest Raj is witness to a seemingly impossible crime.

As Norway’s newly appointed minister of justice, child-rights advocate Clara Lofthus has a chance to accomplish something meaningful on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society. It couldn’t be more personal. After her husband’s death, she is the sole caretaker of her twin sons, Andreas and Nikolai. She’s also still haunted by her own traumatic childhood—and the lengths to which she was willing to go to pursue her own brand of vigilante justice. How far? No one ever needs to know. And this is just one of Clara’s secrets.

Mira Braddock's own humanity was sacrificed in order for her to become the world's savior. A cybernetic soldier enhanced with a Tier 7 Nexus Implant, she's a Mist Warden capable of manipulating the nanites inside anything and any one, making her the most powerful and feared being in existence. Mira's crusade against Earth's enemies has brought mass destruction in her wake. Millions of aliens and humans have died at her hands. Each victory increases her godlike power, and she finds herself slipping away, struggling to relate to the needs of her allies....

Born and raised in the US, Tara Bajaj hides her family secrets. With beautiful clothes, a popular social media presence, and a spot on the Rutgers High Bollywood dance team, she does it well—until her carefully cultivated image shatters. Shut out by friends and with her future in flux, Tara accepts a guide position for a youth group’s temple tour through North India. Rediscovering the heart of her ancestry is as good a place as any to start over. Silas D’Souza-Gupta is an aspiring photojournalist retracing the journey his two mothers took when they fell in love.

The daughter of proud Napa Valley hoteliers, Asha “Poppy” Patel chose a different line as a Paris perfumer, gifted with a nose for fragrances and business. Until her heightened sense of smell disappears. Her career in jeopardy, her world now muted, Poppy returns home. Maybe tending to her grandmother’s massive aromatic garden, where Poppy’s gift first flowered, will bring restorative hope. But when she arrives, Poppy discovers that the land upon which the beautiful garden once thrived has been uprooted and destroyed.

When the posthuman Next suddenly reappear in a solar system that banished them, humans are threatened. Their reactions vary from disgust and anger to yearning to live forever like the powerful Next, who are casually building a new city out of starships in the heart of the rewilded planet Lym. The first families of Lym must deal with invasion while they grapple with their own inner fears.

Contemplate the intimate journey of coming home to yourself as Sister Dr. Jenna and our sacred storytellers share their true, personal stories about meditation as a gateway into the mystical. Learn how listening to your inner silence can help you overcome life obstacles, reclaim your spiritual power, and immerse in the presence of the Divine.

Kamila Hussain’s life might not be perfect, but, whew, it’s close. She lives a life of comfort, filled with her elaborate Bollywood movie parties, a dog with more Instagram followers than most reality stars, a job she loves, and an endless array of friends who clearly need her help finding love. In fact, Kamila is so busy with her friends’ love lives, she’s hardly given any thought to her own. Fortunately, Kamila has Rohan Nasser. A longtime friend of the family, he’s hugely successful, with the deliciously lean, firm body of a rock climber.

Twelve-year-old Maya is the only one in her South Side Chicago neighborhood who witnesses weird occurrences like were-hyenas stalking the streets at night and a scary man made of shadows plaguing her dreams. Her friends try to find an explanation - perhaps a ghost uprising or a lunchroom experiment gone awry. But to Maya, it sounds like something from one of Papa’s stories or her favorite comics.