Showing results by narrator "Jennifer van Dyck" in All Categories

Swede escape! Calista Swanson has begun her study abroad semester in Stockholm, Sweden, and she couldn’t be happier! There’s finally some distance between her and the constant piano-playing of her annoying sister Suzanne. Calista isn’t at all focused, but she always has her friends, and a boyfriend, by her side. Jonas, who’d been an exchange student at her high school in Wisconsin, lives in Stockholm. He’s the main reason Calista is studying in Sweden. Calista loves Sweden from the moment she arrives, but...why hasn’t Jonas called?

Studying abroad isn't at all like Kelly thought it would be. Instead of shopping for fine Italian leather and living in an apartment with a view of the Colosseum, she is stuck in a stuffy dorm room with three other girls and is sharing one shower with the entire floor! This is not the bella Roma that she'd dreamed of. But there is one part of Italy that Kelly doesn't mind - Joe, a really cute guy who's in the study abroad program, too.

"My Irish grandfather, Thomas Lawrence Downey, was a great storyteller. I never tired of sitting on his knee - and later, when I was a bit too big, sitting at his feet with one of my baby sisters on his knee - listening to his wonderful tall tales. Among the stories I loved the best were the ones about the Irish - and the Downey family in particular. In those tales, I'm afraid, 'dramatic flair' and artistic liberties took over for fact. But as any good storyteller knows, to embellish is to make the tale interesting, especially to a young Tomie."

On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old black man, was dragged to his death while chained to the back of a pickup truck driven by three young white men. It happened just outside of Jasper, a sleepy East Texas logging town that, within 24 hours of the discovery of the murder, would be inextricably linked in the nation's imagination to an exceptionally brutal, modern-day lynching. In this superbly written examination of the murder and its aftermath, award-winning journalist Joyce King brings us on a journey that begins at the crime scene.

Having spent the past three decades' worth of summers on Nantucket, the Warners are as much a part of the island as the crust of salt on the ferry. But this year is different: Tripp is no longer the father he was, and it becomes clear that nothing - not the beams that hold the house together, and not the values the family clings to - can survive the ravages of time. When tradition turns to tragedy, the creaky old house swirls with suspicion. There are just so many reasons to want someone gone.

Here is the astonishing true story of Ruth Harkness, the Manhattan bohemian socialite who, against all but impossible odds, trekked to Tibet in 1936 to capture the most mysterious animal of the day: a bear that had for countless centuries lived in secret in the labyrinth of lonely cold mountains. In The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke gives us the remarkable account of Ruth Harkness and her extraordinary journey, and restores Harkness to her rightful place along with Sacajawea, Nellie Bly, and Amelia Earhart as one of the great woman adventurers of all time.

Former Black Ops army sniper Mercy Gunderson isn’t adjusting well to the laid-back rhythm of civilian life on her family’s ranch in South Dakota. To fill her time, Mercy accepts a temporary bartending gig at a local watering hole. Yet her attempts to settle in back home are tested when Titan Oil, a Canadian company proposing to run an underground pipeline through Eagle River County, sends Jason Hawley, Mercy’s former army buddy, to the area to convince ranchers to get behind the project.

The honeymoon is over for Seattle Fish and Wildlife agent Venus Diamond. Literally. Hawaii and her new husband must wait while she heads a massive search into the disappearance of a baby in the Bogachiel wildlife preserve. Natives believe the baby was snatched by "the Unknown," a half-man, half-elk creature of Native American lore. Venus suspects the incident may involve a recent elk poachings in the area, and carcasses found with sawed-off hooves.

In the savannas of East Africa, where endangered elephants are illegally slaughtered for their ivory, undercover wildlife avenger Venus Diamond faces down a savage band of big game poachers who deserve every bit of what Venus delivers. Might the orphaned elephant calves she rescues portend the gathering menace of rising terror on the other side of the planet?

Liza was a healthy 34-year-old when she discovered she could not carry a baby. Like the one of every six women who hears this news, Liza and her husband, David, despaired that they would never be parents. They both had careers. Life would go on...in other ways.Then the unpredictable happened. Liza's cousin, Jennifer, offered to be the gestational carrier for Liza and David. This is the story of how two women and their husbands came to the incredible decision to put their faith, their lifelong friendship, and their hearts into the rigorous, uncharted and emotional science of creating new life.

As a former Navy SEAL turned cop, Joe Quinn has seen the face of evil and knows just how deadly it can be. When he first met Eve Duncan, he never expected to fall in love with a woman whose life would be defined by her dual desires to bring home her missing daughter and discover the truth behind her disappearance - no matter how devastating. With the help of CIA agent Catherine Ling, they make a shocking discovery.

Daphné loves to spend time with her late husband's family in its sprawling mansion in the South of France. It was there that she spent the happiest years of her life married to Ivan before he died tragically in a domestic accident. Eight years on, she still spends time there with Max, her father-in-law, a famous sculptor who's been a recluse since his son's death; Nelly, the matriarch; and Ivan's siblings.

Molly Somerville knows she has a reputation for trouble. She did give away her fifteen million dollar inheritance, but, hey, nobody's perfect. Yes, Molly's happy about almost everything...except her long term crush on the daredevil quarterback for the Chicago Stars. That awful, gorgeous Kevin Tucker, a man who can't even remember her name!

A major new collection of modern commentary - from scholars, historians, and Civil War buffs - on the significant events of the Civil War, culled from The New York Times' popular Disunion online journal.

This short story is from the anthology Mitigated Futures. Twelve science fiction stories about the oncoming future, each of them representing a possible glimpse of what could be just around the corner... or much further down the corridor. These stories previously appeared in places like Clarkesworld Magazine, The Year's Best SF, Subterranean Magazine, and in various anthologies. They deal with the future of war, our climate, and technology's effect on our lives.

Laura Devane has been handpicked to fulfill an important mission: seduce the man she once rejected to prevent him from falling into the arms of a dangerous Russian countess. But she has betrayed him before. Will she be able to keep her cool beneath his heated gaze?

Nursing heartbreak and a bullet wound, undercover wildlife avenger Venus Diamond has learned all the survival tricks at the government's rehab facility in Hawaii, and has just about decided that life on a tropical beach, however tarnished with disgrace, is tolerable, unlike the real world, where she'd barely survived. Her self-indulgent wallowing is interrupted, though, by the arrest of her stepbrother who's charged with drowning a young girl.

Survivors of a serial killer who invaded their childhood, Lucy Walsh and Jeremy Cavalon are married now, replacing nightmares of their terrifying past with joyful dreams of the upcoming birth of their first child. Fiercely determined to protect the fragile balance of their lives, Lucy doesn't know that her new husband guards a deadly secret.... or that an Act of God is about to unleash a vengeful fury.

For Fish and Wildlife Agent Venus Diamond, it's the perfect day to investigate a murder. It's foggy and raining on the Olympic Peninsula, Venus's eccentric mother is having trouble with her adopted son Timmy, and her fiancé has just broken off their engagement - by email, no less. What better distraction from this sudden mayhem than a crime scene?

An invitation to a country house party at Beaumont Castle provides a perfect solution to Tobias and Lavinia's most exasperating challenge: how to escape the chaos of London for a remote, relaxing, romantic retreat from prying eyes. But the lovers' plans are foiled when their first cozy interlude of the weekend is disrupted by the appearance of a stunning woman from Tobias's past. Aspasia Gray's beauty is as haunting as her connection to Tobias. Her long-deceased fiancé was a friend of his - in addition to being an eccentric assassin. The mysterious nature of the bond between Tobias and Aspasia makes Lavinia more than a little uncomfortable.