Showing results by narrator "Luci Christian" in All Categories

The first book in Julie Czerneda's acclaimed Web Shifters series made the Nebula preliminary nomination list in 1998. Changing Vision continues the story of Esen, the last survivor of an alien race with the ability to assume the form of any creature. Now Esen must break her species' rule of non-interference - to keep interspecies tension from escalating into all-out war.

In this romantic and evocative fantasy, Najwa is a jinni, training to be a spy in the war against the humans. Zayele is a human on her way to marry a prince of Baghdad - which she’ll do anything to avoid. So she captures Najwa and makes a wish. With a rush of smoke and fire, they fall apart and re-form - as each other. A jinni and a human, trading lives. Both girls must play their parts among enemies who would kill them if the deception were ever discovered - enemies including the young men Najwa and Zayele are just discovering they might love.

The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced 11-year-old Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the black lung-stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the "curse" laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft.

Katherine Shaw. Rich girl? Check. Spoiled and obstinate? Check. A sexy fireball who pushes every button ex-SEAL Jason Garrett has? That was not listed on the dossier he received when he was assigned as one of her bodyguards. The last thing he ever expected was that his tempting client would prove to be more sinful and dangerous than those he’s protecting her from. It’s been five years since a family tragedy tilted her world off its axis, and Katherine Shaw still relives the nightmares of that night. She escaped. The danger should’ve been over.

Only a year ago Isabel Moore was married, the object of adoration of her 10-year-old daughter, and thought she knew everything about her wild, extravagant, beloved best friend, Josie. But in that one short year: her husband moved out and rented his own apartment; her daughter grew into a moody insomniac; and Josie - impulsive, funny, secretive Josie - was killed behind the wheel in a single-car accident.

In the title story, a white aspiring professor is convinced she is being followed. No need to panic - she has a handgun stowed away in her purse, just in case. But when she turns to confront her black male shadow, the situation isn't what she expects. In "The Rescuer" a promising graduate student detours to inner-city Trenton, New Jersey, to save her brother from a downward spiral. But she soon finds out there may be more to his world than to hers.

West of New Orleans among a few small Gulf islands lies the Isle aux Chiens, a tiny, impoverished strip of land burdened by intolerable heat and roaming packs of wild dogs. Here a handful of Creole families eke out a meager existence by fishing the Gulf waters. Such is the fate of Al Landry and his seventeen-year-old daughter, Annie. All Annie has ever known is the wild sea, but she longs for other people and places, including the glamor of life in the Big Easy.

As a struggling waitress and part-time college student, Rose Strickland's life is stalled in the slow lane. But when her close friend, Axton, disappears, Rose suddenly finds herself serving up more than hot coffee and flapjacks. Now she's hashing it out with sexy bad guys and scrambling to find clues in a race to save Axton before his time runs out. With her anime-loving bestie, her septuagenarian boss, and a pair of IT wise men along for the ride, Rose goes from zero to sixty and quickly learns when you're speeding down the fast lane, it's easy to crash and burn.

In 1902, Sadakichi Hartmann attempted to transport a theater full of people across a vast ocean using only perfume and an electric fan.

After practicing on robot patients for weeks, the kids at Wah-Kee-Nah Summer Camp for Teenage Psychiatrists are finally getting to work with real humans. But when Andromeda's patient, the mysterious Joe, tells her what's actually going on at Wah-Kee-Nah, she dispenses with her psychiatric training and opts for full-on rebellion.

Like everyone in New York media, editor Liz Buckley runs on cupcakes, caffeine and cocktails. But at 31 she's plateaued at glossy baby magazine Paddy Cakes. Liz has spent years working a gazillion hours a week picking up the slack for colleagues with children, and she's tired of it. So one day when her stress-related nausea is mistaken for morning sickness by her bosses - boom! Liz is promoted to the mummy track.

A girl and her two brothers are transported back to the time of King Arthur, where they must return three magic talismans to their rightful owners or remain trapped forever in the distant past. The adventure begins when Sara Lowry wins a picnic basket at the Firemen's Strawberry Festival. She and her brothers, Greg and Eric, are staying with their uncle at his Hudson Valley estate while their parents are in Japan.

Orphaned by her father, degraded by her guardian, young Liberty Moore sought refuge at sea in the arms of a handsome stranger, unaware that he was the naval hero Stephen Delaplane, unaware as she surrendered her innocence that she would be taken from him and forced to become the bride of the most powerful ruler in the East....

Joy Malone finally knows who she is, where she comes from, and how to live in two worlds at once. And now she can introduce her family and friends to her mysterious boyfriend, Indelible Ink. But when Ink's twin sister, Invisible Inq, calls in a favor, Joy must accept a dangerous mission to find a forgotten door between worlds - a door hiding a secret that some will kill to keep.

The first time Mary Jo Simpson and Jack Riley met, hot-tempered sparks flew. The next time they saw one another, though, took place amidst the blaze of a burning building. When he carried her to safety and kissed her, a different kind flame ignited.

Dalton McShane rolled into Two Oaks like a thunderstorm - dark, angry, powerful, and mysterious. But when it comes time to confront the conniving woman claiming to carry his child, the heat of his fury instantly simmers over.

Moments after Zane Houston opened his door to an unexpected visitor - the beautiful Becca Cameron - shots rang out. But did she have anything to do with it? Becca found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time - again. But even after she manages to convince Zane of her innocence, she is thrust into a whirlwind of danger and violence.

With two out of every three Americans overweight or obese, scientists are studying how excess fat changes physical and mental health, demographers are calculating how it's shortening life spans, and economists are debating the impact it has on America's productivity and global competitiveness. But how weight affects intimacy and sexuality is barely discussed. Yet, it's a question of high importance for the tens of millions of Americans who are overweight or obese and having difficulty sexually and romantically.

Under normal circumstances, a Time Fetch sends out its foragers to collect only those moments that will never be missed or regretted. It then rests, waiting to be called back by the Keeper, who distributes the gathered time where it is needed in our world and others. When eighth grader Edward innocently mistakes a sleeping Fetch for an ordinary rock, he wakes its foragers too early, and they begin to multiply and gobble up too much time. Soon the bell rings to end class just as it's begun. Buses race down streets, too far behind schedule to stop for passengers. Buildings and sidewalks begin to disappear as the whole fabric of the universe starts to unravel.

Rose Strickland is having a blue Christmas. Her friend is arrested for attempted murder, her sexy bad guy crush is marked by a hit man, and her boss is locked in an epic smackdown with a rival diner. Determined to save those she loves, Rose embarks on an investigation more tangled than a box of last year's tree lights. With her eclectic gang at the ready, Rose stumbles across dead bodies, ex-cons, chop shops, jealous girlfriends, jilted lovers, and a gaggle of strippers in a battle for freedom she might not survive.