Showing results by narrator "Susan Bennett" in All Categories

Everyone knows that Gina Townsend is a saint, always taking care of everyone around her. And now she's trying to be a mother to her six-year-old niece, Amanda Jane. But the girl's biological father isn't helping matters. The scruffy, gangly boy Gina remembers has returned to Glory a sexy, successful man, but Reed Hollingsworth is the only thing standing between her and losing Amanda Jane to foster care.

Byron Hawkins doesn't want to be responsible for anyone ever again. The former Black Ops soldier is better at taking lives than saving them. But on a mission in Tunisia to deliver a package to safety, Byron is dismayed to find that the precious cargo is actually a hostage rescue, and that his orders are to take Damara Petrakis back to U.S. soil and hide her in plain sight - as his newlywed wife.

When the pretending ends, the lying begins.... It's the summer of 1990, and 14-year-old Molly Arnette lives with her extended family on 100 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The summer seems idyllic at first. The mountains are Molly's playground, and she's well loved by her father, a therapist famous for books he's written about a method called 'Pretend Therapy'; her adoptive mother, who has raised Molly as her own; and Amalia, her birth mother who also lives on the family land.

Before Nicholas V. Landrew can enjoy more than a few weeks in his new role as emperor of the universe, his world begins to fall apart. His mortal enemies, the Craborzi, have cloned him, and are using these carbon copies to produce an intergalactic reality show called The Abominable Emperor - killing a clone in every episode! Worse, they've joined forces with his other mortal enemy, the Phlemhackian talent agent, Morglob Sputum, who is also out for vengeance. But worst of all, his parents want him to take out the garbage!

In nine short stories and one brand-new, never-before-heard Sherlock Holmes mystery, Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand, starting with England's declaration of war in 1914. As told in Mary Russell's teenage diaries, the whip-smart girl investigates familial mysteries, tracks German spies through San Francisco and generally delights with her extraordinary mind - until an unimaginable tragedy strikes.

1980s Appalachia. Sheila knows she needs to keep her appetites in check. Isolated and struggling in ramshackle poverty, her desires—for food, for escape, for the perfect girls in the pages of her pilfered magazines—are about the only things she can control. But with every passing day, life with her exhausted mother and her half-feral younger sister Angie feels more like a rope tightening around her neck. When a pair of hikers are brutally murdered on the trail, Sheila and Angie find themselves drawn inexorably into the hunt for the killer.

Your Believers is a powerful, cathartic story of casual evil and of how the worst things can be faced so that we might not only survive, but grow. A young woman goes missing, and her mother uproots her life to find her daughter. But it is not just the heartbreak or the deep mystery of the hunt for lost loved ones that Bradley so convincingly explores. Rather, with the help of an amazingly dedicated searcher, family and friends somehow learn to move past unspeakable horror and celebrate the tenacity of the human spirit.

Nicholas, Jeef, and Henrietta the gerbil face their most existential crisis yet when the universe is attacked by beings from a parallel universe intent on conquering every other parallel universe. If Nicholas fails in his mission to defend the universe, it'll mean the end of life itself.

Maeve Fanning is a first generation Irish immigrant, born and raised among the poor, industrious Italian families of Boston’s North End by her widowed mother. Clever, capable, and as headstrong as her red hair suggests, she’s determined to better herself despite the overwhelming hardships of the Great Depression. However, Maeve also has a dangerous fondness for strange men and bootleg gin - a rebellious appetite that soon finds her spiraling downward, leading a double life.

Hen isn’t a little chick anymore. She’s spread her wings and can get a job done just the way she likes it. She can grow wheat herself, she can wheelbarrow it home by herself, and she can turn it into delicious bread—all by herself! No need to bother offering Hen a helping hand of any sort, thank you. She’s got it covered! But then comes Fox … and Fox loves to eat all kinds of tasty things. So when Pig, Horse, and Cow discover that Fox has paid Hen a visit, should they step in and offer assistance that Hen hasn’t asked for?

Noah is four and wants to go home. The only trouble is he's already there. Janie's son is her world, and it breaks her heart that he has nightmares. That he's terrified of water. That he sometimes pushes her away and screams that he wants his real mother. That it's getting worse and worse, and no one seems to be able to help. In desperation, she turns to someone who might have an answer - but it may not be one she's ready to hear.

I have something for you. When Quinn Cruz receives that cryptic text message from her older sister, Nora, she doesn’t think much of it. But when a haunted Nora shows up at the lake near Quinn's house just hours later, a chain reaction is set into motion that will change both of their lives forever. Nora’s 'something' is more shocking than Quinn could have ever imagined: a little girl, cowering, wide-eyed, and tight-lipped. Nora hands her over to Quinn with instructions to keep her safe and not to utter a word about the child to anyone.

A broken promise reveals a terrifying legacy in this electrifying novel from the New York Times best-selling author of When All the Girls Have Gone. Seattle gallery owner Virginia Troy has spent years battling the demons that stem from her childhood time in a cult and the night a fire burned through the compound, killing her mother. And now one of her artists has taken her own life, but not before sending Virginia a last picture: a painting that makes Virginia doubt everything about the so-called suicide.

In Glory, Kansas, the bakery not only brings together ingredients for sweet treats but is the place where a wounded hero can forge a forever kind of love. Back in his hometown, Jack McConnell has returned battle scarred, but Betsy sees only the hero who once saved her life and set her heart on fire. Now she's burning to save him in return. However, Jack realizes the only way he'll be worthy of the hero's mantle she's pinned to his shoulders is to save Betsy one last time - from himself.

A job offer at Portland's Oregonian Times seems like an ideal placement, until she learns exactly what she'll be doing. Writing an advice column for lonely hearts wasn't quite what Carly Barnett envisioned, but it's a beginning. Mark Holbrook does nothing to disguise his disdain for the new staff reporter - if you can call Carly's column reporting. Still, he can't deny his attraction to her. But that doesn't mean he'll take her advice - not even if she holds the key to his own lonely heart.

From the tense territory of a sagging, grand porch in Texas to a gated community in steamy Thailand to a lonely apartment in nondescript suburbia, these linked stories unwind the lives of three families as they navigate ever-shifting landscapes. Wry and sharp, dark and subversive, they keep watch as these characters make the choices that will change the courses of their lives and run into each other in surprising, unforgettable ways.

When the pretending ends, the lying begins.... It's the summer of 1990, and 14-year-old Molly Arnette lives with her extended family on 100 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The summer seems idyllic at first. The mountains are Molly's playground, and she's well loved by her father, a therapist famous for books he's written about a method called 'Pretend Therapy'; her adoptive mother, who has raised Molly as her own; and Amalia, her birth mother who also lives on the family land.

In 1944, 23-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly ends her engagement to the love of her life when she marries a mysterious stranger and moves to Hickory, North Carolina. Hickory is a small town struggling with racial tension and the hardships imposed by World War II. Tess' new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, hides money from his new wife and shows no interest in making love. Tess quickly realizes she's trapped in a strange and loveless marriage with no way out.

Maniye, child of both Wolf and Tiger clans, has been named Champion of her people. But they're unsure if she's an asset - or a threat. To buy time, she joins Prince Tecuman's warband of outcasts and heads south, to help him gain his crown. She wants to discover her true place in the world but instead heads into the jaws of a fierce new conflict. Civil war threatens as Tecuman and his twin sister battle for the throne, for only one can rule. Yet whoever triumphs will carry a heavy burden, as a great doom has been foreseen that will fall across their whole world.

North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher’s life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in prison. Her dream of a career in the arts is put on hold - until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Desperate to leave prison, Morgan accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence and a conspiracy of small-town secrets.