Showing results by narrator "Johanna Parker" in All Categories

In this dazzling debut, Taylor M. Polites crafts a Southern gothic novel that mines classic literary archetypes while shaping them in new ways. Set in Reconstruction-era Alabama, The Rebel Wife opens with Augusta Branson losing her husband to a terrible blood fever. Now she and her son must fend for themselves in a community being destroyed by violence.

Becoming a single dad overnight was certainly not part of confirmed bachelor Beau's plans. Neither was becoming someone's husband, but when an old fling claims he's a father, he's determined to do the right thing. Lucy's plans to leave for Seattle and start a new life come to a screeching halt when her best friend needs help. She's harbored a secret crush on Beau for many years, but it's too late now. He’s about to become a family man. Unless this is all a big mistake.

Three Mormon high school friends, perky Nikki, studious Alicia, and football player Sam, make a pact of the Pygmalion style—they decide to help the “untapped” students at their school. Their plan is to transform three classmates and take them to the prom. But the experiment doesn’t go exactly as planned. They slowly begin to realize that there is more to most people than meets the eye.

A heartbroken half banshee, a cockle selling soul possessor, and a town haunted by mysteries . . . if they don't find the killer, Orla and Molly might die before finding their soulmates. Orla and Dave's love has been unrequited for as long as they can remember. Cormac and Molly are used to drawing outside the lines. None of them are prepared for the new ghostly neighbors. In a town that's always ostracized them, can Molly and Orla finally use their powers openly in order to save the citizens?

When Becky and her husband refurbish a dilapidated old farmhouse, unexpected events frustrate their dream of a simpler life. Although Becky still finds escape in her madcap Walter Mitty-like fantasies, she doesn't realize how desperately she needs the Lord to renovate her heart and transcend her daydreams.

Nashville-based musician and part-time cowboy Jackson Carver is back in his small town of Stone Ridge, Texas, for the wedding of his older brother. Caught in forced proximity with a matchmaking granny and his ex, it isn't long before Jackson and Eve are revisiting tender feelings that never died.

With one band of gold, Prince Andres of Petras can erase his past - albeit pleasurable - sins. But his prospective bride is untamable Princess Zara, so the playboy prince must seduce her into compliance and crown her by Christmas!

Colton Henderson has been gone for years from his small Hill Country town. The former Special Ops soldier is finally back, but his family is shocked when he brings along his new fiancée. But Jennifer and Colton have a secret between them. She's running from a suddenly dangerous man and Colton isn't her fiancé. He's her bodyguard.

In hilarious Walter Mitty fantasies, Becky Miller defeats attacking Ninjas, wins grueling NASCAR races, and repairs orbiting satellites. If only this frazzled stay-at-home mom with three young kids could finish her teaching degree, do great things for God, and still have energy left for her husband! But with little time to become the super-mom a national magazine thinks she is, Becky suddenly faces even greater challenges that reveal what's most important - from God's perspective.

Emma Bailey is fed up with the dating scene, and if she hears her mother nag one more time about getting married…well, she’s had it, and she wants everyone to know it. In a moment of clarity (or insanity?), she announces to the world that she will never marry. No husband and no kids; no worries about diapers, driving lessons, or divorce. Her friends are there for her, but they’re also involved in their own lives and loves, so off she goes into a world of casual dating. But what happens when the avowed spinster, the woman who has supposedly tucked her heart into a safe little space, suddenly realizes that her best friend Brian means more to her?

A brother and sister turn outlaw in a wild and brutal landscape. The daughter of a diplomat disappears and resurfaces across the world as a deadly woman of many names. A young Philadelphia boy struggles with the contradictions of privilege, violence, and the sway of an incarcerated father. A monk in 16th-century England suffers the dissolution of his monastery and the loss of all that he held sacred.

After almost losing her life in a fire, Wyoming PI Anna Hudson wakes up to the sight of a familiar stranger. Anna and Hawk Steele shared one passionate night. Now the arson investigator will go to any lengths to protect Anna and their baby-to-be. But as they search through cold cases, exposing a tangled family history, a killer after revenge for past sins could steal Anna and Hawk’s future....

In lyrical, soul-searching free verse, the father-son team who presented Jazz, delivers a heartfelt and thought-provoking homage to this country. Reflective and non-judgmental, stretching across a tumultuous history and following dreams of and struggles for freedom, this masterful and stunning presentation of patriotism through poetry, quotations, and depictions of myriad Americans celebrates the heart and soul of this land.

Praised by Bookpage as “America’s best-kept literary secret,” Amanda Eyre Ward delivers a debut short story collection imbued with humor, clear-eyed insight, and emotional richness. Here a small-town librarian considers the possibility of a new future. A recent New York widow braves the dating scene. And—in six linked stories spanning a decade of her life—Lola Wilkerson navigates lingering questions about who she wants to be when she grows up, elopement, and motherhood.

It's hard to be a woman in the Wild Wild West. And if that woman is wearing a badge and slinging a six-shooter, it's even harder. Especially for any foolhardy man who gets in her way. The frontier town of Ring Bit, Texas, has a way of attracting trouble. Shootouts. Showdowns. Shady drifters. But it's never seen anything like the mysterious gunman Hawkshaw. Is he good or evil? As the town marshal, it's Tennessee Smith's job to keep an eye on him. Which is okay because he sure is easy on the eyes.

Writers in Progress literary arts center founder and debut novelist Dori Ostermiller has created a compelling work of love, regret, and forgiveness about a woman with a painful past and a boring marriage. New England landscape painter-turned-teacher Sylvia Sandon becomes fascinated by the father of one of her students. But she’s torn between her desire for this man and her desire to keep her family together.

Captain Ram Kozak is steeled to defend his country against all those who would hurt it. His only weak point is Darina “Dare” Mazur, a US Army Special Forces combat medic. She has a confidence—and loving touch—that brings him to his knees. But with the fate of his team and his country at stake, is Dare’s love a deadly distraction…or the only thing that can save him?

Shy, fat Susan Calloway knows she has nothing in common with the five other students in the afterschool group counseling sessions she's forced to attend to avoid expulsion. But as Susan and the others verbally attack each other and defend their own viewpoints each week, they begin to understand that none of their lives are as simple and straightforward as they appear on the surface.

Her life is a shadow of a life. Her future is not her own to fashion. Her family is a tangle of secrets. She cannot read. She cannot write. But she is Parastrata Ava, the Captain's eldest daughter, the so girl of a long-range crewe - her obligations are grave and many. And when she makes a mistake, in a fragrant orchard of lemons, the consequences are deadly. There are some who would say, "there but for the Mercies go I". There are some who would say Parastrata Ava is just a silly earthstruck girl who got what was coming to her.

There aren't many options for an 18-year-old girl in the Old West. Especially an orphan like Tennessee Smith. She can either sell her body in a seedy saloon or take her chances as a mail-order bride. Tennie chooses the latter. Joining a wagonload of women across Indian territory, she arrives in the God-forsaken town of Ring Bit, Texas. Her husband-to-be is surprisingly decent. But after tying the knot in a quickie ceremony, he pops even more surprises on her. First, he introduces Tennie to his three young sons. Then he drops dead on their wedding night....