Showing results by narrator "Jill Smith" in All Categories

Ever since the great fall of Becky Worthington - when the biggest bully of them all, hell-bent on harassing Patrice to the end of her teenage days, was transformed into someone altogether ignorable - Patrice's school life is almost normal. Well, if you can call having your own freak fan base and band of loyal misfit followers "normal". But there's a new bully in school. Patrice is the only one who can do something about it. The problem is, Patrice doesn't care. She's not the one being picked on; it's not her problem this time.

Nate Carter is living the good life. Taking a break from his engineering day job to be Camp Firefly Falls' resident tennis instructor, he's got nothing on his plate besides acting as best man for his sister and his BFF's wedding and avoiding a summer-ending injury like the one that sidelined him last year. An unfortunate incident involving salad dressing and his tuxedo finds Nate face to face with struggling single mom Ruby Hudson, who's moonlighting as a waiter. After their calamitous meeting, they have a far more satisfying end to their evening in the back of Ruby's station wagon.

Patrice should be proud of graduating to the freshmen class of Lakewood High. She should be excited about the new friends she'll make, the older boys eager to ask her out, the parties she'll be invited to. But no, that's not the high school experience that awaits her. Not at all. Patrice is a nerd. Patrice has an instant arch enemy. Her name is Becky Worthington, and she's not only the prettiest girl in school with a way of getting everything she wants or could ever hope for, she's also the most relentless bully who ever existed.

Swept away from Louisiana bayou country as a child, Miranda Miller is a woman without a past. She has a husband and child of her own and a fulfilling job in a Manhattan museum, but she also has questions - about the tragedy that cut her off from family and caused her to be sent away and about those first five years of her life, which were erased from her memory entirely. Summoned to the bedside of Willy Pedreaux, the old caretaker of her grandparents' antebellum estate, Miranda goes back to Louisiana at last, hoping to learn the truths of her past and receive her rightful inheritance.

Hilarious and colorful episodes in the lives of families, many depicted from a kid's-eye-view, are the theme for this compilation. Being part of a family is often trying, and stranger than any fiction, but never dull and always worth it in the end. Join these very different families as they face the shrinking of parents, the pre-emptive guilt of First Confession, the secret worlds of children, and more!

Set in 2029—after a stolen election and a bloody civil war, after President-for-life Trump's death, America has become a hellscape of marauding gangs, militias, warlords, the resistance, the One State Army, and the dreaded Stapos—the State Secret Police. In the midst of this nightmare, retired Air Force pilot Grant Woodford is on a mission to free his wife Elizabeth from the impregnable Richmond SuperMax Penitentiary and bring her home. LOST REPUBLIC is a caumessage from an apocalyptic future, warning us of the impending demise of our republic and the only way we can prevent it.

Growing up on a Wyoming cattle ranch, Sandy Thompson doesn't consider her life exceptional; until the mysterious visitors arrive, and the watching world descends on their once isolated homestead. These visitors hold a secret which could change the shape of human history.

Tessa Simmons has just taken a job as the Assistant Director at the library in the cove, and she’s been charged with all of the adult programming. Her ideas are big, and she brings in her new friends for focus groups to truly expand the reach of literature in the cove. Robin and AJ have ideas and plenty of opinions, as do all of the other women. They don’t always line up, and some voices are louder than others. But as Eloise has taken a step back to spend more time with her family, she becomes instrumental in helping Tessa establish smaller library branches on all five islands in the cove.

I thought my mafia connections were in the past, and I was alone. But powerful mafia boss Sebastian Laurent hasn't forgotten me. On the night I turn twenty-one, our paths collide. He can't drag his eyes from mine. But even when he says I'm in danger, I know being with him is the greatest risk. He wont give up. Kidnapped, I'm held captive in his luxurious home with him for twenty-four hours and he agrees to teach me anything I want.

TRADED. Dru has been traded by her captain to the Alliance Empire. She and the rest of the female crew from the human starship Dakota are to be married off, as the Alliance is suffering from a demographics issue, there aren’t enough Alliance women. Dru doesn’t care what kind of problems the Alliance has, she didn’t come this far, in her short life, to end up as a grey, alien man’s wife, no matter how powerful his civilization.

Lucas Maynard is cadre in service to House Trelane. He has one mission—locate an ancient book or find the curator who hid it. His secret task could bring two distant races together or propel vampire society into a civil war. Ginger Morrison is a human living among vampires. Though humans in a vampire House are common, there are days when she feels like an outsider, made terrifyingly real when House Trelane was threatened with sanctions that could have put her back on the streets. Her fears dissipate when Lucas asks her to join him on his mission.

Walking toward the nearest town, I see bonfires and hear humans singing. I wonder momentarily if I’ve time traveled into the past. Thankfully my hood covers my face, which is the tell-tale sign I’m not human. But I’ll have to find someone to help me to contact the Alliance Force. They don’t even know I’m on Earth. My mission was so secret that no one but the High Council knew.

I watched her. I was patient. Now she's mine to claim. Helping the most dangerous mafia boss in London was a risk, but I didn't expect to see his handsome face everywhere afterwards. I fall asleep to dreams of my escape tomorrow, cupcakes, and the ice blue eyes of my stalker who leaves me presents. I awake to gunshots. A hand over my mouth. In a blur of noise and smoke, he steals me away. The kingpin treats me like a captive princess and I'm conflicted. He's older than me, experienced. It's wrong to desire him and not the freedom I've been planning. So I creep out of the luxurious bedroom.

Poetry. Literary nonfiction. Fiction. Drama. LGBTQIA studies. Women's studies. Compiled in one book for the first time, featuring both new and out-of-print pieces, the contents of The Judy Grahn Reader span four decades of work by the prominent writer and activist. This volume contains writing from every phase of Judy Grahn's career, including poems from all of her major poetry collections, a number of her groundbreaking essays, as well as selected fiction and the full-length play The Queen of Swords.

Devon’s whispered words haunt. “What are you, Cressa Langtry?” It probably meant nothing. But it might be everything. Cressa Langtry, professional cat burglar, still owes a debt to the notorious and beguiling vamp Devon Trelane, and what she thought was a quick mission to pay off a sizable debt was only a trial run. Devon, in a show of faith, has sweetened the pot.

With Earth now ruled by the restrictive and archaic Alliance Empire, people are relying on me to uncover the truth about our alien sovereigns. I can’t pass up the personal invitation from the Empress to tour the Capital City.

Cressa was to leave for New Orleans with Devon. But now, her world has turned upside down. Through it all, she refuses to believe Devon has been readdicted to the Poppy, regardless of what the evidence suggests.

When Jenny Watkins buys an old fixer-upper with her husband, Greg, she is quickly haunted by a voice that only she can hear. The message the voice conveys prompts Jenny to look into the history of the house, which was the scene of a disappearance 60 years earlier. During her investigation, she is introduced to a cast of characters who ultimately change the way Jenny looks at life.

My assignment on Earth is coming to an end. Handing over projects is always bittersweet as an anthropologist, having to say "goodbye" to people I've come to know while studying their culture. However, this time is different. I have fallen in love with a human woman, and I want her to come with me. But there are some issues. She doesn't know I'm not human and not only that, but I'll be asking her to leave Earth, her friends and family behind. Will she say come with me?

Cressa wakes from an accident with her memories gone. She only has the word of an ancient and attractive vampire that she is his Blood Ward—a human in training to become a vampire. The mystery of how or why that happened might forever be out of her reach.