Showing results by narrator "Cris Dukehart" in All Categories

Her family's cottage on the New Jersey shore was a place of freedom and innocence for Julie Bauer - until her 17-year-old sister, Isabel, was murdered. It's been more than 40 years since that August night, but Julie's memories of her sister's death still shape her world. Now someone from her past is raising questions about what really happened that night. About Julie's own complicity. About a devastating secret her mother kept from them all.

When I first landed a bartending job at the local guild, I didn't know a thing about magic. These days, I'm practically an expert on the different magical classes, but there's one nobody ever talks about: Demonica. Turns out they have a good reason for that. My guild is strictly hellion-free, because who wants to risk life and limb to control the biggest bullies on the mythic playground? Well, some people do, and now a demon has been loosed in the city. My three best friends are determined to slay it, but even badass combat mages are critically out-magicked.

A broken foot doesn’t stop her grandmother from ruling The Hive, her granny’s book club, or continuing to prepare and package her bee-inspired products. But when Bailey's grandmother’s infamous Honey I'm Home hot spiced honey turns out to “bee” the murder weapon and her granny is now the prime suspect, Bailey has no choice but to use her fictional detective skills to help solve the murder and smoke-out the real culprit.

Conman, jailbird, rookie, agent, fugitive . . . I've worn a whole lot of labels over the past year. But the Consilium, AKA the heinous secret league of power-hungry psychos that has been covertly pulling the world's strings for decades, has slapped a few more on me: abnormality, keystone of evil...

After the devastating loss of her husband in Iraq, Morgan Dane returns to Scarlet Falls, seeking the comfort of her hometown. Now, surrounded by family, she’s finally found peace and a promising career opportunity - until her babysitter is killed and her neighbor asks her to defend his son, Nick, who stands accused of the murder.

Rose Malone’s landlord and employer, Ozzie Oswald, just died, and now she has no idea if she has a job or if she and her daughter, Poppy, have a place to live, and that’s on top of the arrest warrant that’s been out for her for nineteen years. Then a stranger shows up claiming to be Ozzie’s son and tries to throw her out, so she swings a reproduction of the Maltese Falcon at him, and just as she’s about to finish him off in a rage, somebody grabs him and throws him into the street.

Broke, almost homeless, and recently fired. Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig. It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview - to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right? I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they...offered me the job?

The good news is I survived the murderous fae prince. I also found my aunt and embraced my inner dragon. Everything should be going great, right? If only. My aunt has disappeared again, I haven't heard from Draven in months, and the Fae Court wants to question me about their prince's death. To make matters worse, there's a gargoyle terrorizing my customers, my savings are running out, and I may lose the bookstore unless I can find a second job.

Rose Malone is doing all right except that her daughter is struggling with PTSD, her lover is leaving her for the Appalachian Trail, and there’s a rumor that there’s a million bucks in the building she inherited which has inspired every money-hungry man in her weird little town to bring her cheap flowers and offer to search the place for her.

Private investigator Lance Kruger was just a boy when his father vanished twenty-three years ago. Since then he's lived under the weight of that disappearance - until his father's car is finally dredged up from the bottom of Grey Lake. It should be a time for closure, except for the skeleton found in the trunk. A missing person case gone cold has become one of murder, and Lance and attorney Morgan Dane must face the deadly past that's risen to the surface.

Creel Creek, Virginia, is the last place either of her ex-husbands would ever think to look for Constance. What better place to hide from her humiliations than a town too small to warrant a mention on a map? Laid off, and recently divorced from husband number two, this former workaholic moves in with her estranged - and very strange - grandmother. A grandmother who informs Constance that she comes from a long line of powerful witches. And on the day she hits the big 4-0, she'll come into her powers.

I've never had something this amazing before, and I'm terrified that I'm going to screw it up. Shane Beckstrom's punk band has been topping the charts, and he and his bandmates are sure they have it made—until a freak accident ends their success, killing their lead singer and rendering their...

I'm bound to a demon. For my entire life, I avoided magic at all costs. Now, I'm responsible for a demon who wields magic more powerful than the toughest mage or sorcerer. Demons are evil. That's what my textbooks say. That's what I see. He's ruthless, he's temperamental, he's cold. But he protects me without fail. I wonder if he's hiding a heart behind his hostility. My demon is a monster.

Haley Powell wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the night before. When she sees a man lying in the backyard, stabbed to death, she has only one terrified thought: What have I done? Agreeing to take the case as a favor to her PI friend Lincoln Sharp, Morgan must scale a mountain of damning circumstantial and forensic evidence to prove her client innocent.

Liz Danger is a ghostwriter, trapped in her old hometown for the summer. Good thing she has Vince Cooper, her recurring one-night stand living down by the river in his old diner car, making her feel happy and safe and normal until September when she’ll be leaving again, although she’s starting to wonder if she really wants to.

In an ancient time of fear and superstition, she stood apart because of her unusual blue eyes. In a land of great stone cities and trackless wilderness, she sought her own unique path. But it was with the clan that accepted her - and in the heart of the magic man who saved her - that she found her ultimate destiny. Her name was Kwani. But legend would call her She Who Remembers.…

Cooper Lee is at a crossroads. Her boyfriend of five years just left her for another woman, she's living in an apartment above her parents' garage, and her job as a copier repairperson is feeling a little, well, repetitious. Hoping for a fresh start and a new outlook on life, she joins the Bible study group at Hope Street Church. The last thing she expects while studying the Bible is a lesson in murder.

What makes stepmothering so hard? And why are we, as people and a culture, so hard on stepmothers? How can we make it easier? Stepmonster is a truly unique and groundbreaking book for women with stepchildren, men with kids who repartner, adult stepchildren, and anyone who cares about them. It is a comprehensive, cross-cultural, research-based reconsideration of stepfamily dynamics - from the perspective of the stepmother.

Liz Danger has returned home after fifteen years to deliver a giant teddy bear for her mother’s birthday (color: Guilt Red) when a cop with a great ass picks her up for speeding, fixes the missing lug nuts on her back wheel, pulls her out of a ditch, doesn’t give her a ticket, and helps her avoid her family. This is a man with real potential. The rest of the day goes downhill, starting with her finding out that the only man she’s ever loved is getting married to Lavender Blue, the most beautiful woman in southern Ohio. Really, the best thing in her day is that cop with the lug nuts.

A dragon, a fae, and a pixie walk into a bookstore… Sounds like a joke, right? For me, it's just an ordinary day on the job. At least, it has been ever since my aunt disappeared and left me with her store, her cat, and a whole lot of unanswered questions. My whole life, I've been told to stay hidden. Pretend I'm human. Sell books, drink tea, and never betray the truth of what I am. But it turns out my aunt had secrets, and a lot of those secrets seem to involve me ending up dead. To survive, I'm going to have to reckon with my past, even if it means placing my trust in a total stranger.