This is an audiobook of short stories of everyday human emotional experiences. Stories of profound loss, of great friendships, of growing old with a dog, of going to war, and of course, stories of deep romantic love. I hope the stories encourage the listener to do some introspection on what it means to be human. I believe the poems, like all art, will mean more to some than to others.

Drue Campbell’s life is adrift. Out of a job and down on her luck, life doesn’t seem to be getting any better when her estranged father, Brice Campbell, a flamboyant personal injury attorney, shows up at her mother’s funeral after a 20-year absence. Worse, he’s remarried - to Drue’s eighth-grade frenemy, Wendy, now his office manager. And they’re offering her a job. It seems like the job from hell, but the offer is sweetened by the news of her inheritance - her grandparents’ beach bungalow in the sleepy town of Sunset Beach.

Heartbroken, Veronica feels lost. Salvatore and Antoinette, her dead grandparents, begin to visit her dreams in an attempt to steer her in the right direction. At their suggestion, Veronica takes a news reporting class, which leads to a challenging freelance assignment covering a conspiracy trial. She also begins dating an unlikely suitor: creative Syd Blackman. Just when her love life and career are looking up, Veronica is tossed back to square one by an event that makes her question all her new choices.

Follow Haley Rosewood and Devon Carrington in this trilogy which includes Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose, and Sometimes You Play the Game.

Jennifer Chaise is proud of her life. Coming from nothing, she's used her beauty to her advantage and is swept up in a glamorous world of wealth and privilege as the mistress of a high-flying businessman. But when she walks in on a violent scene in their Las Vegas hotel room, Jennifer knows she can no longer ignore the truth about her boyfriend, and she flees. Desperate to escape the men searching for her, she invents a whole new persona - with a new look and a new name - as she hides out in a small Nevada town.

Kevin Wake hates being rich. He despises everything his father stands for, but he can't abandon his kid sister and baby brother. Their future is tied to his own. When his father threatens to rob them all of their mother's legacy, Kevin takes bold action to protect what should be theirs.

On the surface, these seven women are as different as can be - but each has had her share of bad luck, from cheating husbands to sexist colleagues to a legal system that often doesn't do its job. Now, drawn together by tragedy, they're forging a bond that will help them right the wrongs committed against them and discover an inner strength they didn't know they had. The Sisterhood is learning that when bad things happen, you can roll over and play dead...or you can get up fighting...

The New York Times best-selling author of The Christmas Box returns with a holiday novel of hope, love, and redemption: "That's what I wanted to share with you, my dear listeners, this Christmas - a holiday tale to warm your season, your homes, and your hearts."

Sandy Kinsolving's once-glittering life hangs by a thread; his future depends on his wife's inheritance and whether or not she's about to throw him out on his ear. What he wouldn't give for a solution to his money and marriage problems. If this were an Alfred Hitchcock movie, the solution would be obvious. Enter a stranger with wife problems of his own, who offers a violent - and mutually advantageous - proposal. Then, in the time it takes to whisper a word, Kinsolving's normal life ends.

Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry has crammed a great deal of living - not to mention eight much-loved husbands - into her varied and rewarding life. Newly single, Toots is ready to taste life again, and fate has just handed her the perfect opportunity.

Madison is booming with dreamers and drifters, visionaries and entrepreneurs. Among them is Sydney Richardson, the daughter of a cop who died on these streets and now the proud, stressed-out owner of Hush Money, one of the city's top new restaurants. Like everyone else in town, Sydney is shocked when Madison's popular mayor - a crusty, charismatic man of the people - is shot to death in his own home. But the news hits especially close to home for Sydney because one of her own stands accused of the brutal crime. Sydney's the one person that Wanda Fields, a quiet, hardworking waitress and single mother, can think to call after her arrest.

Widely hailed for her best-selling fiction, no one combines sizzle and sass like Lutishia Lovely. With their soul-food business firing on all cylinders, brothers Malcolm and Toussaint Livingston seem to have the world at their feet. But playboy Toussaint’s penchant for risk-taking is often more than not-quite-happily married Malcolm can stomach, and a particularly spicy blend of circumstances is about to turn up the heat to record-setting levels.

"Do what the other fella can't. Be what the other fella ain't. And then help the other fella." Joe Hart has never let go of his uncle's words. An orphan from the unspoiled Adirondack Mountains, Joe leaves his humble beginnings and goes on to distinguish himself, first as a navy submarine commander, then as an attorney unequaled in his field. But Joe's world crashes with an unexpected tragedy.

Nikki Burgess survived a terrible marriage and a worse divorce. She's just about given up hope of ever finding happiness. But when her ex-husband suddenly dies, she gets custody of her kids again - and a chance to start over. Dixie McPherson, on the other hand, has had way too much love. She has 11 tennis bracelets, dozens of trinkets, piles of sexy lingerie, and a tarnished reputation when all she ever wanted was true love, a partner, and a family. Carlisle Bartlett is loyal, kindhearted, and the funniest guy slinging drinks in the back of an airplane. But he has an ugly little secret. The only kind of love he's used to comes with bruises.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. When a young, daring, impulsive redhead falls prey to an Internet scam and is swindled out of her life savings and her childhood home, she’s hell-bent on recouping her losses and punishing the person responsible. Her single-minded quest for revenge takes her around the world, from New York to Japan, to the untamed steppes of Kyrgyzstan, to Greece, and ultimately, to a sleek super-yacht anchored in the Mediterranean Sea.

Sandy Kinsolving's once-glittering life hangs by a thread; his future depends on his wife's inheritance and whether or not she's about to throw him out on his ear. What he wouldn't give for a solution to his money and marriage problems. If this were an Alfred Hitchcock movie, the solution would be obvious. Enter a stranger with wife problems of his own, who offers a violent - and mutually advantageous - proposal. Then, in the time it takes to whisper a word, Kinsolving's normal life ends.

On the surface, these seven women are as different as can be - but each has had her share of bad luck, from cheating husbands to sexist colleagues to a legal system that often doesn't do its job. Now, drawn together by tragedy, they're forging a bond that will help them right the wrongs committed against them and discover an inner strength they didn't know they had. The Sisterhood is learning that when bad things happen, you can roll over and play dead...or you can get up fighting...

Madison is booming with dreamers and drifters, visionaries and entrepreneurs. Among them is Sydney Richardson, the daughter of a cop who died on these streets and now the proud, stressed-out owner of Hush Money, one of the city's top new restaurants. Like everyone else in town, Sydney is shocked when Madison's popular mayor - a crusty, charismatic man of the people - is shot to death in his own home. But the news hits especially close to home for Sydney because one of her own stands accused of the brutal crime. Sydney's the one person that Wanda Fields, a quiet, hardworking waitress and single mother, can think to call after her arrest.

Nikki Burgess survived a terrible marriage and a worse divorce. She's just about given up hope of ever finding happiness. But when her ex-husband suddenly dies, she gets custody of her kids again - and a chance to start over. Dixie McPherson, on the other hand, has had way too much love. She has 11 tennis bracelets, dozens of trinkets, piles of sexy lingerie, and a tarnished reputation when all she ever wanted was true love, a partner, and a family. Carlisle Bartlett is loyal, kindhearted, and the funniest guy slinging drinks in the back of an airplane. But he has an ugly little secret. The only kind of love he's used to comes with bruises.

Everyone is always telling Stone Barrington that he’s too smart to be a cop, but it’s pure luck that places him on the streets in the dead of night, just in time to witness the horrifying incident that turns his life inside out. Suddenly he is on the front page of every New York newspaper and his life is hopelessly entwined in the increasingly shocking life (and perhaps death) of Sasha Nijinsky, the country’s hottest and most beautiful television anchorwoman.

Kenneth Ewald has what it takes to win the presidency: the support of his party, a lovely wife, a dynamic campaign. What neither he nor any candidate needs is a corpse. He knows only one man capable of solving a crime, clearing his son, putting his campaign back on track and catching a killer: his best friend Mac Smith. Oddly enough, it was Mac and his dog Rufus who found the body in the first place.

Tax cheats, beware: The Treasury Department's Criminal Investigations Division has a new special agent on its payroll. A recovering tomboy with a head for numbers, Tara's fast becoming the Annie Oakley of the IRS-kicking ass, taking social security numbers, and keeping the world safe for honest taxpayers. Or else. Tara's latest mission finds her in hot pursuit of ice-cream vendor Joseph "Joe Cool" Cullen. Along with frozen treats he's selling narcotics-and failing to report his ill-gotten gains on his tax returns. Over Tara's dead body.

Bernadine Brown is a woman with money to spend. Henry Adams is a town in desperate need of cash. But after Bernadine puts up the money, she has some ideas about how the town should be run. Will the townspeople be willing to shake up their comfortable lives to share the gift they’ve been given with others who really need it?

Lurking in the dark corners of J. P. Beaumont's bizarre case was not just a demented mind obsessed with murder, but secrets so deadly that even a street-tough cop could die guessing.

Olena Day’s first love died tragically, and her college boyfriend left her for nother woman. Now a successful, independent 43-year-old,she begins a passionate relationship with Matthew, a man 18 years her junior. Can a relationship finally end happily-ever-after for Olena—or will it be torn apart once again?

In the still shadows of the confessional, a madman tauntingly reveals his plan for a murder he is going to commit, pulling Father Thomas Madden into a twisted game by disclosing his next intended victim: Tom's sister, Laurant. In a frantic race to protect her, Tom calls upon his best friend, elite FBI agent Nick Buchanan, to track the predator who is closing in on Laurant. Now, as an electrifying attraction grows between Laurant and Nick, so does the danger - and one false move will cost both of them everything that matters.

Staying overnight in a luxury hotel, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde overhears a high-profile murder involving a U.S. senator. Special Agent Jack Pallas is assigned to the investigation - the same Jack Pallas who still blames her for nearly ruining his career three years ago. Now the pair will have to put their rocky past behind them, focus on the case at hand - and smother the flame of their sizzling-hot sexual tension.

It was inescapably chilling, as if the murderer was methodically working his way down a page torn from the phone book. The three victims brutally killed in their own homes had one thing in common: They were all listed as M. Douglas. The fact that Mara Douglas is next on the list has her jumping at shadows, until FBI agent Aidan Shields shows up to make sure she doesn't become the fourth victim.

When Sierra's father died, he left her in charge of the family business. At the age of 28, Sierra Adams became CEO of Adams Advertising & Design, one of the top 10 advertising agencies in the world. Her work was her life. She lived and breathed it every day, leaving little time for play. Having once been in a relationship that completely destroyed her, Sierra vowed to use men for one thing only: SEX. No strings, no problems, and most importantly, no heartache.

Disillusioned newspaper reporter-turned-private detective Ray Dudgeon doesn't want to save the world; he just wants to do an honest job well. But when doing an honest job threatens society's most powerful and corrupt, Ray's odds of survival make for a sucker's bet.