Showing results by narrator "Therese Plummer" in All Categories

Of course Morgan Williams is grateful to her great-aunt for bequeathing her half ownership in a seaside cottage in Maine—but there’s a catch. To claim it, she has to spend four weeks onsite. That’s a tall order for an advertising professional who rarely takes off four days, let alone four weeks. As for the other stipulation…that she volunteer for a camp for troubled kids run by her co-heir…what is that all about?

Paris, 1927, a day in July. A destitute young American named Rafaela Fano gets into the car of a dazzling stranger, the Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. Struggling to halt a downward slide toward prostitution, Rafaela agrees to model for the artist. The relationship between the artist and her muse lasted less than a year, yet in 1980, just before Tamara died, she was working on a copy of Beautiful Rafaela. Author Ellis Avery imagines their affair from Rafaela’s point of view, and the final day of Tamara’s life from the painter’s point of view.

On August 5th, 2003, Ryan Atwood found himself a long way from his home in Chino—he was in The O.C., an exclusive suburb full of beautiful girls, wealthy bullies, corrupt real-estate tycoons, and a new family helmed by his public defender, Sandy Cohen. Ryan soon warms up to his nerdy, indie band-loving new best friend Seth, and quickly falls for Marissa, the stunning girl next door who has secrets of her own. Completing the group is Summer, Seth’s dream girl and Marissa’s loyal—and fearless—best friend.

When her photographer fiancé is killed in an act of violence overseas, journalist Caroline James goes home to grieve, regroup, and take a job as editor of a local newspaper—all while dealing with a boatload of guilt. In no way is she ready for her fiancé’s brother to show up almost two years into her new life.

A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers' best stories, including her beloved novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose cafe serves as the town's gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind", McCullers' first published story, written when she was only 17, about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist.

In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the czar's army tightens its grip on the local Jewish community, Miri Abramov and her brilliant physicist brother, Vanya, are facing an impossible decision. Since their parents drowned fleeing to America, Miri and Vanya have been raised by their babushka, a famous matchmaker who has taught them to protect themselves at all costs: to fight, to kill if necessary, and always to have an escape plan. But can they bear to leave the homeland that has given them so much?

Once a week, three women get together for book club in Kingsland, a private, gated community full of neighbors looking to do their business away from prying eyes. On the same night, their husbands meet up to play poker, where much more is being planned than anyone could guess.

Creatocracy takes everything you thought you knew about pilgrims and their plainly puritanical sensibilities, flips it on its head, throws glitter on it, sets it to a flashy pop score, then throws it a big coming out party. In a movie version of this American origin story, Baz Luhrmann would be calling all the shots. Elizabeth Wurtzel has masterfully written a crash course in American history and the arts, wise and witty, full of humor and insight. This is pop patriotism in book form.

Someone very powerful is trying to destroy Sorren and everyone he cares about. That puts Cassidy, Teag and Trifles, and Folly in the crosshairs against an unknown enemy with strong magic and significant resources. Sorren has spent centuries shutting down the plans of powerful immortals, dark warlocks, and supernatural creatures, and now he's got to figure out which of those many enemies is out to get him before they pick off his friends one by one and come after him to finish an immortal vendetta.

Ever since Alana Diaz adopted her cat Furrari, she has found herself in a feud with her infuriating neighbor, whom she knows only by the name on the passive aggressive notes he leaves on her door - R. Jones. Alana works hard all day, and the last thing she needs when she finally relaxes on her balcony with a glass of wine and her new furry roommate is her neighbor’s dog barking his head off.

Escaping New York City and the espionage case that made her question everything, recently widowed FBI Agent Lina Connerly returns home to sell the house she has inherited in Greenfield, California. With her teenage son, Rory, Lina hopes to reassemble her life, reevaluate her career, and find a clear way forward. Adrift and battling insomnia, she discovers that her father’s sleepy hometown has been transformed into a Silicon Valley suburb on steroids, obsessed with an annual exam called the Wonder Test.

After a devastating trauma derails all her plans, Kelsey Anderson leaves her highpowered corporate job and moves to her grandmother’s lake house in Michigan to open a quilt shop, begin a new life, and make a difficult decision. Quiet is what she wants—and quiet is what she has … until war-weary ex-Army doctor Luke Turner invades her world. In town for a few weeks to fulfill a promise, he’s no more interested in romance than she is. But Kelsey’s public relations background is just what he needs to complete his mission.

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a drakia descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers quickly close up shop. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

Best-selling author and Sookie Stackhouse creator Charlaine Harris crafts the eighth riveting tale starring Aurora "Roe" Teagarden. Roe's stepsister-in-law Poppy has achieved social distinction - she's been elected into the Uppity Women Book Club. Unfortunately, membership has its deadly consequences.

Before the security fence divided them and suicide bombers and airstrikes destroyed their lives, Palestinian Jannah al-Jarbouni and Israeli Efron Oved were friends. After years of separation, Efron, now 22 and an Israeli soldier, finds Jannah being transported from an Israeli jail. He reaches out to win her trust, but with every fiber of Jannah's soul, down to the marrow aching in her bones, she has vowed that the Israelis will pay for killing her family.

One phone call is all it takes to lure real estate photographer Mallory Aldiss back to her family Rhode Island beach home. It's been 20 years since she's been gone - running from the scandal that destroyed her parents' marriage, drove her and her two sisters apart, and crushed her relationship with her first love. But going home is fraught with emotional baggage - memories, mysteries, and secrets abound. Mal's 13-year-old daughter, Joy, has never been to the place where Mal's life was shaped and is desperate to go.

Before The Immortal Rules, there was Red Lung, a relentless virus determined to take out all in its path. For Kylie, the miracle of her survival is also her burden - as a doctor at one of the clinics for the infected, she is forced to witness endless suffering. What's worse, strange things are happening to the remains of the dead, and by the time she befriends Ben Archer, she's beginning to wonder if a global pandemic is the least of her problems....

Nobody really believes in a curse. Until you know the people who disappear. Too much coincidence, you look for reason. Too much death, you grasp for something to blame. Carson pulled Delaney out and he died on the side of the road with her mouth pressed to his. Her air in his body. Troy. She told the cops it was suicide. Didn't matter. The lake released her and grabbed another. But when Decker's father dies in a pool of spilled water on their kitchen floor, all Decker can feel is a slow burning rage. Because he knows that Delaney knew that his dad was going to die.

Maddy is a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother, host of excellent parties, giver of thoughtful gifts, and bestower of a searingly perceptive piece of advice or two. She is the cornerstone of her family, a true matriarch...until she commits suicide, leaving her husband Brady and teenage daughter Eve heartbroken and reeling, wondering what happened. How could the exuberant, exacting woman they loved disappear so abruptly, seemingly without reason, from their lives? How they can possibly continue without her?