Showing titles in City Life

I was never supposed to be his wife. When my perfect older sister flees her arranged marriage, my father shoves me in her place—offering me up like a pawn to Dario Costa, the most feared Mafia Don in Philadelphia. Cold, ruthless, and eleven years my senior, he takes one look at me and sees nothing but a broken substitute. A wife unworthy of him. He refuses to annul the marriage but makes his stance clear—this will never be real. No love. No future. Just a one-year arrangement to save his reputation. But the more I push, the more possessive he becomes. The more I fight, the harder he ...

Carefree personal trainer Drake North is long on charm and short on connections that do more than skim the surface. His main ties are to his family and his best friend, so when his friend’s little sister moves to town, Drake promises to look out for her. But when he offers her his spare bedroom for a few nights, he might be getting in over his head.

Having my brother's best friend as my boss is one thing, but being pregnant with his twins? That's the last thing I expected… Landon Maxwell is a handsome, mature, irresistibly charming business mogul—and the most talked-about chef in Manhattan. When he hired me to promote and plan events for his restaurant, I didn’t expect him to be such an arrogant grump. I can’t stand him—we constantly bicker and clash. But when I watch him interact with the staff, I see a softer side to him. And I can’t deny the attraction that’s building with every encounter. Those piercing green eyes, ...

"This was no suicide," says Detective Michael Bennett. A man plunges to his death from the roof of a Manhattan hotel. It looks like a suicide - except the victim has someone else's fingerprints and $10,000 in cash. Enter Detective Michael Bennett. BookShots - lightning-fast stories by James Patterson. Novels you can devour in a few hours, impossible to stop listening, and all original content from James Patterson.

First published in 1920, This Side of Paradise proved to be a best-selling novel in Fitzgerald’s own lifetime. The book follows the early life and education of Amory Blaine and is, in fact, a thinly disguised account of Fitzgerald’s own experience as an undergraduate at Princeton and as an aspiring writer. Brilliantly original in its experimental narrative, it comprises a series of contrasting styles and structures.

I slept with the HOT grump next door… then learned he’s my new boss. Simon Chaucer is a handsome, arrogant, Billionaire CEO playboy, who’s also my cousin’s grumpy neighbor. While I’m house sitting for my cousin, Simon’s noisy home renovation disturbs my sleep. So, I show up at his house and give him a piece of my mind. We bicker and clash until sparks ignite and we can’t keep our hands off each other. His touch is electric and makes every inch of my body heat up, like a fire burning inside of me. Things are about to get even hotter with him until I start my new job and meet my...

Old Michael Snowdon returns to London with an inheritance that he determines should go towards helping the poor—but goodness and charity are not to play a part here. Everyone has an agenda, and scheming spreads through the story like a disease. Gissing’s own experience of London as an outsider in a vast city that both fascinated and appalled him gave him the tools and the drive to create a visceral sense of place. Life is unremittingly grim for just about everyone, from the weak and well-intentioned Jane to the coarse, cunning Clem Peckover and her feckless rival Pennyloaf Candy.

As night falls on Macau and the neon signs that line the rain-slick streets come alive, Doyle—“Lord Doyle” to his fellow players—descends into his casino of choice to try his luck at the baccarat tables that are the anchor of his current existence. A corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East, Doyle spends his nights drinking and gambling and his days sleeping off his excesses, continually haunted by his past. Taking refuge in a series of louche and dimly lit hotels, he watches his fortune rise and fall as the cards decide his fate.

Twilight Sleep, a gothic satire of Jazz Age New York, was an instant best-seller when it was released in 1927. Quintessential Edith Wharton, it is stylish and sharp, at turns scathing, hilarious and melodramatic, but also deeply and surprisingly human. In a modernist twist, the story is told by three distinct narrators—19-year-old Nona Manford, her unflappable socialite mother Pauline, and Nona’s father and Pauline’s second husband, divorce lawyer Dexter Manford. All are trying to save the marriage of Nona’s half-brother, Jim Wyant, and his wife Lita.

It was supposed to be just one fun, fiery night with a stranger—the bad boy next door. Then I found out... he's my new boss. Liam Harrington is not your typical professor. He’s tall, dark, and devastatingly gorgeous—not to mention an heir to his family’s vineyard. No wonder his students keep begging for "personal tutoring," even when he denies it. But to me, he’s just my untamed temporary neighbor, house-sitting for his friend. As I settle into my new home, I can’t help but melt at the sight of his chiseled body and tattoos through my living room window. Then he shows up to help...

My billionaire boss forces me into marriage…then knocks up my plus-size curves. He’s twice my age and daddy’s former best friend. He’s also notoriously ruthless. I’m the socially awkward virgin he likes to prey on because he wants revenge. When I make a mistake as his PA he punishes me…by forcing me to become his wife… He may be a great single dad to his adorable little daughter… But to me he is grumpy, demanding, and rude. He works me into the ground until he breaks me. And then he blackmails me and drags me to the altar, leaving me no choice. He’s obsessed with me and ...

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?

After years of braving the Arctic’s frigid temperatures or endless hours tracking the Spirit Bear to capture the perfect shot for National Geographic, Meg Jeffries decides to move back to the city — San Francisco. Westin Drake is famous for fast cars and box office sales. When the public mistakes a simple kiss on the cheek for a budding romance, Meg and West are caught in a media frenzy. Somewhere amid the backseat getaways and plastered smiles, Meg discovers the man behind the glossy photographs, and West wonders how he’ll ever let her go once the cameras stop rolling.

Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the thorniest problems of modern life: sex, relationships, identity and the internet. We see a young man’s passionate allyship turn to a furious and debilitating nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that his feminism isn’t getting him laid; a young woman’s unrequited crush spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of both her sense of self and her group chat; and witness a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship lead to a life-upending mistake.

Dive into a world of irresistible temptation with this sizzling collection of three forbidden romances, where domineering alpha males blur the lines between professional and personal boundaries. Get ready for explosive chemistry, scandalous secrets, and unexpected pregnancies, as these full-length novels pull you into passionate tales of fake marriages, revenge schemes, and forbidden love. These stories will leave you breathless and caught in the thrill of crossing lines that should never be crossed. Lose yourself in the delicious world of Forbidden Alpha Billionaires! Book 1. Faking It ...

Fleeing Tucson and her rotten (ex) girlfriend, Michelle lands in the Mission District, where queers from all over the country are arriving in search of themselves and each other. An aspiring poet, she hurls herself into the city’s riotous underbelly, stumbling through nightlife and open mics, drug adventures, and a string of hookups, breakups, and makeups. As butches and besties spin in and out of Michelle’s orbit, she ponders the powerful force and casual cruelty of their desires, and of her own—all in a singular, biting, deadpan voice shot through with humor and heartbreak.

After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother.

He’s much too old for me…but he’s obsessed with me and forces me into marriage… I’m the innocent one, the good girl who didn’t know about the Bratva. Until he marches into my life and decides I’m his. And the next thing I know, I’m locked in his mansion and forced to be his Bratva bride. I spent my youth bouncing around foster care homes. I’ve never been anyone’s choice. But when he sees me, his eyes get dark and a slow smile curls his lips. He takes my phone and puts in my job resignation for me. And when someone else comes too close, he’s wracked with jealousy and ...

West 86th Street knows its desserts. It’s the 1970s, and poppyseed strudel, praline ice cream cake, and New York cheesecake are as integral to Manhattan’s Upper West Side as clustered pigeons, suited doormen, and greasy diners. That is, until Cato comes to town. Cato the Elder, a Roman born in 234 BCE, is credited with the earliest written recipe ever found. A recipe for . . . cheesecake. No cream cheese, no graham cracker crust, somehow savory and sweet, the recipe is enigmatic—and suddenly, it’s all anyone on West 86th Street can talk about.

What's more important—revenge . . . or the child you never knew you had? Jolie Chapman was my first love. Now she's my most bitter enemy. Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice . . . who am I kidding—I don't believe in second chances anymore. Tripp Montgomery was my first love. I gave him my innocence. Then he broke my heart. And I committed the ultimate betrayal. These Manhattan royals are out for revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge. But there's something they want more. Their daughter.