Showing results by narrator "Abby Craden" in All Categories

In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: A comet will obliterate life on Earth in 36 years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories - his anxious mother.

Hascia, a precocious biochemistry major (class of 1966), was newly engaged in New York City and bored out of her mind - until she met and fell in love with Barry, a transfixing salesman and unconventional entrepreneur. When his business fell apart, Barry approached Hascia with a crazy idea: Why didn't they try their hand at building a life in Europe, away from the oppressive bureaucracies of the city? So off to Berlin they went, where they set up a wildly successful company selling educational materials to schools.

Rayna would do anything for Brady and she has. She's bailed him out of jail. She's healed his bruises and picked him up from parties. She's always been there for him regardless of whether he had asked or not. But when a potential love interest for Rayna returns to town, their relationship is threatened. Brady has to decide if he's going to make her his or let her go. And when he tries to do the right thing by both of them, neither could've foreseen what secrets their decisions would've exposed.

The cooking lessons that stick with us are rarely the ones we read in books or learn through blog posts or YouTube videos (depending on your generation); they're the ones we pick up as we spend time with good cooks in the kitchen. Dorothy Kalins, founding editor of Saveur magazine, calls the people who pass on their cooking wisdom her Kitchen Whisperers. Consciously or not, they help make us the cooks we are—and help show the way to the kind of cooks we have the potential to become.

When Quinn Langston’s her best friend unexpectedly passes away, Quinn knows she'll do anything to protect Brooke’s three-year-old daughter, Lily, and her grandmother Margaret. Not only is Quinn the little girl’s godmother, but they are the family she always wished she had. Now she vows to do whatever it takes to help the three of them heal - even if it means letting a complete stranger into their lives - and into their hearts. Margaret is old-fashioned, and she has no compunction about finding a way to reach Lily’s dad, a sperm donor.

Rumor said the powerful Nicolai DeMarco could command the heavens, that the beasts below did his bidding... and that he was doomed to destroy the woman he took as wife. It was whispered he was not wholly human - as untamed as his tawny mane and slashing amber eyes. Impoverished aristocrat Isabella Vernaducci would defy death itself to rescue her imprisoned brother. She’d even brave the haunted, accursed lair of the lion - the menacing palace of legendary, lethal Don Nicolai DeMarco.

Dean Bannon comes to New Orleans for one reason only: to track down a missing 16-year-old girl. That's before he meets the drop-dead gorgeous con artist who makes him want to lose his legendary control. With her past, Emma Castille doesn't claim to be psychic. She just notices things other people don't. Like the fear in a runaway's eyes - or the pain in an ex-FBI agent's heart. Her chemistry with Dean is blistering, but Emma follows her passion...not someone else's orders.

Violent murders occur in Paradise City as counterfeit comarré are systematically hunted. As war erupts at home, Malkolm and Chrysabelle head to New Orleans to recover the Ring of Sorrows. Forced to make a life-and-death decision, Chrysabelle will realize that her relationship to Malkolm may have fatal consequences. Samhain approaches, bringing with it the final melding of the mortal and othernatural worlds. No one knows just how much power the night holds....

Laurel Lockwood lost her son once through neglect. She's spent the rest of her life determined to make up for her mistakes, and she has succeeded in becoming a committed, protective parent-maybe even overprotective. Still, she loosens her grip just enough to let Andy attend a local church social-a decision that terrifies her when the church is consumed by fire. But Andy survives...and remarkably, saves other children from the flames.

April and Oliver have been soul mates since childhood, and the attraction between them has always been palpable. Now, years after being completely inseparable, they have become strangers, but the wildly different paths of their lives are about to collide once again with the sudden death of April's brother.

Ready or Not explores how today’s parenting techniques and our myopic educational system are failing to prepare children for their certain-to-be-uncertain future - and how we can reverse course to ensure their lasting adaptability, resilience, health, and happiness.

Beth is the darling of God Halsa, a pharmaceutical giant, and she’s got the outrageous salary and lifestyle to prove it. Until she lands in white-collar women’s prison, thanks to a high-profile whistleblower suit. Sam, Beth’s husband, used to be the town’s most eligible bachelor, and he’s never had to do anything for himself. Until his wife goes to jail, and he’s left to raise two daughters on his own. Lise, the au pair, is the whistle-blower. But is she? Everyone knows she’s not clever enough to have done it alone.

In a steam-filled diner in a college town, Flannery Jansen catches sight of something more beautiful than she's ever seen: a graduate student, reading. The 17-year-old, new to everything around her - college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life - is shocked by her desire to follow this wherever it will take her.

As the take-charge wine bar manager of Seduction, Portland's hottest new restaurant, Katrina Meyers is the definition of no-nonsense, and she isn't afraid of anything. Well, almost anything: She hates to fly. When she's forced to travel on a death trap with wings, the turbulence from hell has her reaching for any safe haven - including the incredibly handsome guy sitting next to her. Ryan "Mac" MacKenzie hasn't been able to get his sexy seatmate out of his head. The way she clung to him stirred something inside him he didn't think existed: tenderness.

Ashford, Vermont, might look like your typical sleepy New England college town, but to the shadowy residents who live among the remains of its abandoned mills and factories, it's known as "Burntown". Eva Sandeski, known as "Necco" on the street, has been a part of this underworld for years, ever since the night her father, Miles, drowned in a flood that left her and her mother, Lily, homeless.

Valencia is the fast-paced account of one girl's search for love and high times in the drama-filled dyke world of San Francisco's Mission District. Michelle Tea records a year lived in a world of girls: there's knife-wielding Marta, who introduces Michelle to a new world of radical sex; Willa, Michelle's tormented poet-girlfriend; Iris, the beautiful boy-dyke who ran away from the South in a dust cloud of drama; and Iris's ex, Magdalena Squalor, to whom Michelle turns when Iris breaks her heart.

Sam Easton—a true survivor—is home from Afghanistan, trying to rebuild a life in his hometown of LA. Separated from his wife, bartending and therapy sessions are what occupy his days and nights. When friend and colleague Melody Traeger is beaten by her boyfriend, she turns to Sam for help. When the boyfriend turns up dead the next day, a hard case like Sam is the perfect suspect.

Bears and bunnies aren't supposed to mix, or that's what Chase keeps telling himself when his bouncy new neighbor won't stay out of his business - and his mind. However, the more he gets to know his overly perky neighbor, the more he craves her. It's a desire worse than his addiction to honey and pie.

When Carter Shaw’s wife died five years ago, he was left to pick up the pieces not only of his own broken heart but also that of his devastated 8-year-old daughter, Gabby - leaving him with no time for anything else, let alone dating. But recently, Carter has noticed women again and soon even begins dating. No one has stuck around for long, mostly thanks to one very angry Gabby. Nora Hayes has worked as Carter’s assistant for years. Recently divorced herself, Nora spends many hours at the office and helping Carter with his daughter whom she adores.

Riley Gibson is over the moon at the prospect of having her restaurant, Seduction, on the Best Bites TV network. This could be the big break she's been waiting for. But the idea of having an in-house show on a regular basis is a whole other matter. Their lives would be turned upside down, and convincing Mia, her best friend and head chef of Seduction, that having cameras in her kitchen every day is a good idea is daunting.