Showing results by narrator "Kate Reading" in All Categories

Sebastian Ballister, the notorious Marquess of Dain, is big, bad, and dangerous to know. No respectable woman would have anything to do with the "Bane and Blight of the Ballisters", and he wants nothing to do with respectable women. He's determined to continue doing what he does best - sin and sin again - and all's going swimmingly…until the day a shop door opens and she walks in.

Mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance, and detective Max Darling are finally tying the knot, but a bizarre sequence of events threatens to unravel this blissful marriage before it begins. The ceremony is barely over when the phone rings and a woman on the other end of the line screams bloody murder! The newlyweds rush to the scene of the crime only to discover that Ingrid Jones, Annie's bookstore assistant, has vanished, leaving the body of a neighborhood Peeping Tom on her living room rug.

It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution: the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and have been left to languish, forgotten. Deeply in love, they escape, and find refuge in the farmhouse of Martha, a retired schoolteacher and widow. But the couple is not alone - Lynnie has just given birth to a baby girl. When the authorities catch up to them that same night, Homan escapes into the darkness, and Lynnie is caught.

An ordinary life—its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion—lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary return, seven years after the publication of After This. Scattered recollections—of childhood, adolescence, motherhood, old age—come together in this transformative narrative, stitched into a vibrant whole by McDermott's deft, lyrical voice.

Four months after the Battle of Tromsund, the Alekkan landscape looks very different. Reinar has taken his people to Slussfall, where winter’s grip remains strong. There is no sign of Ulfinnur, God of Winter, and he fears that Alari has captured him, intending to keep the sea permanently frozen. For if the sea remains frozen, no ships can sail to Oss, seeking the help of the Islanders. Without the Islanders, Reinar can’t risk leaving the security of Slussfall’s walls to fight an enemy that outnumbers him two to one.

Now that she's retrieved the Staff of Lore, Captain Alisa Marchenko can finally dedicate herself and her ship to finding her kidnapped daughter. Her scant clues lead her to Cleon Moon. Unfortunately, since the fall of the empire, mafia clans have taken over the domed cities on the harsh moon, and exploring there isn't easy. Even with the cyborg Leonidas at her side, Alisa struggles to survive vengeful mafia clans, rogue Starseers, and genetically engineered predators.

Richard Whitestone is an Elemental Earth Master. Blaming himself for the death of his beloved wife in childbirth, he has sworn never to set eyes on his daughter, Suzanne. But when he finally sees her, a dark plan takes shape in his twisted mind - to use his daughter's body to bring back the spirit of his long-dead wife.

Retired chief constable Alan Nesbit and his wife Dorothy Martin are in the beautiful historic city of Bath to celebrate Dorothy’s birthday, enjoying the city’s elegant surroundings, sightseeing, shopping—and champagne. But the celebrations are curtailed when they discover a curious assortment of loot in their car boot during a trip to Stonehenge—from precious artifacts to cheap jumble sale trinkets. The stolen items are linked to various historic sites in Bath, but how did they end up in the Martins’ car?

Nim lives on an island in the middle of the wide blue sea, shared by only her father, Jack, a marine iguana called Fred, a sea lion called Selkie, a turtle called Chica, and a satellite dish for her e-mail. No one else in the world lives quite like Nim, and she wouldn't swap places with anyone.

Dorothy and her husband are invited by friends to Branston Abbey for a country house weekend. Thirteen other guests she hardly knows. A rambling Tudor mansion, full of secrets. What could possibly go wrong? A lovely dinner is just getting into its stride when a huge storm rolls in. The lights go out. And with no electricity or phone service, and cut off by flood waters, Dorothy feels like she’s stuck in an Agatha Christie mystery. A guest is found unconscious, another disappears, and there’s a horrifying discovery in one of the bedrooms.

Annie Darling - owner of the mystery bookstore, Death on Demand - prefers fictional crimes as opposed to the real things. But in one tragic week, two acts of violence shake the island community of Broward's Rock. First, a beloved doctor is found shot dead, seemingly by his own hand. Only days later, a local artist is arrested after his wife is murdered. Convinced her brother did not commit suicide, the doctor's sister turns to Annie and her husband, Max, for help. She has found a cryptic sketch her brother drew, linking him with the murdered woman.

When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live “a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious” (Time). As the United States enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes.

With the island of Avalon far behind them, Meredith and her companions continue their search for Candidate One in the hope of finally discovering the secrets behind why they were brought to this strange, future-version of Earth. Wild adventures, mysterious technologies, and new friends will help Meredith on her journey. But the Adversary has its own plans for her, and soon she finds herself fighting for survival against an enemy unlike anything she has encountered before. There is only one hope for the future of humanity. Can Meredith handle the burden?

More than three decades have passed since the events described in John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick. The three divorcées - Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie - have left town, remarried, and become widows. They cope with their grief and solitude as widows do: they travel the world, to such foreign lands as Canada, Egypt, and China, and renew old acquaintance. Why not, Sukie and Jane ask Alexandra, go back to Eastwick for the summer?

A Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is completing a course at the National Forensic Academy. His boss is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk; its motto: "Any crime, any time." In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved 20-year-old murder-in Tennessee.

When celebrity chef Brede Ziegler is discovered stabbed to death on the steps of the Oslo police headquarters, it sends a shock wave through the city's hip in-crowd. Chef Ziegler had lots of famous associates. Could the culprit be among them, or was this a random act of violence? Police investigator Billy T. takes on the case, but he is stymied by conflicting information about what kind of man Ziegler was. It seems nobody really knew him.

The end has come. The Arc of Radiance has been destroyed. Asmodeus, the Prince of Darkness, marches on Tarsynium with an innumerable demon host. It would seem that, at long last, the end of the world is here. The remnants of humanity gather in Tarsys, uniting their forces to make a final stand. A slim hope remains as Zara discovers an ancient spell capable of defeating the demons once and for all. Together, she and Owyn embark on a gambit to save the kingdom before it can be destroyed. Their success hinges on their friends holding back the R'Laar so they can try their desperate plan.

Why do you still feel fat after losing weight? Why do you duck your head when you drive into an underground parking garage? Why are your kids so enthralled by video games? The answers to these questions can be found in a new understanding of how your brain interacts with your body, the space around your body, and the social world.

This time, Scandal Wears Satin, as the second sister from a somewhat scandalous aristocratic family - the purveyors of one of London’s most fashionable shops - finds passion and a love as sumptuous as the gorgeous gowns she creates. Superstar romance author Susan Elizabeth Phillips says Loretta Chase has “a rare talent for creating crackling sexual tension and characters so fresh and compelling that readers won’t be able to forget them.”

Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John, in a crumbling mansion on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her 50s who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to live by John's rules, even if it means turning a blind eye to the noises she hears coming from behind the cellar door...and turning a blind eye to the women's laundry in the hamper that isn't hers. For years she's buried the signs of John's devastating secret into the deep recesses of her mind - until the day John is crippled by a heart attack.