Current Projects
From the author of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book The Kingdom of Little Wounds comes a gorgeously told tale of belonging, sacrifice, fear, hope, and mortality.
An award-winning author tells of a mermaid who leaves the sea in search of her landish mother in a captivating tale spun with beautiful prose, lush descriptions, empathy, and keen wit.
Blood calls to blood; charm calls to charm.
It is the way of the world.
Come close and tell us your dreams.
Sanna is a mermaid – but she is only half seavish. The night of her birth, a sea-witch cast a spell that made Sanna’s people, including her landish mother, forget how and where she was born. Now Sanna is sixteen and an outsider in the seavish matriarchy, and she is determined to find her mother and learn who she is. She apprentices herself to the witch to learn the magic of making and unmaking, and with a new pair of legs and a quest to complete for her teacher, she follows a clue that leads her ashore on the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands. There, as her fellow mermaids wait in the sea, Sanna stumbles into a wall of white roses thirsty for blood, a hardscrabble people hungry for miracles, and a baroness who will do anything to live forever.
©2020 Susann Cokal, original book published by Candlewick Press (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Mermaid-Moon-Audiobook/1799748472?qid=1583350785&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=R80DRPTZ2V0E5X55YKS7
Don’t miss this powerful memoir from a passionate advocate for Children’s Rights!
An empowering memoir of resilience and redemption, and the rage that helped a girl escape the darkness of a harrowing childhood.
Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit. Coming of age with a myriad of fears and emotional disorders, Lisbeth had three things that would become driving forces in her life: she was extraordinarily bright, extremely willful, and exceptionally angry.
From hell to liberation, this is Lisbeth’s emotional and galvanizing memoir told in two voices: that of a young girl who was unwanted, challenged, and defiant, and that of a woman who channeled her rage into a positive force as a passionate advocate for children’s rights. Whatever darkness defines the past, it can be used to change the future. Lisbeth’s heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting journey is proof.
New From Dreamscape Media….
When fun-loving artist Willow West meets buttoned-up George Emerson, it’s not exactly love at first sight – more like an intriguing project at first sight. Willow makes it her mission to get the obsessive-compulsive, newly retired English teacher to loosen up and embrace life, but even she has to admit it seems like a lost cause.
A confirmed bachelor, George vacillates between irritation and attraction whenever Willow is around‚ which to him seems like all too often. He’s not interested in expanding his horizons or making new friends; it just hurts too much when you lose them. But as the summer progresses, George feels his defenses crumbling. The question is‚ will his change of heart be too late for Willow?
New from Brilliance Publishing… NVK
HER SECRET MUST BE KEPT FOR ALL ETERNITY.
Set in the otherworldly megalopolis that is today’s Shanghai, Temple Drake’s suspenseful first novel blends the gothic, the erotic, and the supernatural as it charts an intense and dangerous affair.
One night in 2012, executive Zhang Guo Xing takes a group of European clients to a fashionable nightclub in Shanghai. While there, he meets a strikingly beautiful young Western woman called Naemi Vieno Kuusela. The physical attraction between them proves irresistible, and they embark on an intoxicating affair. But Naemi is not what she appears to be…
To Zhang’s surprise, she veers between passion and wariness, conducting the relationship entirely on her own terms. He feels driven to find out more about her, and is swiftly drawn into a web of intrigue, mystery, and horror. Is she a ghost? A demon? Do the living dead walk the streets of twenty-first century Shanghai?
Written in spare, high-octane prose, NVK is the first in a series of dark, hypnotic novels that explore the roots of desire and the cruel costs of immortality.
Hannah’s Courage
Publisher’s Summary
A loaf of fragrant cinnamon bread for breakfast…a sweet and creamy custard pie for dessert. In 1912 Ohio, the Amish Charm Bakery has something to delight locals and visiting Englischer alike. And within this warm, welcoming community, there’s always room for love to grow….
Hannah Lapp’s life, like a long-cherished recipe, is satisfying just the way it is. She enjoys whipping up desserts at the bakery, tutoring local children, and socializing with dear friends. One of those friends, Timothy Barkman, has made his interest in Hannah clear, but she’s been in no hurry to change her circumstances.
No sooner does she feel ready to grow closer to hard-working, handsome Timothy than Hannah finds she may have waited too long. Charlene Shetler intends to become Timothy’s fraa. It’s little wonder he’s attracted to such a pretty, forthright young woman, but is the newcomer all that she seems? Only when Hannah is willing to confront some difficult truths can she move bravely toward a life of abiding faith and love….
Start the New Year with some Historical Fiction…
Will Edyth prove her sanity before it is too late?
On Blackwell Island, New York, a hospital was built to keep its patients from ever leaving. With her late father’s fortune under her uncle’s care until her 25th birthday in the year 1887, Edyth Foster does not feel pressured to marry or to bow to society’s demands. She freely indulges in eccentric hobbies like fencing and riding her velocipede in her cycling costume about the city for all to see. Finding a loophole in the will, though, her uncle whisks Edyth off to the women’s lunatic asylum just weeks before her birthday. Do any of Edyth’s friends care that she disappeared?
At the asylum she meets another inmate, who upon discovering Edyth’s plight, confesses that she is Nellie Bly, an undercover journalist for The World. Will either woman find a way to leave the terrifying island and reclaim her true self?
©2020 Grace Hitchcock (P)2020 Recorded Books
Here’s a nice AudioFile review of Helene Tursten’s Winter Grave:
AudioFile review of Winter Grave
WINTER GRAVEAn Embla Nyström Investigation, Book 2
by Helene Tursten | Read by Stina Nielsen
Mystery & Suspense • 9.25 hrs. • Unabridged • © 2019
Stina Nielsen is an experienced narrator who consistently excels at playing strong female characters. She does so again as she portrays Swedish detective Embla Nystrom, moving us from the post-traumatic stress of her previous case to the horrors of children going missing in her new one. Nielsen captures the persona of a professional woman beautifully; she sounds both strong and stressed as the story’s tension mounts. There are multiple detectives and bosses packed into this winding story. Nielsen helps us keep track of them as we get closer and closer to the culprit. Fans of Nordic noir will sink into this complicated series of linked crimes. M.R. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2019]
From Cindy & Erin Woodsmall…. A Christmas Haven
For fans of holiday romances and Amish life comes a new Christmas tale of surprising expectations and discovering miracles.
Old Order Amish Ivy Zook is wrestling with her need to shed her community’s ways so she can grow the business of her dreams: planning parties. As long as she’s stuck living without modernization, she can barely get her business on its feet. But if she leaves too soon, she’d cause trouble for her sister, Holly, who is planning her wedding to Joshua Smucker. All of their plans become twice as complicated when an old car crashes into the storefront of Greene’s Pharmacy, carrying a Swartzentruber (ultra-conservative sect) Amish man, Arlan, and his very ill sister.
The Zooks take in Arlan and Madga, tending to the woman’s illness, and Arlan begins helping around the family farm. Ivy and Arlan are on different tracks, one wanting to leave her community and the other to return to his. But both young people are trying to discover what God has in store for their futures and what miracles might lie around the corner this Christmas season.
©2019 Cindy Woodsmall and Erin Woodsmall (P)2019 Recorded Books
Two young girls are missing. A police officer is found dead. Detective Inspector Embla Nystrom must quickly solve the mystery and find the children before the small town takes matters into their own hands.
When a little girl disappears a few weeks before Christmas, suspicions fall to the last person she was seen with: the mentally disabled teenage boy who gave her a ride home after school. Complicating the matter is the fact that detectives can hardly get a word out of him.
Meanwhile, 28-year-old Detective Inspector Embla is newly back at work and still trying to recover from her recent brush with a killer, which left her unable to get back in the ring to defend her title as Nordic light welterweight champion. When a second child disappears and a police officer is found dead, tensions in the small town of Stromstad, Sweden, reach an all-time high – as are Embla’s nightmares. As she hunts for the missing children, Embla can’t help but think of the case that has been haunting her for years: the disappearance of her childhood best friend. Could the cases be linked? With each passing dark winter day, the odds of finding the children alive shrink, while desperation mounts. Their fathers want answers and will stop at nothing – including murder – to get them.
©2019 Helene Tursten (P)2019 Recorded Books
In the mood for a Mystery? A Thriller? A little suspense?
A strong marriage can cope with the unexpected. But can it survive the unimaginable? 
American nanny Eleanor was never meant to meet Alex. But when she walks into his London police station to report a stalker, everything changes for them both. He’s convinced he can protect her from anything and anyone. She hopes her darkest days are behind her.
As they settle into their life together, two hundred miles away another young couple faces an uncertain future. Christie knows Paul is a decent man, but she can’t shake a clairvoyant’s warning: ‘Never trust your husband . . .’ When a work trip tests their bond, will she overcome her fears for the sake of her family?
Ten years later, both couples are still together, for better or worse. But as doubts and resentments begin bubbling steadily to the surface, all four of them start to question the choices they’ve made.
At least the secrets they all brought into their marriages are still well hidden.
For now.
©2019 Tina Seskis (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Contact/Current Projects bio
Stina made her Broadway debut in THE JUDAS KISS with Liam Neeson, a show they also performed in London’s West End. Her other Broadway credits include WAITING IN THE WINGS with Lauren Bacall; WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin; and THE LITTLE FOXES with Stockard Channing.
Stina’s regional theatre credits include Tennessee Williams’ 'The Notebook of Trigorin' with Lynn Redgrave at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park; 'Crumbs from the Table of Joy' at Capital Repertory Theatre; '1933' at the Denver Center Theatre Company; Pericles at the Mint Theatre in New York City; and 'A Month in the Country', 'The Odyssey', 'Dirty Work', and 'Babes in Boyland' at Arena Stage in Washington DC.
Her TV credits include "Law & Order–SVU", "Another World", "The City", and "All My Children". She also works with DeValk Associates interactive diversity training.
She has narrated over 250 audiobooks, is a multiple Audie Award finalist, has earned multiple Earphones Awards, and was named one of the “Best Voices of 2011” by AudioFile magazine. A short film she narrated for Metabook Films, YOURS SINCERELY, LOIS WEBER was an Official Selection for the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and the Huesca Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the LA Shorts International Film Festival.