Showing results by narrator "Pam Dougherty" in All Categories

Maddie Kinkaid believes her late husband, Jack, gives her advice on everything - from ordering a pizza to hiring a carpenter. When she finds Caleb Walker's business card on Jack's desk, she's convinced that he's the guy to remodel her kitchen. He can't decide if she's worth the risk. Caleb is a single father, and protecting his young son means avoiding romantic entanglements. But there's heat in every kitchen, and sparks ignite between Caleb and Maddie - until disaster strikes. When Jack goes silent, it looks as if she and Caleb will never find their happily-ever-after. At least, not without a little help from Jack.

Before Oprah, before Ellen, there was Dinah Shore. She was the queen of the afternoon talk show. For over five decades, Dinah induced a state of joy into people wherever she appeared, a love affair between her and her audience. In the fickle world of popular music, Dinah had a longer run at the top than any other girl singer, and on television, she had no equal in the musical field. Arguably, she was "the first lady of television". Dinah's life, however, was not always easy.

Betts Monroe is a country music rags-to-riches story. As the daughter of the town slut, she clawed her way up from the bars of Bourbon Street to the Country Music Hall of Fame. She's America's sweetheart, darling of the media, and a multi-platinum star. But she has a secret. At the age of sixteen, she had a baby and gave him up for adoption because her boyfriend wasn't ready for fatherhood. Now she finds out that her precious baby boy has been living with his father from day one.

Kat Stevens is a slightly insecure, mostly bored technical writer who likes her cat a lot more than her boss. She hasn't laid eyes on her great aunt Abigail since she was eight, so she's stumped when she inherits Abigail's house in the small hamlet of Alpine Grove. Kat's uncomplicated life gets decidedly less so when she discovers the inheritance comes with some hairy conditions: four dogs and five cats that her aunt wanted her to love as her own. Of course, the house smells like a barn - with a touch of antique skunk - and, naturally, has serious roof issues.

Dixie, with its romantic moods and old-world charm, is particularly prone to harbor phantoms, such as the Gray Man of Pawley's Island, South Carolina, who warns of impending disaster, or headless Joe Baldwin and the famed Maco light of Wilmington. In perhaps the most chilling account, a Tyler, Texas, family suffers years of agony at the hands of a particularly destructive poltergeist. Insects come from nowhere to literally rain on them in their home, and heavy objects are seen to move through space.

Debra Covington is finally getting her life together. She's spent the last 10 years making Warren Daniver pay for choosing a million dollars over her. Her plan of sport-dating the entire football team that Daniver owns has backfired and the only one she's hurting is herself. The harder Warren tries to insinuate himself into Debra's life, the harder she resists him. Their mental tug-of-war comes to a head when Warren learns that when he left all of those years ago, Debra was pregnant. Can she ever forgive him?

Lucky Strickland has lost everything. First it was her dignity and then it was her husband, and now it's her house. She's penniless, stuck at the McDonald's in Bee Cave, Texas. Her only hope, her brother-in-law, just stole her car.

In this first book of the Trail of Thread series, in the form of letters she wrote on the journey, Deborah Pieratt describes the scenery, the everyday events on the trail, and the task of taking care of her family. Stories of humor and despair, along with her ongoing remarks about camping, cooking, and quilting, make you feel as if you pulled up stakes and are traveling with the Pieratts, too.

Jan's orderly life is turned upside down when she attends her mother's latest wedding in San Diego. (Number six...or maybe seven, but who's counting?) There, Jan encounters Michael Lawson, the obnoxious neighbor kid from 20 years ago. He's still irritating, but not as annoying as his dog, who has a habit of eating...everything. The last thing Jan wants to do is risk heartache on a vacation fling with a smooth-talking serial dater, even if he is sinfully gorgeous and finds her unusual ability to remember obscure facts fascinating.

One morning Lo Anne Mayer wrote a letter to her mother, who had died a year earlier. Despondent over the strained relationship they had endured in life, Mayer started the journal because she still longed for healing. So began a remarkable soul-to-soul correspondence that restored their bond. When her own daughter died, Mayer started a new journal that soothed her grief. Now she shares her story and simple technique with bereaved people everywhere.

Mimi Swartz paints a scene of a place that makes the unthinkable - the plot to murder a fellow cheerleading mother and her daughter - something within the realm of possibility. To say Channelview is a dismal place is an understatement. It's the kind of place where even the slightest bit of distinction goes a long way amidst the usual doldrum of high school, marriage, kids, repeat. It's within this setting that the likes of obsessive, helicopter moms, Wanda Holloway and Verna Heath, who live vicariously through their daughters, are given terrifying credence.

Phoebe, a private duty nurse, has a gift for knowing certain kinds of information that are none of her business, so when her new boss asks her to help him find and retrieve some extremely valuable items that have gone missing, she's happy to try to help. What the boss failed to disclose was who she'd have to work with and what they'd be up against.

With the exception of a few failed forays into higher education, Tracy Sullivan has lived her entire life in the small town of Alpine Grove. When she is fired from her hostess job, Tracy hits a new all-time career low. Now, she's officially a repeat underachiever and almost completely broke. The income from her second job as a veterinary assistant is barely enough to pay her rent and keep her temperamental dachshund Roxy in dog food.

Mary is a naive 20-year-old in 1945 when her high school sweetheart, Jack, returns to their small Indiana steel town wounded from World War II and makes her his bride. While Jack struggles to find his place in the world, Mary begins her own journey of self-discovery. As the years and letters unfold, Mary and Jack have five children, including their first-born son, Junior, who is not “right", an issue that contributes to the turmoil in their marriage and impacts their lives in unforeseen ways.

Competitive barista Brenna Kinkaid loves a challenge, and she'll do whatever it takes to win, especially when it comes to her nemesis, Dante Caravicci. But when forced to team up to save their best friends' wedding, Brenna recognizes that Dante might just be her ultimate win. Restaurateur Dante Caravicci won't quit anything until he can claim success. He's bided his time, but he's used to taking big risks and surviving, so he figures he's got nothing to lose by playing for Brenna.

CPA Rebecca Walker wields a hammer and saw with skill, but it's like fighting tooth and nail to prove to her chauvinistic father that she's capable of managing the family construction business. Romance is a luxury Rebecca can't afford. Thanks to his past, romance isn't in Sean Kinkaid's future, so when Rebecca proposes friends with benefits, Sean agrees. It's the perfect scenario until love sneaks in - and Sean's secrets tear them apart.

Phoebe McFarland has just lost her job as a rural home health care nurse in White Oak, Tennessee, a sleepy rural community nestled in the mist-shrouded Smoky Mountains. But then she's unexpectedly offered a ritzy-sounding position as a private duty nurse to an enigmatic scholar. Unfortunately before she can start her upscale new life, Phoebe is unwittingly caught up in a medical emergency with Nick, a total stranger. The mismatched couple is forced to cooperate as they flee professional killers who now have Phoebe in their crosshairs, as well.

When her own dreams are visited by a mysterious woman in a red dress, Sara realizes she has something she never expected: a counterpart, someone outside her family who shares her talent to see other people's dreams. When the woman in red keeps showing up in other dreams as well, leaving ruined lives in her wake, Sara knows she has something she never imagined: a nemesis.

Harold may be dying but he's still got a sense of humor. That's more than can be said for his wife, who's trying to whisk him away from the grimness of the hospital for one last holiday bash.