Showing results by narrator "Xe Sands" in All Categories

In the 1960s and 1970s, complaints about a "Jewish literary mafia" were everywhere. Although a conspiracy of Jews colluding to control publishing in the United States never actually existed, such accusations reflected a genuine transformation from an industry notorious for excluding Jews to one in which they arguably had become the most influential figures. Josh Lambert examines the dynamics between Jewish editors and Jewish writers; how Jewish women exposed the misogyny they faced; and how children of literary parents have struggled with and benefited from their inheritances.

Vanished tells the stories of women and girls in upstate New York who are often overlooked or unseen. The characters range from an aging art professor whose students are uninterested in learning what she has to teach, to a young girl who becomes the victim of a cruel prank in a swimming pool, to a television producer who regrets allowing her coworkers into her mother’s bird-filled house to film a show about animal hoarding because it will reveal too much about her family and past. Humorous and empathetic, the collection exposes the adversity in each character’s life.

Famed Broadway producer Milo Short steps out of his Upper West Side brownstone on one exceptionally hot morning, he's not expecting to see the impossible: a woman from his life 60 years ago, winking at him on a New York sidewalk. The sight causes him to suffer a stroke. And when he comes to, the renowned lyricist discovers he has lost the ability to communicate. Milo believes he must unravel his complicated history with Vivian Adair in order to win back his words

Claire wakes in a hospital room in the Florida Keys. She has no idea how she got there or why. The loss of so many memories is paralyzing. Some things she can piece together by looking at old photos saved by her husband, Charlie, and her best friend, Rachel, and by combing through boxes of letters and casual jottings. Told from alternating points of view that pull the listener into the minds of the three characters, the story unfolds as the smudge that covers Claire's memory is gradually, steadily wiped away, until finally she can understand the why and the how of her life.

Hollywood powerhouse Jo is photographed making her assistant Emma laugh on the red carpet, and just like that, the tabloids declare them a couple. The so-called scandal couldn't come at a worse time - threatening Emma's promotion and Jo's new movie. As the gossip spreads, it starts to affect all areas of their lives. Paparazzi are following them outside the office, coworkers are treating them differently, and a 'source' is feeding information to the media. But their only comment is 'no comment'.

Meredith, a middle-aged and unhappily married mother, played her own trick on fate, embarking on a lengthy affair with a dark, handsome stranger. But guilt, that most tenacious of hunters, finally catches up with her...as does something far more threatening. Illicit relationships harbor no innocents. And when Meredith attempts to break free, she learns fate’s more vicious tricks await her.

Susan Callisto is pushing 30 and taking stock. The man in her life, Massachusetts Police Lieutenant Michael Benedict, has unaccountably left her without a word of goodbye. Wounded but full of pride, Susan at first wonders why and then shrugs and decides to forget about him. Who needs a moody piece of work like Michael, anyway? Certainly not Susan who, transitioning from lawyer to political consultant, is far too busy to think about love—except on lonely summer nights..

Being one of the guys isn't all it's cracked up to be. So when journalist Chastity O'Neill returns to her hometown, she decides it's time to start working on some of those feminine wiles. While doing a story on local heroes, she meets a hunky doctor, and things start to look up. Now there's only one problem: Trevor Meade, her first love and the one man she's never quite gotten over. Yet the more time she spends with Dr. Perfect, the better Trevor looks!

The Last Kid Left begins when a car smashes into a sculpture of a giant cowgirl. The police find two bodies in the trunk. Nineteen-year-old Nick Toussaint Jr. is arrested for murder, and after details of the crime rip across the Internet, his 16-year-old girlfriend, Emily Portis - a sheltered teen who's been off the grid until now, her first romance coinciding with her first cell phone - is nearly consumed by a public hungry for every lurid detail, accurate or not.

When a young woman who calls herself Suzie Q. approaches Luke to find her missing cat, Luke takes the job and winds up getting hold of a Magic 8 Ball that correctly predicts the future and answers any question, so long as it has nothing to do with lotto picks or love.

Still in college, Rebecca is the “responsible one.” She keeps her friends from getting too crazy—though Human Curling is kind of out there. She’s a safety valve for Joel, her foster father, and helps out at Halfmoon House, which he runs with his wife, Amanda—Rebecca’s foster mother, who makes sure her children able to protect themselves. To take care of themselves.

Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum - still the largest unsolved art theft in history - one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece - the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years - may itself be a forgery.

In The Aftergrief, acclaimed grief Coach and New York Times best-selling Author Hope Edelman helps us to understand that loss isn't something to get over, get past, or move beyond, and trying to achieve these will only lead us nowhere. Instead, she draws on her own experiences of early bereavement, as well as interviews with dozens of men and women who have lost someone dear, to answer how, individually, we can learn to live with loss and grief long-term and accept it as something that becomes a part of us and shapes our thoughts, choices, hopes and fears.

It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is on her way to a party. It's chilly enough out for her mink coat, and Manhattan is grittier now - her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl - but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily. On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents and parents-to-be while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak.

Fresh-out-of-a- bad-relationship New York City single, Sofia La Scala, carves out time once a week for happy hour with her best friend Chloe in search for Mr. Right. But when Chloe can’t make it out one night, Sofia meets seductive billionaire, Alex Chambers. The two immediately connect and begin flirt–filled exchanges that heat up rapidly and eventually lead to a steamy romance. The relationship challenges Sofia’s norms and flings her into a world of fantasy, role playing and lust.

Cutting Teeth is about the complex dilemmas of early midlife-the vicissitudes of friendship, of romantic and familial love, and of sex. It's about class tension, status hunger, and the unease of being in possession of life's greatest bounty while still wondering, is this as good as it gets?

Discovering the simple pleasure of having someone to share the load, Landry grapples with uncertainty when she is called to New York City to respond to a medical crisis. And though Davis is unsure where their relationship stands in her absence, even the start of a global pandemic can’t dim his dreams of sliding a ring onto her finger.

Lexi Stewart is a descendant of Alyssa MacInnes, one of the powerhouse women who created the MacInnes legacy. Lexi is lost. A young widow…well, young in her own eyes…Lexi's coming to terms with the fact that true passion was never in her cards - and certainly isn’t in her future. She’s equally sure she has nothing in common with Alyssa, her impressive ancestor, or Dara Doyle, the Irish spitfire who captured the oldest MacInnes son’s heart a century ago. Still, it’s a lovely story, one she’d love to live herself - but it’s a tale meant only for dreams.

An amphibious aircraft crashes in Maine, a young girl skinny-dips with her elders, a distraught cruise ship dancer boards a water taxi in Grenada, and travelers to Dubai and Abu Dhabi long for familiar oceans; back in New England, small-town artists try to smudge out their tedium with seaside transgressions. Amphibians celebrates home in a cross-cultural way, and the sensation of feeling not quite right in one's own skin, on land and near water, at home and abroad.

Charlie Calloway has a life most people would kill for - a tight-knit family, a loyal set of friends, and top grades a privileged boarding school. But Charlie's never been interested in what most people want. Like all Calloways, she's been taught that she's different, special - better. So when her school's super-exclusive secret society extends a mysterious invitation, Charlie's determination to get in is matched only by her conviction that she belongs there.