Showing results by narrator "Victoria Villarreal" in All Categories

For all of Kat’s life, it’s just been her and her mother, Jamie—except for the forty-eight hours when Jamie was married and Kat had a stepbrother, Liam. That all ended in an epic divorce, and Kat and Liam haven’t spoken since. Now Jamie is a jewel thief trying to go straight, but she has one last job—at billionaire Ross Sutherland’s birthday party. And Kat has figured out a way to tag along. What Kat doesn’t know, though, is that there are two surprise guests at the dazzling Sutherland compound that weekend. The last two people she wants to run into.

Every town has its secrets, but no one has a secret like hers. Amber Blackwood, lifelong resident of Edgehill, Oregon, has earned a reputation for being a semi-reclusive odd duck. Her store The Quirky Whisker is full of curiosities, from extremely potent sleepy teas and ever-burning candles to kids' toys that seem to run endlessly without the aid of batteries. The people of Edgehill think of the Quirky Whisker as an integral part of their feline-obsessed town, but most give Amber herself a wide berth.

Najwa Zebian, EdD, has been grappling with the concept of letting go for years, both in her own journey and in her interactions with community members, students, and friends. More and more, Najwa has observed that while our problems are personal, the themes surrounding them are universal. She concluded that letting go is a topic that deserves specific attention and consideration.

Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses—though curbed by his biological and chosen family's communal care—threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.

October 18, 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she writes in her request to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” It’s been twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days since Liliana was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend.

Did you know that the average Spanish speaker only uses around 300 vocabulary words in everyday life? A recent study has discovered that by learning the 1000 most frequently used words in Spanish you will become familiar with 80% of oral speech. Learning the most frequently used words saves us a lot of time and effort. You don't need to know rarely used words such as “Cacophony” to have a conversation in Spanish. You will be able to absorb the most frequently used words like a sponge, and be able to speak Spanish in Mexico City very soon!

An award-winning journalist's exploration of how race, identity and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics.

Rumination—obsessive thinking about an idea, situation, or choice that can interfere with normal life—is a common and destructive issue that can negatively impact romantic relationships. You may feel anxious, worried, hopeless, and frustrated, but even if you know your overthinking is a problem, it can be seriously hard to stop. In Stop Overthinking Your Relationship, certified couples therapist Alicia Muñoz draws from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness to offer an effective, four-step approach to reduce rumination and change negative thinking patterns.

1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary woman whose story has inspired artists since ancient times. So when the film’s mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled, and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.

During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz’s father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife’s sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost. But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined. Something is wrong with the hacienda. And no one there will save her. Far from a refuge, San Isidro may be Beatriz’s doom.

The Here and Meow Festival has finally arrived! Amber Blackwood and her fellow festival committee members still have plenty to do before the celebration of all things feline begins. Even though Amber’s witchy past keeps interfering, she knows the show must go on. Edgehill’s livelihood depends on the festival’s success. When two incidents involving her malfunctioning products cause her to shutter the doors of her curiosity shop, The Quirky Whisker, only days before the busiest season of the year, Amber thinks things can’t get any worse.

When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.

Amber Blackwood, Edgehill’s secret resident witch, recently found her parents’ grimoires and the powerful time spells within. The malevolent Penhallow clan has been ruthlessly seeking the grimoires so they can travel back in time to undo their clan’s cursed magic. Because the Penhallows will stop at nothing, Amber must find an impregnable hiding place for the grimoires, though she has no clue where to start looking. When her cousin Edgar suggests the game of Magic Cache, a magic-infused version of geocaching played by witches all over the world, Amber agrees to learn how to play.

Chanterelle Cottage is Charlie Sparrow’s whole world. The cozy spellshop where she and her moms practice their witchcraft, selling goods and services to the people of small-town Owl’s Hollow, has been in her family for generations. Okay, business has been a little slow and a recent burglary hit their inventory pretty hard. And the bank may not agree to restructure their loan. But Charlie is talented and savvy, and she’ll keep things afloat once her parents finally let her buy into the business as a co-owner.

Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.

In a crazy, media distracted world the important questions often get lost like: What's your passion? What's your purpose? Who do you want to be? Alexis Jones has built a career listening to and helping girls around the world figure out those questions in order to inspire them to think for themselves, to speak their truth, to discover their purpose, and to dream HUGE! Alexis believes that you're not broken nor do you need to be fixed. You already are that girl who creates magic wherever she goes, who lives fearlessly, who inspires those around her to dream bigger.

The seven houses in these seven stories are empty. Some are devoid of love or life or furniture, of people or the truth or of memories. But in Samanta Schweblin’s tense, visionary tales, something always creeps back in: a ghost, a fight, trespassers, a list of things to do before you die, a child’s first encounter with a dark choice or the fallibility of parents.

Lakin Hale, true crime writer and victim of an attack that left her for dead, helps crime solvers and victims close cold cases, yet there is one crime she hasn't been able to solve: her own. As she embarks on a new case, working closely with Special Agent Rhys Nolan, the details of the murder begin to eerily resemble the event that nearly ended her life. A silhouette of a man haunts her dreams, but there were only two people there that night - Lakin and her murderer. Is the phantom hero who pulled her from the water a delusion, or is he the only one who can unlock her dark memories?

Claire Walker has always had her life in perfect order, including her high-powered job at one of Manhattan’s top corporate law firms. Yet the one thing she cannot seem to find is a perfect love to complete it, until fate pushes Matías de León into her path. Matías is a Spanish artist who is everything that Claire is not: free-spirited and creative, chaos to her order. She falls for him, hard—and he for her. A year later, however, Claire begins to question everything about their relationship.

Ava Granados will never forgive herself for being late to her beloved nana’s deathbed. But due to a flash flood that left Ava in a fender bender with a mysterious boy, she missed her grandmother’s mystical blessing - one that has been passed between the women of her family upon death for generations.