Showing results by narrator "Mia Barron" in All Categories

Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a 19-year-old waitress as his passenger.

When Ann Woodward shot her husband, banking heir Billy Woodward, in the middle of the night in 1955, her life changed forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few believed the woman who had risen from charismatic showgirl to popular socialite. Everyone had something to say about the scorching scandal afflicting one of the most rich and famous families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the tale than Truman Capote.

Firefly meets The Breakfast Club in this high-concept LGBTQ+ romance from #1 New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff and bestselling author Nina Croft.

The Sun People are bound by an ancient law, left by the long-vanished Sky People: They must never kill. To other tribes, who have no such law, the Sun People are easy prey who will not defend themselves. Their game is poached, their stores raided, their women abducted, their men are killed for sport. But when Raging River and her sister are attacked by a Wolf People raiding party, River fights back and kills one of the warriors. Worse, she has killed the son of their chief.

Here are the greatest stories of one of the greatest writers working in any genre today. All ten of the stories gathered here are Hugo or Nebula award winners - some even have the distinction of winning both. With a new Introduction by the author and personal afterwords to each story, plus a special look at three of Willis' unique public speeches - this is unquestionably the collection of the season, an audiobook that every Connie Willis fan will treasure.

In 2027, destroying an embryo is considered first-degree murder. Fertility clinics still exist, giving hope and new life to thousands of infertile families, but they have to pass rigorous inspections by the United States Department of Embryo Preservation. Fail an inspection, and you will be prosecuted.

A sociologist and former fashion model takes listeners inside the elite global party circuit of "models and bottles" to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men.

Whether in front of the camera or behind it, Candice Vadala understood herself as both an artist and an entrepreneur. As Candida Royalle (1950–2015)—underground actress, porn star, producer of adult movies, and staunch feminist—she made a business of pleasure. She helped crystalize the broader hedonistic turn in American life in the second half of the twentieth century: a period when the rules of sex were rewritten; when the white-hot “sex wars” cleaved feminism and realigned American politics; when Big Freud, Big Drugs, and Big Porn all came into looming focus.

Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" ( Salon.com ) and "one of the quiet giants... of American fiction" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed "Break It Down" (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee "Varieties of Disturbance".

Cape Morgan, Maine, is the utopian ideal for a charmed life, and Beatrice Wicker knows it. The multi-million-dollar house on the sea coast. The joint bank accounts. The safety and security that go along with being married to an esteemed architect and community leader. So what if her husband sneaks off to see his second family now and again? Beatrice is willing to look the other way. It’s simply the price she must pay to keep their life together. Josh doesn’t realize that Beatrice knows about his other life. That’s just one of Beatrice’s secrets.

After writing a satirical novel that The New York Times calls classist, Anna is shunned by the literary establishment and, in her hurt, radicalized by the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Determined to follow Rand’s theory of rational selfishness, Anna alienates herself from the scene and eventually her friends and family. Finally, in true Randian style, she abandons everyone for the boundless horizons of Los Angeles, hoping to make a TV show about her beloved muse.

Kat Richardson excels at creating vivid, fast-moving novels that blend urban fantasy with paranormal mystery. In Greywalker, Seattle P.I. Harper Blaine is viciously attacked and murdered - but after exactly two minutes, somehow she returns to life. Now she's seeing strange things all around her - dark visions from the shadow world - and living a normal life may no longer be possible no matter how hard she tries.

When my sister thrifts an aged map with iridescent lettering leading to a town called Ever, I roll my eyes. According to a quick internet search, the town doesn't exist. We only manage to find it with the help of a sexy gas station owner who offers to come for me if I call him. Swoon. I quickly learn that Shepherd isn't actually human; nobody in town is. News flash—he's a gargoyle—a dominant, possessive, crème brûlée-loving monster. That should terrify me, but something about him keeps me coming back.

After Molly Wizenberg's father died, she traveled to Paris and - amidst its culinary delights - realized her heart was in the kitchen. So she began Orangette, a highly popular cooking and life blog that eventually led her to the love of her life.

In 1997, Eve Foster’s daughter, Kelsey, runs away to New Mexico and vanishes without a trace. Eve is convinced that she’s the victim of a serial killer who’s been hunting women in the region, but Kelsey’s body is never found. Years later, Eve dies, leaving everything to her adopted twin daughters. The majority of the wealthy estate in Vermont goes to Lisa, the “good daughter,” while Connie inherits only a small stipend and a property in New Mexico. Connie arrives in New Mexico to find a small dilapidated red house in the desert and the home’s mysterious caretaker.

A collection of original short stories offers an intimate and dark portrait of life in the United States as they journey through California seeking answers to our changing world, dealing with such topics as jealousy, AIDS, sex, and Jim Morrison. A new reissue of Babitz’s collection of nine stories that look back on the 1980s and early 1990s - decades of dreams, drink, and glimpses of a changing world. Black Swans further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation.

A working mother of six, who has homeschooled her own children for years, shows how any family can do it, with customized plans for every schedule, lifestyle, and educational goal.

L.A. Woman is quintessential Babitz, the story of Sophie, a 20-something blonde Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A.; and Lola, a German immigrant who settles in Hollywood in the '20s to drive Pierce Arrows recklessly down Sunset Boulevard and who knows that Maybelline mascara cakes and that Rudolph Valentino is the essence of life. Sophie and Lola, like the many other women who move in and out of this electric saga, know that while L.A. is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal.

An FBI agent hunts a new kind of terrorist through a Washington, DC, of the future in this ground-breaking book - at once a gripping techno-thriller and a fact-based tour of tomorrow. America is on the brink of a revolution, one both technological and political. The science fiction of AI and robotics has finally come true, but millions are angry and fearful that the future has left them behind. After narrowly stopping a bombing at Washington’s Union Station, FBI Special Agent Lara Keegan receives a new assignment: To field-test an advanced police robot.

One day a con man met an heiress, wooed her, married her, had two kids…and kept on conning. Jillian Moorewood is the oldest child from that meet-cute-gone-wrong marriage. The stable one. The sensible and dependable one. The one who protects and fixes. The one who went to prison to save their sorry butts. Now, thirty-nine months later, she’s out and she’s more than a little pissed. Finally home she finds the scheming clan in full family fleecing mode. They all claim they didn’t really agree to Jillian’s previous go-legit-or-else ultimatum before she went away.