Showing results by narrator "Cindy Kay" in All Categories

Gavin Leonard is the worst. He lives in the best party house off campus at Valley U, overrun by jocks galore. I live next door, watching Jane Austen adaptations with my sketchbook in hand. He stays on his side of the fence. I stay on mine. Now we're accidentally on a camping trip together, but there's only one tent left. Gavin Leonard is the worst. And he's the last guy who broke my heart.

Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Often hired by families as a last resort, he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—and is soon led to a place many believed to be only a legend. Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James. 

Stoic, broody, and arrogant, elite bodyguard Rhys Larsen has two rules: 1) Protect his clients at all costs 2) Do not become emotionally involved. Ever. He has never once been tempted to break those rules...until her.

Alex Volkov is a devil blessed with the face of an angel and cursed with a past he can't escape. Driven by a tragedy that has haunted him for most of his life, his ruthless pursuits for success and vengeance leave little room for matters of the heart. But when he's forced to look after his best friend's sister, he starts to feel something in his chest. Ava Chen is a free spirit trapped by nightmares of a childhood she can't remember. But despite her past, she's never stopped seeing the beauty in the world . . . including the heart beneath the icy exterior of a man she shouldn't want.

Charming, deadly and smart enough to hide it, Christian Harper is a monster dressed in the perfectly tailored suits of a gentleman. He has little use for morals and even less use for love, but he can't deny the strange pull he feels towards the woman living just one floor below him. She's the object of his darkest desires, the only puzzle he can't solve. And when the opportunity to get closer to her arises, he breaks his own rules to offer her a deal she can't refuse. Every monster has their weakness. She's his. His obsession. His addiction. His only exception.

Essential for anyone interested in Japanese culture, this unsurpassed masterwork opens an intriguing window on Japan. The World War II-era study by the cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict paints an illuminating contrast between the people of Japan and those of the United States. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword is a revealing look at how and why our societies differ, making it the perfect introduction to Japanese history and customs. 

It's a hard life for a young mortal girl, living on the streets. After Lee Jia narrowly escapes a fate worse than death, her last ditch effort to flee her pursuers and survive the winter finds her accidentally enrolled in a brand-new academy for immortals. Now faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Lee Jia will have to survive a violent roommate, arrogant young masters, and—worst of all—social hierarchies in order to carve out a place for herself in the world of magic, martial arts, and cultivation.

Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living. As Washington’s former poet laureate, that’s how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help. 

Welcome to the not-too-distant future: Japan, having vanished from the face of the earth, is now remembered as "the land of sushi." Hiruko, its former citizen and a climate refugee herself, has a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with her invented language Panska (Pan-Scandinavian): "homemade language. no country to stay in. three countries I experienced. insufficient space in brain. so made new language. homemade language."

 The year is 1926, and Shanghai hums to the tune of debauchery. A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. At the heart of it all is 18-year-old Juliette Cai, a former flapper who has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang - a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette's first love, and first betrayal.

Long Chao is the son of a hedge mage — a heretic cultivator. He doesn’t cultivate for power, but to satisfy his endless curiosity. One fateful day, Xiao Huifen, a girl aiming to be the youngest Sky Realm cultivator in the Monolith continent’s history, crashes into his life. She’s from the world of top-ranked sects and strict cultivation methodologies. They share nothing in common except for the unquenchable desire to unlock heaven’s every mystery.

Talia Eden loved Foster Madden for one year, two months, and eleven days. It was on day 438 that her love died. The day he chose to marry her best friend. The day she vowed never to think of Foster again. Until years later, when he has the audacity to show up in her small hometown of Quincy, begging for her help. The ink on his divorce papers is barely dry, yet he comes armed with apologies and promises. She knows it’s all a ploy. Foster is the king of games and secrets. But he’s got delusions the size of Montana if he thinks she’ll help him train for a world championship fight.

Since Peaches woke up in a fantasy world full of monsters and fae, she’s been treated like a piece of tasty human meat. After six years as a blood slave to vampires and the evil Unseelie queen—beholden to all, and master of none—there’s nothing left but a broken shell with a fractured soul. Until a deadly warrior turns up unannounced in her room. Vampire Haze is the muscle of the Fae Guardians elite cadre of 12. He is a spy, a protector of the weak, hammer and sword, a rigid enforcer of rules. He allows no one close to his heart, lest they see the shame driving him.

Gorgeous, cocky, and fast on his way to becoming a hotshot doctor, Josh Chen has never met a woman he couldn't charm—except for Jules f**king Ambrose. The beautiful redhead has been a thorn in his side since they met, but she also consumes his thoughts in a way no woman ever has. When their animosity explodes into one unforgettable night, he proposes a solution that'll get her out of his system once and for all: an enemies with benefits arrangement with simple rules.

When the final four women in competition for an aloof, if somewhat sleazy, bachelor’s heart arrive on a mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest, they mentally prepare themselves for another week of extreme sleep deprivation, invasive interviews, and of course, the salacious drama that viewers nationwide tune in to eagerly devour. Each woman came on The Catch for her own reasons - brand sponsorships, followers, and yes, even love - and they’ve all got their eyes steadfastly trained on their respective prizes.  

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: To escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six. When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate. But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. 

The year is 1927, and Shanghai teeters on the edge of revolution. After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on the warpath. One wrong move, and her cousin will step in to usurp her place as the Scarlet Gang's heir. The only way to save the boy she loves from the wrath of the Scarlets is to have him want her dead for murdering his best friend in cold blood. If Juliette were actually guilty of the crime Roma believes she committed, his rejection might sting less.

Numbers rule Dr. Mei Sharpe’s life. She has no husband, one friend, two daughters, and three random meetings with the same woman within four weeks. Once is chance, twice is coincidence, but upon the third meeting, even Mei in all her empirical rigidness must admit that perhaps the universe is giving her a nudge. A nudge that lands her directly in the path of Lieutenant Morgan Kelly—an affable, charming detective for the Sheriff Department’s brand-new cold case team working down the hall from Mei’s morgue.

A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: It’s close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and, ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig - watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods - turns out to be inconvenient. Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all but something altogether more meaningful.

New York City, 1953: Louise Leithauser's star is on the rise. She's filed some of the best pieces at her boyfriend Joe's brand-new literary magazine, Downtown (albeit under a male pseudonym), her relationship still makes her weak at the knees, and the science-fiction romance she's writing on the side, "The Lunar Housewife," is going swimmingly. But when she overhears Joe and his business partner fighting about listening devices and death threats, Louise can't help but investigate, and she quickly finds herself wading into dangerous waters.