Showing results by narrator "Tawnya Rollingson" in All Categories

Alice Ann Lark remembers everything, most especially the husband and daughter she abandoned for a life on the sea. Almost four years later, having failed to achieve her adventurous dreams, she would never ask for a forgive-and-forget return to Larksong, nor deserve it. Tormented by vivid flashbacks that become more frequent every day, she sequesters herself in the Ghost Forest, a wasteland of barren trees surrounded by Washington’s mountainous beauty—the perfect metaphor for her now empty life.

When the magazine that Margo Stoker works for downsizes and lays her off, it knocks her for a loop. She left her small hometown years ago, eager to explore the world and make a name for herself. But without a job to keep her busy, she decides to visit Evergreen Hollow for the first time in years—just in time for the holidays.

All her life, Caroline Stoker has been the sensible one. She dresses sensibly, acts sensibly, and she’s certainly never believed in fairy tales. Unlike her two younger sisters, who left Evergreen Hollow to spread their wings and explore new places, Caroline has spent her entire life in the small mountain town. She’s happy with her life and content with her choices… or so she thinks, until one holiday season, her world gets shaken up like a snow globe. It starts with a small accidental fire at the Mistletoe Inn, and her introduction to the town’s newest resident: Rhett Dawkins.

Noelle Frost only has one chance to reclaim the inheritance stolen from her after her father’s death. With her stepfamily plotting to win the prince’s heart during his bride competition to secure their own power, Noelle must infiltrate the royal ball to confront her stepmother and reclaim her birthright before time runs out. But in order to get close enough, she must compete for a crown she doesn’t want—and a prince she doesn’t love.

A missing princess. A magic flute. An adventure retold. Prince Tamric Madeus was expecting nothing more than a routine tour of the Spring Court. When an encounter with a dragon disrupts all of his carefully laid plans, his mysterious rescuers tell him the tale of a captive princess held by a powerful enchanter. As a second-born prince with a penchant for scholarship rather than physical prowess, Tamric leaps at the chance to become the hero that he’s always wanted to be. After running away from home, Princess Mina finds herself in a bit of a bind.

Holly is no stranger to the night. Her unique position means that the still hours in the darkest parts of the night are when most of her work gets done. It’s not completely silent—she has Parliament to thank for that—but it does get a bit lonely. Not even the letters from her faithful correspondent can completely fill the empty space, and it’s only a matter of time before she loses even those.

Calliope Cendrillon wants nothing more than for her bakery, “Sweet Pea’s Pumpkin Perfections,” to start turning a profit. After her father’s sudden death left her family in dire financial straits, Callie’s infamous pumpkin treats are the only thing standing between protecting her father’s legacy and losing it all.

As the crown prince of the tiny, coastal island of Kysta, Frederick had many expectations surrounding his future marriage. He had expected it to be an arranged, political match with a neighboring country. When his childhood friend and playmate, Princess Eliza of Nedra was announced as his intended, it was a pleasant surprise, but not unexpected. What Freddy didn’t expect was the sudden icy temper and stone cold stares that Eliza has been gracing him with since the announcement. He also never expected to be left at the altar.

Nora Stoker has her life all planned out. Her career as an event coordinator in Boston is on the rise, and she recently got engaged… but when her fiancé unceremoniously dumps her just before the holidays, she’s left reeling as her carefully laid plans come crumbling down. Hoping to clear her head, she decides to return to her hometown of Evergreen Hollow to spend Christmas with her family.

After her unexpected escape from enslavement, Martha Louis has finally found freedom in the community of Larksong in Washington Territory. When a declaration of love arrives from a most unlikely source, she dares to hope true happiness could be hers. Before she can embrace this life of her own, a child is stolen while under her care, forcing her outside Larksong’s safe haven. To see this little one safely home, she will be asked to risk everything, including her heart.

Princess Aurelia’s kingdom is plagued by the Eternal Slumber, a disease progressively ensnaring the minds of her subjects. After Aurelia wishes for the means to revive her brother, her sinister fairy godmother presents an ominous solution: Aurelia must stab herself with a poisoned spindle. Accepting this fate plunges Aurelia into a nightmare where victims of the Eternal Slumber are being held hostage by a dark djinni. As the djinni’s power grows, Aurelia must decide who to save before the djinni escapes and enters the waking world.

After being sentenced to death for the accidental killing of a wealthy, well-connected man, Sela Meriweather is offered another option—to be stripped of her soul and sentenced to lifetime exile on Azazel, the vast prison-island. There, alongside “dangerous” criminals like herself, firstborn children of the Old Town chosen by the lot are sent to atone for the sins of their families. As one of the elected Righteous, Caleb Alexander’s path to widespread renown is guaranteed so long as he can endure a year as an overseer on Azazel, preventing the other guards from fraternizing with the prisoners.

Missionary Diplomacy illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power.

Since Margo and Spencer met at Christmastime, they’ve decided to have a winter themed wedding to celebrate the season that brought them together. And knowing that Spencer once worried that she wouldn’t want to stay in Evergreen Hollow, Margo is planning a special surprise to show him that she truly does see him as her forever. As the Stoker family gears up for a busy holiday, Caroline faces the fact that with a new baby to take care of, she might need to hire some extra help at the inn.

Six months after traveling the trail to Washington Territory, the town of Larksong hasn't become the utopia the Lark Family imagined. Instead, it's falling apart, much like recently-widowed Coraline Shay's life. Due to a degenerative eye disease, her vision is quickly failing. Once she goes completely blind, rather than helping to build Larksong, she'll become a burden on her already disgruntled sister. To protect them both, Coraline swallows her guilt and devises a plan to trap an honorable man into marriage. Luckily, her chosen target doesn't believe in divorce.

Meanwhile, modern-day character Emma Rose, a notable speaker and business consultant, is trying to make sense of her recently deceased father’s request to be buried in a small Idaho town. Her journey of discovery begins from there.

It’s another holiday season in Evergreen Hollow, and as snow falls gently outside and the scent of sugarplum fills the air, the Stoker family is as busy as ever! With Nora and Caroline both married, and Margo head over heels for Spencer, everyone thinks it will only be a matter of time before wedding bells ring again. But when Margo seems to get a bit restless in the small town, Spencer worries that she may be itching to return to her old jet-setting life. He was planning to propose to her at Christmas, but he starts to question whether he should.

The human body is the primary instrument of war, yet those waging war often confront soldiers' bodies in a detached or merely intellectual way. In The Tenderness of Silent Minds, Martha C. Nussbaum, a leading thinker on emotion, morality, and justice, conducts a pioneering study of Benjamin Britten's musical representations of the tender male body amidst the brutality of war, and their ability to transform consciousness by evoking potent, non-personal emotions.

The ocean between them isn’t the only thing keeping them apart. Thanks to the machinations of the evil pirate and marauder, Uriah Smith, and Azazel’s cold-hearted leader, Lord Janus Auberon, an ocean now separates Sela from her beloved Caleb. When the unthinkable occurs, she despairs of life itself, until an act of unexpected kindness allows her to escape her captors.

As a Missouri plantation owner’s daughter, Sarah Walcott has always experienced the best society has to offer, yet her charmed life also carries unexplainable tragedy. She’s been widowed six times, always on her wedding day. When a seventh husband meets the same fate, her parents determine to send her to an asylum, where she can no longer be a burden to them or a danger to society. In desperation, Sarah joins the Larksong wagon train on their way to the West and soon learns that her saviors also harbor extraordinary gifts…ones that may finally bring her the answers she needs.