Showing results by narrator "Melissa" in All Categories

Macon Greene is a reluctant, world-renowned violinist. She’d never had a problem playing for a crowd as long as she wasn’t giving a solo. Her friends never seemed to notice her reluctance. In fact, her friends seemed to only really notice one thing about Macon–she always had a different woman around her. Sometimes, she’d flirt. Sometimes, they would. Rarely would it go anywhere. Unfortunately for Macon, she had a bit of a reputation.

Comparisonitis is a contagious, socially transmitted condition that occurs when you compare yourself to others so frequently and fiercely that you're left paralysed, with your confidence in tatters and your self-worth plummeting. It may sound trivial, but this affliction can have serious adverse effects on our mental health, leading to depression, anxiety, overthinking and regret. To make matters worse, our comparison culture is only expanding. Thanks to social media, we have more opportunities to compare ourselves than ever before, and even kids are falling into the trap.

I had everything. Wealth, power…and her. It started as an irresistible and provocative game. Only elite circles knew about the club and what happened behind closed doors. A monthly auction. A high price bid. A woman I was never supposed to fall in love with.

Summer Taft is a 27-year-old billionaire who founded a tech start-up with her brother while she was still in college. As that company’s CEO, she feels stuck and underappreciated. She also has to take care of the company while her brother goes off exploring the world, leaving her holding the bag. The company recently opened an office in Chicago, where Summer has met some new friends. As Summer decides to uproot her life and make the move to Chicago, she meets Lena.

Hillary Robins had watched all of her friends couple off. Everyone in her group had their person now, while she’d turned into something like the eighth wheel. After Caroline had broken her heart, Hillary had always known that she’d be the last of her friends to find someone. Caroline had done a number on her. And, in many ways, she was still recovering.

I always thought the end of the world was a myth. But then, I also thought Norse gods were make-believe too. They're not. Five of them are coming for me. They claim I will only survive if I surrender to them, body and soul. But they don't realize it's about so much more than carnal servitude. I am so much more than they could ever suspect. So much more than even I knew. I am the only one who can stop Ragnarök from covering the world in ice and darkness. The only one who can save gods and men alike from annihilation.

Lively, determined, and independent, Poppy Christner isn't about to let some vandal keep making mischief on her family's farm. She's been outrunning boys and standing up for picked on children ever since she was a girl - no matter how much her prideful, arrogant schoolmate Luke Bontranger insulted her. So Poppy certainly doesn't need his interference now, especially since he's made it plain he prefers demure, ladylike companions.

Zane Bennington, he was the guy who'd been making my life miserable for weeks. He was a prick. A jerk. A stone-cold ruthless bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever - well, except for his face. And his body. And yeah, maybe his massive fortune. But other than that, the guy had zero going for him. The only upside? He hated me as much as I hated him. Or so I thought.

As someone that's done years of therapy and personal development, I know how hard it can be to find an approach that feels right. While trauma can be scary to re-visit, this cognitive based approach can give you the space and safety to uncover the core, subconscious programming behind your patterns. Healing your inner child is not just for you, it's for your ancestors and future generations too.

Mrs. Moses is a small woman with a big heart and enormous courage. The only survivor of a Cossack raid on her village, she takes with her a big cast-iron frying pan, so heavy that she can only sling it over her back. Yet this is no ordinary frying pan, it's The Family Frying Pan, blessed with a Russian soul.

Maddie James has big plans for the summer season at JJ’s House of Purrs. But when her friend, master meditator and Tai Chi teacher Cass Hendricks, brings a potential animal hoarding situation to her attention, Maddie has to refocus her attention on the furry felines who may need a helping paw.

A bundle of books one (A Killer Cupcake) and two (A Murderous Macaron) in Fiona Grace’s Beachfront Bakery cozy mystery series.

Soft skills are the personal qualities that make you a great communicator, problem solver, and leader on the job—and in your personal life. Soft Skills For Dummies helps you hone in on the traits you already have—or fine tune the ones that may need some extra attention—to market yourself as a workplace leader who's in touch with what today's employers are looking for: people who can lead and inspire through interpersonal communication, cultural awareness, time management, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving.

In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection - with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery.

While a college student at The New School, Melissa Febos spent four years working as a dominatrix in a midtown dungeon. In poetic, nuanced prose, she charts in Whip Smart how unchecked risk-taking eventually gave way to a course of self-destruction. But as she recounts crossing over the very boundaries that she set for her own safety, she never plays the victim. In fact, the glory of this memoir is Melissa's ability to illuminate the strange and powerful truths that she learned as she found her way out of a hell of her own making.

When Connecticut veterinarian Melissa Shapiro gets a call about a tiny deaf blind puppy rescued from a hoarding situation in need of fostering, she doesn’t hesitate to say, “yes.” Little does she know how that decision will transform her, her family, and legions of admirers destined to embrace the saga of the indomitable pink pup.

Her new job as an on-air reporter in sunny San Diego is a big break for Skyler Ruiz. No more covering small-town softball games or vegetable growing competitions. She’ll be working at the same station as her TV mega-crush and longtime idol, anchorwoman Carolyn McNamara, and that doesn’t hurt either. Unfortunately, people don’t always live up to expectations. Skyler’s hopes of impressing Carolyn are dashed when she discovers Carolyn has little time for newbie reporters and is downright unwelcoming.

Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House is the life story of Elizabeth Keckley, a shrewd entrepreneur who, while enslaved, raised enough money to purchase freedom for herself and her son. Working as a seamstress and dressmaker for the wives of influential politicians, Keckley helped organize an auction of dresses that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln, the former first lady. The auction elicited strong criticism from the Washington elite.

As Melissa Bond raises her infant daughter and a special-needs one-year-old son, she suffers from unbearable insomnia, sleeping an hour or less each night. She loses her job as a journalist (a casualty of the 2008 recession), and her relationship with her husband grows distant. Her doctor casually prescribes benzodiazepines—a family of drugs that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan—and increases her dosage regularly.

Maniac West isn't a man to mess with. Not with him and not with his club. When he is assigned to watch over Wren, he ignores how he feels about the woman with the soulless eyes. Something in them makes him crave to return light there. But Wren is a job. No more, no less. That all changes when Wren decides she doesn't want to live.