Showing results by narrator "Emily Sutton Smith" in All Categories

Falling through the window of their family's cozy house into a dark and bitter world, riven by sectarian violence and struggle, five siblings search for a way out - and discover extraordinary talents deep within themselves on their path toward love.

Megan Jacobs always wished for a different heart. Her entire childhood was spent in and out of hospitals, sitting on the sidelines while her twin sister, Crystal, played all the sports, got all the guys, and had all the fun. But even a heart transplant three years ago wasn’t enough to propel Megan’s life forward. She’s still working as a library aide and living with her parents in her small Minnesota hometown, dreaming of the adventure she plans to take "once she’s well enough." Meanwhile, her sister has the perfect life - or so Megan thinks.

When Shea Walker, a sunny, easygoing mom, is found dead in a bathtub with a stomach full of booze and pills, the shocking discovery shatters the complacency of her comfortable suburban community. Kat Burrows, Shea's longtime friend and former neighbor, is hit hardest. How could a woman she thought she knew so well come to such a sordid end? What could lead happy, well-adjusted, responsible Shea to accidentally overdose on alcohol and narcotics? Or, worse, drive her to suicide?

Six Award-Winning Authors have contributed new stories to A Timeless Romance Anthology: Autumn Collection. In Heather Horrocks' charming story, A Hound Dog Named Elvis, interior designer, Kaitlin Hartley returns to her hometown of Aspen Grove, California, to the job of her dreams after a year of specialized training in New York. During the town's Autumn Festival, she enters her dachshund, Elvis, into the Running of the Hallowieners race.

On an island in Maine, four siblings arrive at their sprawling, old summer place for the Fourth of July. It's the Willoughbys' first summer without their parents, and their beloved house is falling apart. When a substantial offer is made on the estate, the two brothers and two sisters are forced to confront issues they had hoped to keep hidden. An homage to the layers and limits of the family bond, North Haven explores the shifting allegiances between siblings as they contend with their inheritance.

When Carthenne Rel first came to Nyaesh, she feared the A'ras. Now she trains with them, struggling to use the magic they teach, and cut off from the shadow blessing within her. Isolated for her differences, she has only a few friends among the other students. When the strange and powerful Master Invar offers to teach her to access the powers warring within her, Carth is isolated even more.

When the news of their father's death reaches them, sisters Cal, Violet, and Suzy Bloom have to set aside their own personal crises, and their differences, to gather in Maine. Responsible Cal, the oldest and closest to their dad, is torn between taking care of her family and meeting the demands of a high-pressure law career. Impulsive Violet, the estranged middle child, is regretting a messy breakup with a man she's just now realizing she truly loves. And Suzy, the sweet youngest daughter, is anguishing over a life-altering decision.

Rebecca Meer's hometown of Ward, Nebraska, is small - so small that she can't even sneak home after a drunken girls' night without running into at least three people she knows. But she has bigger problems than her reputation. The head doctor at her fertility clinic is losing his mind, and his wild behavior could cost them the business. Her supersuccessful ex-boyfriend has blown back into town and somehow become her son's fifth-grade teacher.

Near the end of World War II, 17-year-old Mireille de Jouarre flees the home of her stepfather - a Nazi collaborator and abusive drunk. She finds shelter with her childhood friend, Stefan, and the two fall deeply in love. But as the fighting escalates, Mireille must escape alone to Paris, where she discovers she's pregnant and lacking a way to provide for her child.

When professional missing-persons investigator Rachel Scott receives an anonymous tip that her own missing daughter, Mallory, is alive and living with a family in Atlanta, she wastes no time in pursuing the lead. When she arrives to find a house that has been hastily abandoned, she begins to suspect just how frighteningly organized the plot behind her daughter's kidnapping really is.

Though her specialty is foreign cyberterrorism, CIA agent Kera Mersal finds herself plunged into a bizarre domestic case. Singers, writers, and artists are disappearing, leaving no trace in a world where everyone leaves a digital footprint. Posing as a journalist, Kera attempts to track the artists' last-known movements.

Kirsten Hammarstrom hasn't been home to her tiny corner of rural Wisconsin in years - not since the mysterious disappearance of a local teenage girl rocked the town and shattered her family. Kirsten was just nine years old when Stacy Lemke went missing, and the last person to see her alive was her boyfriend, Johnny - the high school wrestling star and Kirsten's older brother. No one knows what to believe - not even those closest to Johnny - but the event unhinges the quiet farming community and pins Kirsten's family beneath the crushing weight of suspicion.

Tanis Archer is facing a miserable twenty-fifth birthday. She's a part-time barista in her sixth year at Dallas Community College. Her life is going nowhere, fast. Literally. Because on her way to work, she loses control of her car and is killed in a horrific crash. That should have been the tragic end of her story. But days later, she wakes up on a cold morgue slab…and soon learns that miraculous resurrections have brutal side effects. For starters, there are people around her who look as if they are decomposing from the inside-out, victims of their rotting souls.

The ugly words delivered online finally hit their mark. The younger sister of web security specialist Lauren Miller took the taunts to heart - and took her own life. Devastated, introverted Lauren has nowhere else to turn but the arms of a man who shares a similar pain…and a burning need for vengeance. FBI agent Brent Durant is determined to unmask the Troll King, a vicious Internet stalker he suspects of preying on the weak, goading his victims into suicide.

Jamie McAlister has resigned herself to the fact that in this job market, her painfully expensive degree might only get her a position at Starbucks, when she suddenly lands a prestigious internship at the White House. Although she doesn’t hit it off with the other interns, she is eager to work hard and make the best of the opportunity while it lasts. An unexpected encounter late one evening with the charismatic President Gregory Rutland seems like just a fleeting flirtation, but when he orchestrates clandestine meetings and late-night phone calls, their relationship quickly escalates....

Number-one New York Times best-selling author Iris Johansen offers listeners a classic tale of a love that seems impossible - and a hunger that is undeniable.

Jenny Cashman longs to escape the refined, rarified air of her exclusive Swiss education. At 19, she’s desperate for independence - and to once again see the man she loves. So she sells her belongings, leaves Europe, and heads to Las Vegas. The sight of Steve Jason’s newest palatial hotel and casino thrills Jenny - but not as much as the sight of the man himself....

When a rainmaker is bludgeoned to death in the pitch-blackness of a colossal dust storm, small-town sheriff Temple Jennings shoulders yet another burden in the hard times of the 1930s Dust Bowl. The killing only magnifies Temple's ongoing troubles: a formidable opponent in the upcoming election, the repugnant burden of enforcing farm foreclosures, and his wife's lingering grief over the loss of their eight-year-old son. As the sheriff and his young deputy investigate the murder, their suspicions focus on a teenager, Carmine, serving with the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The only male to be adopted into the notorious Parish family, Tony Parish always did right by his vigilante sisters. But when an attempt to protect one of them went horribly wrong, he had to fake his own death to escape his fanatical family. Tony set sail and ended up in Dominica - face to face with the woman of his dreams.... After the death of her mother, Honor Silva moved to Dominica, where her family could help her heal and move on. But her activist mother left her more than money, she left her proof that could take down one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.

Celebrated for more than fifty years as a world-renowned novelist, essayist, and political figure and commentator, Gore Vidal is less known for the exquisitely crafted short fiction he wrote as a young man. Like the work of Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, his stories have been overshadowed by the author’s triumphs writing in other genres. Still, Vidal’s short fiction offers us a portrait of the young artist in the 1940s and 1950s. His subtle and comic tales often center on adolescence and homosexual themes.

Esme and Benedict Werner have an idyllic life in a tight-knit community until an accident in their cul-de-sac ends in the tragic sudden death of one of their dearest neighbors. After vindicating eyewitness accounts morph into contradictory memories, suspicion, and unaccountable accusations, Benedict is arrested. Esme’s life, too, is changed forever.