Showing results by narrator "Paige McKinney" in All Categories

Olivia Martinez, forced to leave her high-power Manhattan job with no prospects, is at a crossroad. Not only is she a city girl down to the tips of her Jimmy Choos, she wants to stay close to her parents, who depend on her more than they’d like to. Generally not a risk taker, Olivia steps out of her comfort zone when her best friend, Elizabeth Sutton, asks her to temporarily lend a hand at the Red Sky Ranch. After all, what can a few months change, and New York City is just a plane ride—or three—away, right?

Kelsey Brunel knows exactly what the future holds: She’ll one day inherit the Arizona dude ranch that has been in her family for three generations. She tells herself that the business and her good friends are all she’ll ever want or need. Long-term relationships aren’t in the picture, which, after witnessing the devastation of her parents’ failed marriage, is just fine with her.

Between ruling the night shift in the ER at the Rivers and raising her teenage daughter, Blaise Richelieu has all the drama she needs in her life. When a dashing young attending appears on the scene and relentlessly pursues her, Blaise has plenty of reasons to say no - or at least she tells herself she does, despite Grady’s nearly irresistible charm. Even if Blaise had the slightest desire to play Grady’s game, the past she’s kept hidden from everyone is a secret she intends to keep buried.

Leslie Raymond spent the past two years wishing her life had taken a different turn. It’s time for a fresh start, a move across the country, and a new set of rules to help heal her heart—no straight women, no women with kids, and no commitment. But when she meets her new neighbors, the beautiful Erica and her special needs daughter, Siena, she struggles against the pull she immediately experiences. Erica Cooper has learned to rely only on herself. She knows most people don’t stick around when the going gets tough.

Jay "Flash" Reynolds has a brilliant future as a trauma surgeon until a truck on a rainy night changes her life. Assistant chief medical examiner Olivia Price is more at ease with the dead than the living - at least the dead never lie. All she needs to do is listen to their stories. What she doesn't need is a surly new resident who would rather be somewhere else. Two women, one with a damaged body, the other a damaged spirit, challenge each other to dare to live again.

Senator Meredith Mitchell has been groomed from young adulthood for a future run for president, and as scion of a political dynasty, every public and private move she makes is carefully calculated. But Meredith’s focus on the right causes, the right people, and the right timing evaporates when she meets Stevie Palmer, a dashing public defender with a hard knock past.

Dr. Bennett Anderson accepts a short-term contract at a rural medical center to fill the gap year, before taking the high-profile job she’d put on hold while chasing a dream that had slipped away. In a deep-rooted community where everyone seems to know everyone else, Ben is an odditya stranger just passing through with no plans to build any ties.

For Lindsay Kent, Vineyard is her dream job. She's thrilled when her boss leaves her in charge (well, half charge) and tells her to feel free to make changes. Lindsay has tons of ideas that she's been dying to put into action, and this is her big chance to increase the success of the business and prove she's more than ready to run things solo. But getting the boss's daughter on board is harder than expected. The uptight and annoyingly attractive Piper is blocking her every move. For Piper Bradshaw, Vineyard is not her job. She already has one.

With the arrival of Courtney Carrington, Margaret's youth sparked into color. But first loves can scar. Margaret hasn't seen Courtney in years and that's for the best. But when Courtney loses her father and returns to Tanner Peak to take control of the family store, Margaret comes face-to-face with her past and the woman she's tried desperately to forget. The fact that Courtney has grown up more beautiful than ever certainly doesn't help matters.

Accountant and financial advisor Lacey Chamberlain doesn't consider herself a control freak. She's merely a planner-orderly, neat, and content in her tidy little life. When a marketing firm moves into the empty office next door, the loud-music-playing, stinky-food-ordering, kickball-in-the-hall staff make Lacey crazy. Marketing expert Alicia Wright is spontaneous, flies by the seat of her pants, and lives in the moment-all the things Lacey is not. She's also gorgeous, thoughtful, and seems determined to make Lacey like her. They say opposites attract, but for how long? And is that really a good idea?

When gunshots ring out in Judge Nina Aguilar’s courtroom, every one of her regrets flashes before her eyes. One of those regrets—her first love—reappears in her life in the most surprising way, and everything about their reunion signals that falling for Franco again would be a dangerous move. Even though she’s still as stunning and brilliant as Nina remembers.

Riley Dawson is a psychotherapist with a lycanthropic affliction. She’s a werecoyote, to be precise. A foundling adopted by wealthy parents, Riley led a privileged life until she fell in love with Fiona Bell, an evangelical preacher’s daughter. Raging hormones, the full moon, and the pull of Fiona Bell on her teenage heartstrings triggered her first transformation. Unfortunately, her parents witnessed the change and sent her off to college with a trust fund and an agreement never to return home.

We read to escape, to learn, to find love, to feel seen. We read to encounter new worlds, to discover new recipes, to find connection across difference, or simply to pass a rainy afternoon. No matter the reason, books have the power to keep us safe, to challenge us, and perhaps most importantly, to make us more fully human. Shannon Reed, a longtime teacher, lifelong reader, and New Yorker contributor, gets it. With one simple goal in mind, she makes the case that we should read for pleasure above all else.

Special Ops Agent Rafe Silva has always been a dedicated soldier, content in the military and jetting from one mission to the next. Her life is structured and clear of emotional entanglements until an old friend requests she provide protection for an industry whistle blower.

Veterinarian Grace Hammond is looking for a fresh start. Haunted by her past, she hopes moving back to her hometown will help her find the strength to stand up for what she needs in matters of the heart. The moment her first love, Bobbie Del Rey, walks into her clinic - tall, dark, and soaking wet - the boundaries Grace desperately needs become paper thin.

Anything can happen on Valentine Valley. People recover from amnesia, awake from comas, and rise from the dead - all to the delight of the daytime soap’s millions of fans. But while Valentine Valley may be glamorous onscreen, behind the camera the soap’s grueling production schedule punishes actors, directors, and writers in the name of ratings. Soap star Jennifer Connolly is near her breaking point, and a murderer is about to push her over the edge. As Jennifer struggles to care for her ill mother, a serial killer stalks the lot, committing a gory string of murders inspired by classic Hitchcock films.

The last time Brody Clark left the Rivers, she walked away from her life. For 10 years she'd told herself there was nothing in her past she cared about - not the family who'd given her a home or the one girl she never stopped thinking about. But now she’s back...Brody figures cutting her ties to the past would be a hell of a lot easier if she could only avoid the woman she’s never been able to forget. When their lives collide, both women discover what might have been is closer than they think.

Tally Dewilde forges her own path when she chooses to go into veterinary medicine and ignores her mother’s desire that she establish a boutique clinic for the pets of the wealthy in Manhattan. When she arrives in rural Upstate New York to join Sydney Valentine’s animal hospital, the break with her old life seems complete on every level. Until an unwelcome reminder of the painful past arrives at her door in the form of Roman Ashcroft.

Jane Dunne has a future in Hollywood. After years of striving, she’s finally landed a juicy part on Valentine Valley, the highest-rated soap on daytime TV. Fame will be hers, no matter whom she has to hurt to get it. But fate, it seems, has other plans. As Jane readies for her first close-up, a stage light falls from above, breaking Jane’s neck on her first day of work. The tragedy shocks the set, and terrifies Valentine Valley star Serena McCormack, who fears the deadly blow was meant for her.

Gina Antonelli had big dreams once, of riding her athletic achievements all the way to West Point and being the first in a long family line of soldiers to serve as an officer. When that dream died along with the girl she'd planned to marry one day, she'd vowed to forget about happily ever afters. When Gina agrees to renovate Carrie's soon-to-be new house as a favor to her brother's boss, she doesn't welcome Carrie's overtures at friendship or her own unexpected attraction.