Showing results by narrator "Whitney Dykhouse" in All Categories

Fourteen-year-old June Baker never in a million years thought she’d be dressing like a boy, sneaking into a hobo camp, and jumping onto a moving freight train to travel across the state of Tennessee. But, that’s what she has to do to find work so her family’s farm can survive. It’s 1933, and the Great Depression is spreading misery throughout America. Where once June was sitting on top of the world, now she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Aja knowingly sacrificed herself to save 20 girls from the Spider’s Web child trafficking network. She also gave herself up thinking it would free Marsha and two other SHIELD team colleagues. Unfortunately, she never should have trusted that the Black Widow would hold up her end of the bargain.

Eleven years ago, Hannah Hawkins’ parents disappeared while traveling abroad. Presumed dead, Hannah and her uncle are shocked when a letter from her mom arrives right after Hannah’s 16th birthday. By piecing together cryptic hints from the note and other clues left behind, Hannah realizes her parents disappeared while trying to find the mysterious Code of Enoch, an artifact they believed could hold the key to curing disease - or creating it. Hannah’s parents had been determined to destroy the code, no matter the cost.

"It's long been assumed of the region where my grandmother was born . . . that at some point each year the dead will come home," Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile, and reconnection. Her grandmother's stories recalled one true home: the family farm left behind in Latvia, where, during WWII, her grandmother Livija and her grandmother's sister, Ausma, were separated. They would not see each other again for more than fifty years.

I never got involved in the dirt and the details of an investigation. I never let my preconceptions muddy a reconstruction. And I steadfastly refrained from ever allowing my past to dictate my future. At least until the one person I couldn’t lose went missing. Because then I’d relive every dark moment of my childhood, confront every heartbreak, and even sell my soul if that was what it took to get her back. Because I couldn’t accept a future - not even a promised one of immortality and unbridled power - that didn’t include one of the only two people I’d ever truly loved.

After years of struggle, Raven Kendrick is giving up on her dream of a theater career in New York. Returning to her hometown, she moves back in with her parents and resigns herself to a quiet life. But that humble dream is shattered when her tyrannical father is murdered. Even worse, Raven is convinced her beloved mother killed him while sleepwalking. So instead of calling the police, she decides to cover up the crime. But as detectives close in, Raven's carefully constructed lies begin to crumble. Her alibi isn't holding up and her father's business partner is asking way too many questions.

A mother’s secrets threaten a daughter’s future.... Bethany Waterbury left Hollywood and the shadow of her mother's death to give herself a fresh start. Her main intention - to connect with the family she’d never really had the chance to know. Author Kent Black is enjoying his chart-topping success and living freely wherever his travels take him. But when he meets the illustrious Bethany Waterbury, his wanderlust subsides and the thought of a steady future begins to take over.

What Sheryl remembered most about her life up to now was the cycle of chaos - brief moments of happiness soon snuffed out by misery - again and again and again. Now married, she thought those days were finally behind her. She had strong faith, a wonderful husband, and a baby in her womb. So why were dark thoughts flooding her mind? Why was she walking to the cliff in the dead of night? Why was a tall, lanky stranger intensely studying her from the darkness?

Her life is about to change—if she survives the road trip. Driving the I-40 coast-to-coast was never on Cora Dalton’s bucket list, until the day she finds out she has inherited a house in New York from a grandmother she has never met. Terrified of flying, Cora talks her best friend, Adele, into accompanying her on what they think will be a rip-roaring fun, 10-day road trip. But when they pick up a teenage runaway at a gas station with a dark and disturbing past, things begin to go awry.

At age seventeen, Becca Tanner, a terminal cancer patient, is about to start over in a new body, in a new town. She dreams of nothing more than to live a normal life and to fall in love, but keeping secrets and cheating death will come at a staggering cost. Becca's new body has a past that is quickly catching up to her.

Charlie is already feeling adrift when she relocates to an exclusive town in coastal New England with her mysteriously distant husband, Dev, and their young twins in tow. She hopes the move will recharge her stalled marriage, and she wants her kids to feel like they belong, even if she’s clearly a fish out of water herself. In a strange new world where summer is a verb and both the harbor and the partygoers are awash in a dizzying constellation of pinks and pastels, she’s never felt so confounded or alone. She’ll need more than a preppy handbook to find her way.

The tragic events of November 10 were crushing, driving Loralei and David’s orbits onto a collision course. Something had to give. Who would prevail? Guilt and grief overwhelmed Loralei. She never wanted to sing again, and suicide seemed like her best option. But slowly, with the help of her trusty four-legged companion, and the otherworldly guidance of her Oma, she persevered. Recapturing the motivation to complete her deadly mission.

What's it like to be a trail angel and can romance truly blossom from first meeting to marriage on the Pacific Crest Trail? How do trail names get bestowed and what does it mean when you find yourself roaring back at a mountain lion? How have climate change, technology, and the sheer number of hikers affected life on the PCT? Find the answers to all these questions, and so many more, in the diverse writings gathered in Crossing Paths, an anthology of stories and poems written by PCT hikers.

Somewhere in the Badlands, embedded deep in centuries-buried rock and sand, lies the skeleton of a massive dinosaur, larger than anything the late nineteenth century world has ever seen. Some legends call it the Black Beauty, with its bones as black as ebony, but to seventeen-year-old Samuel Bolt it's the "rex," the king dinosaur that could put him and his struggling, temperamental archaeologist father in the history books if they can just quarry it out.

Everybody likes Chris Goodman. Sure, he's a little odd. He wears those funny bell-bottoms and he really likes the word ennui and he shakes your hand when he meets you, but he's also the kind of guy who's always up for a good time, always happy to lend a hand. Everybody likes Chris Goodman, which makes it especially shocking when he's murdered.

When Rona Blackburn landed on Anathema Island more than a century ago, her otherworldly skills might have benefited friendlier neighbors. Guilt and fear instead led the island's original eight settlers to burn "the witch" out of her home. So Rona cursed them. Fast-forward 100-some years: All Nor Blackburn wants is to live an unremarkable teenage life.

One werewolf: Free to a good home. Three months after becoming a shifter, my bloodthirsty beast fights me for control of our shared body. My boss is unhappy with my erratic behavior. And Claw - the enticing alpha who made becoming a werewolf semi-palatable - is avoiding me while I try to transfer my wolf to his human sister. The transfer fails, but a vision promises I'll find mystical assistance on the other side of the country.

Susan Hayes moved to Georgia to start the life she wanted to live and build her catering career. On the brink of having everything she ever wanted, Eric Walker and his family happened into her life. Eric Walker’s life had been quiet, structured, and boring until his uncle gambled away the family’s property and jeopardized Eric’s livelihood. Now midst family secrets learned, someone ruining his business and trying to drive him off his land, he fell in love. Things will never be the same for them - especially if someone succeeds in destroying the Walker family and killing Eric.

Fourteen years ago, I bit through the lip of the first boy brave enough to kiss me. Since then, I've acquired a PhD in archaeology, a new teaching gig at a prestigious university, and research interests out the wazoo. Unfortunately, my social life is still as bleak as a raided Egyptian tomb. Until, that is, a stranger interrupts my class bearing the same ancient cat fang I see in my dreams. He's rough around the edges and entirely riveting. No wonder my inner monster wakes up and seizes the reins

As far back as he could remember, Bruce Griffin had a crush on his best friend Alex’s little sister. But when a best friend knows all the good and bad about you, sometimes the bad parts mean he forbids you from having anything to do with his sister. Sarah Burke was brought up on the basketball courts, just like her brother was. She could handle herself in any situation, so she wondered why her brother found it necessary to forbid her from having anything to do with Bruce Griffin, someone she’d had eyes for since she was a little girl.